Reality Shows this Week Score a Sixer!!

This week, the three musical reality shows brought in a “refreshing change”. They also heralded the changes that can only benefit musical reality shows in the coming days.

Zee Saregamapa L'il Champs was very entertaining and the participants went all out to impress the two guests of honor - Usha Uthup and Amir Khan. Sonu Nigam’s “Amir-o-mania”, the fanfare side was really endearing. The Amir fans had a blast seeing him gel in so well with the L'il Champ group and both he and Ushaji were very encouraging to the participants in the two days. This week again the public seemed unhappy to see the judgement in the selection of the top 3. Who was better-Vibhore or Vasundhara – this seems to be the point of debate for many. Stuations like this makes one think if there should be 3 judges instead of two? With Loria’s elimination, the show has now got the Top 8 and public voting takes over now after next week's wild card round.

In SVOI Chhote Ustaads, Abhaas, the “Chhote Chamatkar” of recently concluded SVOI picked up the reigns of anchoring from Shaandaar Shaan in an impressive manner. It was an emotional moment to see Shaan bid adieu to the series. If Abhaas’s debut created an impact, then the 12 Chhote ustaads were not far behind. Some of them would give any grown up singer a complex. This time SVOI has shown some note worthy and refreshing changes, the first being the selections of judges who are sweet, but strict, yet know how to handle the kids with care. The second one being the change in the format of the show, that leaves the J & J jugalbandi (Junta & Judges) to decide on the winners. Even though public voting starts off from round one itself, the judges will have a major say in the eliminations every week by choosing their preferred top 3 from the public choice of bottom 4 every week, thereby making the elimination as fair as possible. This concept is a welcome change and hopefully the format won’t be altered to compromise on the objective.

In Mission Ustaad, this week the concept became clearer. The 4 Jodis will sing 2 songs based on the theme for the week and one single new composition - Brahmastra song - based on the theme. The public’s choice will become the winner and the judges will choose the best of the Brahmastra song which will get featured in the Mission Ustaad album. The theme for this week was “Awakening” and all the Jodi’s gave exceptional performances. Expect some heated back and forth exchanges between the judges and the participants in the coming days on selection of the songs. This week Roop Kumar and Sonali Rathod Jodi was the winner of the Judges Choice based on the Bhrahmastra song. Javed Akhter Saab’s comment “A song cannot be new or old; it can only be good or bad. If all old were to be discarded, then we would be left with no folk songs. Select a song based on whether it is good or bad and not whether it is old or new” ,had a message for all these shows.

SaReGaMaPa set the ball rolling with a friendly, simple, drama free musical format and kept the public voting out till the top 8. SVOI has public voting from round 1, but has a back up plan to make sure justice prevails in a fair selection. Mission Ustaad has very strict, knowledgeable and strong judges whose primary focus is music with a message. The main focus for a change in all the contemporary musical shows seems to be on quality and there is a hope that this time we will see talent getting the much needed recognition.

Author: Barnali

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