Jhalak gets ‘reloaded’, only to crash even harder

Just when you thought television in India couldn't get tackier, we have this shocker: Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa, the Indian version of Dancing With the Stars, back with season 8. We thought that with Madhuri Dixit gone, the fangirling part will finally take a back seat. No more odes to her beauty, no more asking her to half-heartedly shake to music after every single performance. But we were wrong. The dream was replaced with another harsh reality, Shahid Kapoor.

Did you just say we are being cruel to the poor guy? Okay, he is a great dancer. But why ride a segway to judge a dance reality show? His fake laughs (on his own jokes, mind you) or his hyperactive antics on the stage can only be called... irritating!

To be fair to him, Shahid Kapoor is not the only thing wrong with this show. Here’s a list:

This guy knows how to live in extremes. While on one hand he gave us movies like My Name Is Khan, on the other he is seen doing this.

We saw him doing some cringe-worthy overacting in the opening scene of the opening episode of this season. Puts you off so quick. Karan's been cracking jokes on homosexuals for a long time now, and it looks like he's in no mood to stop any time soon. Take this. We had Shahid read out a tweet: "Shahid Kapoor and Karan Johar can together be called ‘Shohars’." What happened next was nothing but juvenile: While Shahid acts weirded-out, Karan hides his face behind a blanket, and says in a squeaky voice, 'I like it,' blushing like a girl!

*No comments*

Come on, Karan. We are not homophobes, and we are all up for more power to the LGTB community. But what you are doing is causing more harm to them. The picture you paint of homosexual men - a stereotype ingrained deep in our society- is only adding more fuel to the fire.

Well, he isn’t totally bad. There are a lot of good things to him. We loved him... till the second season. He cracked earthy and spontaneous jokes, and brought in a certain energy to the show. Colors learned from its mistake last year by not bringing in Ranvir Shorey and Drashti Dhami where they had to ditch Drashti and bring in Manish midway due to pouring criticism.

But now even Manish seems to have lost his drift. He has his moments of crazy like when he pointed out how you could use a choreographer’s shirt to filter your tea. But that is more or less it. His humour has turned crasser by the day.

The 'chai' moment.

He is partners-in-crime with Karan putting forward the stereotypical ‘sissy’ image of gay men. He got Scarlett, a contestant they brought in for ‘firangi tadka’ (as if this reverse racism isn’t horrible enough), to put a varmala on his neck only to make fun of her naiveté.

You wade through all this nonsense only to perhaps land upon a good dance performance. Sadly, even that is a rarity in the show now. This is fast turning into a show where everyone is on harnesses, doing bonkers lifts, taking cartwheels... basically nothing is different. We think that such performances look good to a live audience when you actually see dancers executing all those difficult stunts, but on TV it loses its impact. It doesn’t make you want to get out of your seat and shake. We really don’t see the point behind doing something everyone is doing, every week.

The only breath of fresh air were the performances by Faisal and Scarlet but then they are professional dancers, we are sure they’ll be out before the semifinal like has always been the trend with good dancers. Read- Shakti Mohan/Lauren Gottileb.