Still, there’s nothing Simi can do to bring in genuine warmth to her shows, earlier and now. If at all there is any warmth, it somehow rings hollow. The “oh my gods,” “and the ha ha,” all seem utterly contrived. Worse is the complete lack of colour, in the form of celebrities making juicy revelations, or at least telling us something they have not said before. Or revealing some aspect of their personality to the audience... Why would we want to watch celebrities otherwise? To hear mummy, papa gush over their darlings? To listen to them all scratching each other’s backs?
Siddhartha Mallya’s father and industrialist Vijay Mallya tells us he is level-headed, so does actress Deepika Padukone’s dad, Prakash Padukone, India’s badminton hero of yesteryears. And so does John Abraham's father.
Then, there are the mothers. Neetu Kapoor, wife of actor Rishi Kapoor and mother of Ranbir Kapoor, gushes over her son, while the son admits to being a mamma’s boy.
What’s new? This is common knowledge if you’ve been following the gossip columns devoted to these celebrities. And Neetu Kapoor even goes on to tell us what kind of a daughter-in-law is ideal for her... explaining the two kinds of daughters-in-law... the one that comes with a pair of scissors and the one that comes with a needle, one that splits the family and the one that stitches the family together. How enlightening, really! If you’ve watched the one with Ranbir Kapoor, and a segment called Minefield where Simi pretends to be a girlfriend called Kiki, you realise the silliness has gone too far. Ranbir handles Kiki (Simi in a silly girlfriend impersonation) well and at the end, she simpers, “Oh, you are so brilliant.” “Lovely, wonderful, absolutely wonderful.” One can’t get enough of these adjectives and lavish praise on this show. And now about the format of the show itself.
There is a segment where the audience gets to ask questions to the celebrities, and if the star fails to answer, the person from the audience gets a hug. In the episode featuring John Abraham, Simi invited a girl to come and “get a touch and feel of John’s abs,” and then rounded it off with a “silly women, ha ha ha.”
Then, there’s the tarot card session. And the celebrities pick out cards, and the tarot predictions are exactly what the celebrity thinks should be! There’s another segment where there’s a truth meter, and the audience gets to know certain truths about the celebrity. There are no saving graces on this show. The format with its different segments, meant to introduce an element of fun, falls flat. The celebrity answers are unintentionally funny, and Simi herself, with her mannerisms, appears fake. Her show of concern, or surprise and marvel, all seem practised. And the audience on the set itself is a reflection of the show, chorusing their yeahs and nos, and asking questions that are hardly a challenge to the celebrity’s intelligence. And ours as viewers. A banal show you must watch if only to marvel at the silliness of it all.
News is that Simi has roped in Lady Gaga, the American singer known for her outrageous dress sense, for the show. More silliness in store, indeed.