Yeh Hai Jalwa
Sunday, 8pm, 9X
The idea behind this one more dance-based reality show could have held a glimmer of hope. After all it has nine TV celebrities helming a team of five, each of which represents a particular segment from the society like working professionals, college kids, housewives, street urchins, foreigners, amongst others (interesting).
But then it's the show's addiction to a famous face that makes it a high on dejavu, predictable me-too, since most of its celebrity dancing gurus have been shaking more than a leg on other dance based reality shows (Ronit Roy, Prachi Desai, Husain Kuwajerwala, Rakhi Sawant) and myriad telly award functions in the recent past. Sawant's get-up as a guy in one of the recent Jalwa dances, even looked a direct lift from one of her Nach Baliye 3 acts.
With the camera concentrating on the actor performer and the dance acts being star driven (notable exceptions being Rakhi Sawant and Sharad Malhotra's acts in the first competition episode) one hardly gets to see the mettle of their team members. It would be interesting to see the team members take centre stage instead of being reduced to another set of mere dancing extras. Leader-team interactions beyond mere snapshots and name introductions too could help the audience connect with the participants because without them, the show as of now seems nothing more than a celebrity gush fest.
As regards the show's USP of replacing a permanent jury with a junta ka voice, can we have a non-star struck fan doing the job with greater visibility unlike the house wife turned judge in one of the recent episodes who just disappeared after commenting on the first two acts. So once again the platform of evaluation, here too is hijacked by film star judges visiting the show to promote their films, making the maximum noise.
Continuing on the noise factor, hosts Smriti Irani and Sakshi Tanwar seem to be the only ones making the most of it as of now. However, the telly bahu duo is quite engaging and even entertaining in their debut anchor act together. The lone star in the review belongs to them.
Verdict
Could become worth a watch if it manages to truly exploit its differential.
http://www.screenindia.com/news/Another-feather-in-Sonys-rea lity-cap/291583/