Kapil Sharma Makes an Assured Comeback, but Do We Need This Show?

‘The Kapil Sharma Show Season 2’ aired on 29 December.

A poster of The Kapil Sharma Show.

Kapil Sharma is back with the all-new The Kapil Sharma Show Season 2 on Sony TV after a year. And it has been a rather tumultuous year for the star comedian. Spats with colleagues, breakdown on social media, a failed show, taking a break and then getting married to longtime girlfriend Ginni Chatrath - a lot of water has flown under this man’s bridge.

But is everyone’s favourite comedian really back for good this time? Is he spinning his signature magic in the new show?

Well, yes and no.

The first episode of The Kapil Sharma Show kicked off with Kapil Sharma talking and cracking jokes about how he received salah (advice) from all and sundry when he was not working. This becomes one of the main tropes of the episode with other members - Krushna Abhishek, Kiku Sharda, Bharti Singh, Sumona Chakravarti, Chandan Prabhakar, and of course Navjot Singh Sidhu -teasing and mocking Kapil over taking a break.

Simmba’s leading star Ranveer Singh and director Rohit Shetty join the fun and rile Kapil some more (for what’s a tad too long for me) for losing the just wedded Deepika to Ranveer. Sara Ali Khan ans Sonu Sood would be joining the team on the next episode.

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A moment from the show. 

There’s a reason why Kapil Sharma is a favourite on prime time television. And it comes through as he warms up on the show.

Coming across as a little lost in the beginning, he comes into his own once his compatriots join him.

Kiku and Bharti play a couple with 11 children, who set up a premise alongside Sumona and Krushna, which will presumably be further developed as the show progresses. Chandan Prabhakar deserves a special mention. Quite apart from being almost the only one to be actually consistently funny, he does a good job of being a solid foil to Kapil and does his bit to put him at ease.

Ranveer, promoting his film (and wedding) hard, joins Kapil on the sets, who is by then clearly enjoying himself, and nothing draws more laughs than a confident comedian.

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The jokes. I mean, there’s that much bad writing one can put up with at the end of 2018. The writers of the show seem oblivious to how much the world has changed since the 1970s and that their funny lines too need to move beyond the sexist, sexual or plain banal.

And then you have Navjot Singh SIndhu. Why? No really, why?

Laughing at perfectly normal conversation, mocking common guests on the show, and belting out some inane shers - surely a revamped Kapil Sharma Show can think of better alternatives? There’re several light years between funny and plain stupid.

All said and done, it’s good to see Kapil Sharma make a comeback. But instead of sticking to the same formulae, can the makers think of creating some intelligent content? Let’s not blame the masses for the banalities we throw at them. They clearly can pick their poison - look at the Bollywood box office in 2018 if you still don’t know what we are talking about.