Lucky Nikki turns two

Dying for a show you can sit down and watch with your whole family without fighting over the remote?

The Disney Channel has answered your prayers. The second season of Best of Luck Nikki will be premiering today at 10 am. The fun-filled chaotic Singh family tunes into Nikki’s first words, first day at pre-school, first tantrum, dance and lots more, promising an action-packed half hour.

“Season 2 of Best of Luck Nikki will take the fun, comedy and mischief to the next level as our Nikki turns two. The first season witnessed an overwhelming response from viewers and we look forward to giving our viewers many more comic yet touching moments with Nikki, as she experiences her many ‘firsts’,” says Devika Prabhu, director, Programming, Walt Disney Television International India.

For the readers who are new to this show, Best of Luck Nikki is an Indian adaptation of the American show Good Luck Charlie. Instead of focusing only on little children, the show was created to entertain the family as a whole.

The Singhs are a Sikh family of six. The parents, Avatar (Girish Sachdev) and Hemani Singh (Gurdip Kohli), ask their three older children — Rohan (Murtaza Kutianawala), Dolly (Sheena Bajaj) and Sunny (Akash Nair) — to help with caring for their youngest child Nikki (Ananya Kolvankar).

Each episode is a part of a video diary filmed by Dolly containing advice for Nikki when she grows up. As Dolly may have moved out by that time, she hopes that the videos will prove useful to Nikki when she becomes a teenager.

The show deals will the trials and tribulations a large family might face in this day and age. The show mirrors the problems faced by families the world over.

Gurdip Kohli explains why the show is popular with the audiences. “It’s a very simple show which is directly connected to the Indian family. Even I have a two-year-old daughter on hand.

I face many of the problems we face on screen with Nikki. I keep telling my director that the show is very straightforward and real. They have made it like that. A family comedy must reach out to all age groups and reflect what they go through in life. That’s how people connect.”

The show’s storyline, sequence and title theme are all similar to its American counterpart, except for the pilot episode (Nikki is born in the second episode instead of the first) and the original Disney Channel special series, Best of Luck Nikki, It’s Deepavali!, which was aired on October 26, 2011 for an hour.

The show really is a treat to watch. The acting and the plot are fun and realistic, which is why it was the most successful launch of a live-action series (since 2005) in the ‘kids’ genre, in India. But, what is it like on the sets? Working with children is difficult and yet the show manages to mimic a genuine family.

“I feel very energetic and full of life on the set, especially while interacting with children. Now, we know each other really well, so we’re on the same wavelength. The kind of energy we have on screen is good only because we’re like that off-screen also,” says Gurdip.