Review: Good start for Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Season 7

When a reality show that has earned accolades in the past comes back with a new season then it should reinvent and reintroduce itself. For playing safe in the reality business would only mean being indolent and Colors’ Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Season 7 (BBC Worldwide) isn’t getting mundane. This season is about exploring and exploding the dance floor. The creatives of this season introduced the first two episodes (that aired on Saturday and Sunday) as the Grand Premier Night which pretty much made their intention clear of making this season grander and bigger. So, what’s new this season? Let’s check out... The set: The set is grander than the previous season and there is more audience involvement in the proceedings. Though, the seating arrangement for the judges and the contestants remain the same. Out of set performances: The contestants brought in some minty freshness with outdoor shoots like Purab Kohli’s gravity defying act and Mouni Roy’s water act. The hosts: The beautiful Drashti Dhami and the funny man Ranvir Shorey have taken over from the previous season hosts Manish Paul and Kapil Sharma and we must admit that we miss them this season. As far as Drashti and Ranvir are concerned they did try their best to connect with the audiences but they failed. Maybe they need some more episodes to brush-up their hosting skills for both of them are mind-boggling performers. The challengers: Here talented dancers Salman Yusuff Khan and Lauren Gottlieb will dance on a new theme every week which will be a challenge for the contestants on the show. What hasn’t changed? Judges: We still have Remo D’souza, Madhuri Dixit and Karan Johar on the judging seat but their dressing style has changed. While Remo and Karan have made the best use of their stylist we felt Madhuri’s stylist dressed her like a 21-year-old. The beautiful woman that Madhuri is she can carry off anything with élan but this time she did upset us. Let’s have a look at the contestants… Like all seasons, the casting team has yet again managed to get the right mix of contestants together. We have a few TV hunks like Ashish Sharma and Karan Tacker. There are also TV beauties namely Puja Banerjee, Kritika Kamra and Mouni Roy. Apart from them there is a singer in Sukhwinder Singh, cricketer in Sreesanth, item girl Sophie Choudry, movie star Purab Kohli and a dancer in Shakti Mohan. The list does not end here for we also have a Palak from CNWK, Andy and the talented child star Akshat Singh. The correct blend of people but did they impress us? A few of them did. Ashish, Kritika and Akshat used technology in their dance acts and while Ashish and Akshat rocked it Kritika seemed a little thanda when it came to her performance. Tacker definitely broke a lot of heart by not being the best on the dance floor but Mouni and Sreesanth performed excellently well. Sophie and Puja gave sweet performances while Sukhwinder did more of singing than dancing. Palak and Andy disappointed us for they have the caliber but it did not show on the stage. Purab did just fine but Shakti Mohan was the star of the evening. Few things that caught our eye… The judges and the host’s attire remained the same for two consecutive days. We wonder why they did not opt to style on the second day (for normal viewers’ sake). The movie integrations were once again a part of this reality show but it was good that the creatives blended celeb appearances with the main plot. Alia Bhatt and Palak were seen having a dance face-off while Sonakshi bashed down Palak. Akshay Kumar had lemons and also played some ‘dance-cricket’ with Sreesanth. Basically, the actors were a part of the show and not just on-lookers. But there was indeed too much of Palak in everything. We know Palak has the ability to tickle the funny bone and the creatives were trying to use it for the best but it all seemed like an overdose after a while. The two hour long episodes seemed like a marathon. We think a lot could have been edited. They could have taken some advice from Akshay given the fact that he knows the art best (wink). Getting a comedian on reality shows is a blooming trend but Sudesh Lahri just did not fit the bill here. We couldn’t help but just yawn at his jokes! Overall: Technically the show is good except a bit of the white balancing that went wrong a few times (tips came in from our in-house tech experts). But overall the show was shot well. We are expecting a lot from this season of Jhalak and the introductory start did impress us minus a few hiccups here and there but the show has a long way to go.