THE NEW FACE OF THE TELEVISION

Well this January I was home and relaxing. At Mysore I don’t have a TV at my home out of consensus with room-mates. Somehow I find there are better things to do than watch a TV. But at home there was nothing else to do except go through the worst part of watching a TV, surfing channels. But I realized that I was seeing a new face of television, good or bad I don’t know but new it was. The last face that I saw was full of all the saas-bahu soaps on any channel that you see. Then came a flurry of game shows starting with KBC and then failed attempts at other channels too. But now’s face was an entirely different extension of game shows or if I see it correctly, money-affair. These are now called the talent shows. Sony channel proudly hosts Indian Idol, Zee hosts Sa Re Ga Ma Pa…challenge and Star One too hosts then there are some other shows like Bluffmaster. This is even to the extent where in Star has decided to let KBC-2 rest for a while again and start another talent show.

As far I remember these talent shows were earlier started by Channel V or MTV calling all the enthusiastic and talented singers. They had called all the biggies of the industries from Adnan Sami to Farah Khan, the choreo. They had started what we call as behind-the-stage shootages showing how one or one’s family reacted after getting accepted for the next round or getting rejected and all that. But this time it was even more. Now these shows are more of behind-the-stage experiences than the stage performances. They will show how they took the whole troupe to dance with army folks or how they are cooking something to impress a fellow girl to ask for date and then all the drama, they order from a hotel and the delivery chap stepping right in when the girl starts getting impressed.

In another show where the polling was done via SMS (thanks to Siddhartha Basu for the very original idea!! He may be a bread earner for so many poeple). They host will try to create such an aura of interest as if he is the detective Sam Desilva and he is going to announce the name of the culprit. If one is to be turned out of the 10 contestants then he first announces the name of the 4 candidates who have got very less votes and then he will ask them and their families what they are feeling right now. Mind you he doesn’t say this in a flash. He will take his own time, take a very long musical pause (when the music in the pause is really intended to accentuate the interest) and then he will declare one of the 4 as a safe candidate and then ask the one one’s feeling and this goes on as infinitum until he really announces someone as a looser. And then begins a long recap of this candidate, interview of his/her family members. It never seems to end.

Then in another game show where they again poll through the same way, there is this guy from North East and he gets the highest votes (80% of his votes are from North East). So what do you expect happens? Well not that the host gets to announce the name of the looser. Instead the remaining three candidates walk in and they say that they quitting the seat and as they announce the thing, there is music in the background that doesn’t sound so confused as the hosts, audience and the judges. Mind you these are not ordinary judges but judges like Adesh Srivastava, Ismail Darbaar, Himmesh Reshammiya and hosts like Shaan. The participants are asked to explain their rationale for quitting at this point but they only mutter something as foolish as, “we just want this.” Then one judge suggest that this is because one from NE has got highest votes from NE and he feels there is some catch in this. And Lo! As is he said some code word. The whole audience section is divided into people shouting fouls, some shouting one India, some shouting NE. And as if this is not enough the director of the show who is busy watching all this on the stage (his reaction too is highlighted…throwing hands and rubbing forehead) walks in and enrages and thrashes all controversies apart. The participants later confess that they were silly in doing or saying the same.

So I definitely felt that this is an entirely new face of TV where in you will be really interested because you know that one of the 20 odd chaps on TV is going to get a crore and for that you are willing to see if anyone of them cooks too good or if anyone is too good at sketching. Ultimate “celebritization” I will say. But atleast its good in one way I was spared the torture of the Saas- bahu stuff at home this vacation.