Deja Vu:Jhoom India Review

Deja Vu
Jjhoom India
Fri-Sat, 9 pm, Sahara One

Will start with the last (telecast) episode first - the second or the elimination episode of this yet another singing-acting reality music show. Apara Mehta, who had scored the maximum points from judges in the show's inaugural performance episode, had to quit courtesy a different elimination format (that however seems akin to an unsuccessfully attempted similar format in Nach Baliye 2) in which fellow participating teams take the final call on who leaves the show. Will save you the nitty-gritty of this elimination process, even host Rahul Vaidya, unintentionally (I am sure), admitted of it being beyond his comprehension.

But it was one of the most boring elimination episodes seen on any reality show that just seemed to drag on with the reactions fawningly regretting and predictably laced with so much appreciation for the seniour contestants on sticky ground that one would get a diabetic attack. Every 'safe' contesting pair went on gushing about the veterans in limbo with Suresh Wadekar and Apara Mehta being in the bottom two with their respective actor-singer partners.

Show formats intending to further encash on audience votes can get a message here, the audience is either tired or simply uninterested with every other program seeking their votes, or it wouldn't have happened that the teams with two of the most popular actors on TV today Shweta Tiwari and Apara Mehta would have landed in the elimination zone.

As regards the celebrity judges, Anandjibhai could jolly well take a walk through a performance and comeback - his scores anyways remain the same for all. However, fellow judges Mahesh Bhatt and Shabana Azmi can be credited for some occasional excitement in the show. Azmi, who's taken the microphone for at least five of her singing roles, was empathy and enthusiasm personified over the actor participant's nascent go's at a new calling. Bhatt stuck to his signature frank speak calling a bad performance bad in no uncertain terms, even if it happened from one of the regular and popular singers from the Bhatt camp, Zubeen Garg. Azmi's impromptu dance to Mehta's spirited Beedi Jalaile rendering was cute, though not new, with judges taking to the stage in every other show.

Verdict: It's me-too writ large and couldn't have come at a more inopportune time. Be it new discoveries or familiar faces masquerading as singers, but haven't we had enough of the singing genre of reality shows. Perhaps it would have had commanded an edge had it been aired as Sahara One's take on the reality singing genre when every other GEC was going about town with the concept with new singers.

http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=17907