Review: 'Comicstaan Season 2' Has Its Moments But Loses Momentum With Time

Oh boy! We are finally in a time where reality shows on digital platform manage to create a stir and even have multiple seasons. That is what Amazon Prime Video's Comicstaan has done as the show is back and rolling with a second season that released only recently.

Taking over from its first installment, the core concept of the show stays as it is - 10 contestants, 7 judges, 2 hosts, average scoring and studio audience. But there are a lot of other changes that have occurred for better or worse. Here's what I think of the show after having gone through a couple of episodes-

The Good

As the main idea remains as it is, there still are several good things that the show continues to showcase. One of them is a couple of really good contestants. I mean, it is a comedy reality series so it has got to be funny, right? So, in the line-up, a couple of them are really good and manage to deliver good laughs indeed. The likes of Gaurav, Samay and Shreeja are good comics and manage to have you crack up on multiple instances.

One of the biggest developments is the replacement of judges on the panel, where Tanmay Bhat, Sapan Verma, and Naveen Richard have been replaced by Sumukhi Suresh, Neeti Palta, and Zakir Khan. This is indeed a welcome change and even though I had my reservations about this new panel of judges, that is completely justified where in fact, Neeti and Sumukhi are hilarious even with their comments on the sets.

Yet another huge development was having a new co-host to Abish Matthew. As Sumukhi was promoted to the judge's panel, the void of a co-host was filled by another supremely talented comic and actor, Urooj Ashfaq. Urooj takes over extremely well from Sumukhi and in fact, she even excels better.

The little changes in the execution and preparation of contestants is a good addition too where the whole idea of the contestants doing open mics, flopping there on some instances and Abish coming in during the mentoring sessions are some applaudable add-ons that make it better.

The Not-So-Good

Remember how I mentioned above that it is a comedy show, so obviously, there has to be comedy? Well, even though over a couple of the contestants impress with their comic talent; a massive chunk of them do not. Of course, I am realistic enough to understand how not every comic will be super funny and every joke will land but in the past season that was a major positive that even though some comics were not as good as a few others, they did reasonably well to keep one hooked, That doesn't happen as, quite frankly, some of the contestants don't manage to deliver comic moments or joke well.

The overall pacing of the show appears really dull after a point of time. No, there aren't too many changes in the format of presenting the episode but the show loses park as runtime passes by and unless there is a hilarious joke coming in, one loses interest. One of the major reasons I think is the loss of originality and surprise. A follow-up season has one evil that constantly haunts it - 'Saw It Coming'. That happens here too and it gets monotonous even.

The Verdict

Despite its moments of dullness at times and the not-par majority of contestants, Comicstaan Season 2 delivers on its basic promise with some fantastic moments, hilarious jokes and good additions.

Rating - *** (3/5)