Musical Reality Shows - Analysis this week...

Another week of highs and lows in the musical arena of reality shows. While some shows gave the viewers a great musical time, some stood out like the sore thumb. Mission Ustaad as usual was top class. K for Kishore was a pleasant surprise and L’il Champs seemed energized doing full justice to the chosen themes. “Musical reality show” or a “Dramatic musical show”, that was the feeling left with most viewers after watching Friday’s episode of SVOI.

SaReGaMaPa on Friday saw one of the best episodes with all the contestants giving out good performances on Bhakti Songs. The saddest part was to watch Vasundhara’s elimination, a very fair decision by the public. But it was nice to see the positive way that this girl took the decision and ended her journey on SaReGaMaPa show with the good bye song “Naam Ghum Jayega” bringing tears into everyone’s eyes. Saturday was an episode which could be called a child’s delight. Raju Srivastav being the guest brought a lot of fun factor into the show. But the show producers went bit overboard with Raju and his jokes, which in the later stages turned more distraction to the actual music.

VOI for the second week in running went for drama and this week it could be said that Friday’s episode was one of the worst ones. The opening itself was wrong. This is a kids show and showing a muqabla as if it is a boxing match – now does that send out a positive message to the Lil participants or could that spread animosity against the challenger? All that hype about “the Challengers” fizzled out even before the episode got over. None of them including Rigveda, the challenger who made it, was anywhere close to the remaining contestants. The appeal for “Wild card” looked abysmally scripted. Show producer portraying himself to agree for wild card by honoring the pressure put forth by the judges and the participants looked more scripted, especially when everyone already knew about such a round. On Saturday, the wild card entries were better than the challengers! Gitasree, Areeb and Alpansh gave some good performances. So how many wild cards now make the entry - one or two? That part is yet to be cleared for the viewers.

K for Kishore was the surprise package for the viewers this week. The theme this week was Comedy round and Chetan, Nayan, Chintan and Arnab all gave out flawless performances. Sudesh Bhosle was correct in commenting about Chetan Rana’s rendition of “Aake seedhi lagi” that his performance at places gave the impression that it was the original track. Amit Kumar and Sudesh Bhosle’s performance on Saturday on the song “Ek Chatur Naar” was awesome. From what the hosts commented looks like the show will soon have few more contestants added as “Challengers”. The manner in which the show is treading, it is giving an impression that the show lacks any fixed format.

Mission Ustaad has reached the last stages of the show. This week the theme was “Sharing and spreading love”. Though the Jodi’s gave some very good performances, they were chided by Javed Saab for not singing songs befitting the “love” of the theme. The highlight was the impact this scolding had on the participants and the way all the participants led by Naresh & Shweta came forward to sing “Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hain” to placate the judges. The way the judges gave them a public ovation surely is what makes this show “class apart”. It was very tastefully done and was truly a musical retort instead of any staged drama prevalent in other shows! Javed Saab’s comment that there are many musical competitions, but this one is a musical cooperation was indeed so true. Every performance was good but the best was the song compositions in the Brahmastra round where Kailash Kher - Mahalaxmi Iyer were declared the winners.

If on one side we have Mission Ustaad building hope, then on the other side we have SVOI Chhote Ustaad shredding hopes. The participants of the show are very good and just their singing alone was a reason for music lovers to tune in. But the Challenger’s challenge drama or the wild card confusion may see many of its loyal fans walking out now and boycotting the show. A gimmick can work once, but repeatedly? It’s doubtful.

Author: Barnali

Note: The views expressed are solely of the author. For any information, please contact the author.