VOI Finale and SRGMP L'il Champs - A Critical Review..

The highlight of this week was the Mangeshkar sisters’. Both the reality shows this week saw the revered Mangeshkar sisters as the celebrity guests. In VOI, it was Lata Mangeskar and Usha Mangeshkar who were present, while in SRGMP, Asha Bhosle was the celebrity guest.

Star Voice of India had its Grand Finale this week, thus ending the 6 month long journey to crown Ishmeet Singh from Ludhiana as the “Voice of India”. The grand finale was a grand affair with many celebrities gracing the show. Madhuri Dixit and Lata Mangeshkar were the guest of honour’s. The Finale also saw all the “Bemisal Barah” performing again on the stage, and they all made sure not to disappoint the viewers. Harshit, the runners-up, with Ishmeet made sure to steal everyone’s heart with mind-blowing performances. Even on Friday, the studio episode saw many celebrities grace the show, and the finalists gave awesome performances. It was interesting to note that in the duet song between Ishmeet and Kavita Krishnamurti where Ishmeet gave a flawless performance, Kavita faltered as his co-singer. The only sore point during the Grand finale was the way regionalism was being dragged into the show. The repeated comment by Shaan that Ishmeet’s victory means the “Victory of Punjab” could have been avoided at this stage. The show format was to select the winner through public voting, then why take away his moment of triumph?

SaReGaMaPa had Asha Bhosle as the celebrity guest on both the days. L'il Champs tried their best to impress the Melody Queen, but it seemed all were in awe of her presence, and with every other contestant going through throat infection, they ended up giving “not up to the mark” performances. Asha Bhosle’s rendition of “Katra Katra” with Loria proved once more that this legendary singer is still in top form, and is really one of the most versatile singers from the current and bygone era. The grading given by the judges was bit erratic showing a big disparity. A third judge is being missed a lot in the show. At the end of the show on Saturday, three good contestants were found to be at the bottom. The judges after deliberating among themselves decided not to go for any elimination, and opted to have two eliminations next week - one contestant each day, next weekend. It seems bit unfair as far as the rules go, but maybe, they took the decision keeping in view that the L'il Champs got their acts ready in just a few hours time, after Karishma Kapoor cancelled her visit due to ill health at the last moment. The theme and thus the songs had to be altered.

In these musical shows, the most important thing is to have a lucid and clear cut show format, especially more so, because it’s a kid’s show, and they go through tremendous mental pressure every time the format is readjusted, or last minute changes are dumped on them. Next week. another L'il Champ show is starting on Star Plus, and we can only hope that both the channels take note of this point and do something about it.

Author: Barnali

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