There might have been more flops than hits on the big screen, but 2008 was definitely a memorable year for the telly world. Shows were launched, big bucks were spent and many Bollywood faces became a household name via the small screen. Here's looking into the five biggest talking points about television in 2008.
Starry starry nights!
With the biggest Bollywood stars coming to the small screen almost every night (especially on the weekends) we had one or the other star to look at on TV. Shah Rukh Khan after his KBC stint, got together with Siddharth Basu once again for the Indian version of Fox's Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader – Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain. The show received a lot of flak and so did our Badshah Khan. And the brick bats became worse with the advent of his then friends Salman Khan hosting a show on a rival channel.
And it did not just end there. If Salman was reported to have got over 100 crores for his TV stint, Akshay Kumar with his Fear Factor 2 on Colors claimed a higher price still.
By the end of the year, we had seen, Akki, Sallu, SRK, Shilpa Shetty, Urmila Matondkar, Sonali Bendre, Raveena Tandon, Arjun Rampal, Karisma Kapoor, (Phew!) Farhan Akhtar and even IPS officer Kiran Bedi hosting or judging shows on TV.
No 'ekta' in Ekta's team
Ekta Kapoor apart from her shows, is also known for her tantrums and mood swings. And this year her tantrums reached a special high! As if her lead actress of Kasamh Se, Prachi Desai leaving her for better opportunities (namely Rock On) was not enough, she even fought with Smriti 'Tulsi' Irani – the lead actress of her biggest show Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.
This definitely was big news since Smriti was soon replaced by Gautami Gadgil Kapoor as Tulsi in the show. The audience obviously couldn't agree less with the soap queen on this one. Thus due to the janta of the country, Ekta soon patched up with her soap queen and brought her back on the show.
Only to end up fighting with the channel after that!
The end of an era
Three major soaps on Star Plus came to an end this year. And all of them were suspiciously Balaji products.
The first one to go was Kasautii Zindagii Kay. The show which was launched on October 29, 2001 after almost seven years came to an end on February 28, this year. The story of Anurag and Prerna which had in the recent years seen more character replacements and year jumps than actual story, finally, thankfully for many viewers came to a close.
Later on in the year, we heard stories about yet another Ekta Kapoor series, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii coming to a close. By that time, Ekta had already started fighting tooth and nail with the channel. Thus on October 9, 2008, the soap that defined family values on Indian television for eight long (and many might say, boring) years came to a close.
And finally, the last one which fell prey to Ekta's fights after a successful run of over eight years on Indian television, was Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. The serial that added terms like 'jai shri krishna', 'thepla' and 'shantiniketan' to the Indian vocabulary came to a rather unceremonious close on November 6, 2008.
And with the multiple-marriages, family-ties and big huge family-tree era coming to a close, rose the age of reality shows and soaps with children in the main lead (for eg Balika Vadhu, Bigg Boss 2, Fear Factor, Nach Baliye so on and so forth).
While the era of family soaps were coming to a close, a new era was already on the rise. To replace the family dramas, saas-bahu catfights and reel life controversies, a horde of REAL life controversies sprang up on the small screen. And the show which just took the cake of controversies was Bigg Boss 2.
Rahul Mahajan massaged Payal Rohatgi's back (as public service, mind you), Raja poured water on Sambhavana Seth's bed, Monica Bedi and Rahul promised each other everything but marriage on national television and Ashutosh Kaushik – a dhaba owner from Haryana got 'friendly' with Miss World Diana Hayden – talk about any form of controversy and chances are that Bigg Boss would have an incident to exemplify the same!
Indian Television loses young Ishmeet
Winner of Star Voice Of India 2008, the 19 year old Ishmeet Singh drowned in a swimming pool in a resort in Maldives. The death of this young singer rocked the Indian television world.
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Bollywood
Hindi TV Shows
