Peeping time again!

New Season

You may love to hate it, you may detest it, you may criticise it, but there is no way you can ignore it. Like it or not, there is no better way to describe Bigg Boss, the first reality show on Indian television to allow its viewers to peep into the public life of celebrities. It has been a show which has kept viewers, irrespective of caste, creed, age and social background glued to the television sets for the three months that it is had been broadcast. Though many people deny watching the show, almost everyone in the average Indian middleclass house, cannot but end up in front of the television screen when the show is on.

Now in its third season, the serial has invited wrath from all echelons of the society, but continued to be the TRP topper for the last two seasons. Whether Bigg Boss continues to be so this time is a million dollar question, from the initial audience response to the participants’ list and the first episode, it does not seem to be a cake walk.

Apart from the anchor Amitabh Bachchan (he is reportedly getting an astronomical sum of Rs 2 crore per episode), there are a few, if any at all, participants whose private lives you would love to know about. Ask yourself the question — would I be interested to know how Rakhi Sawant’s mother leads her life — and you will know what I mean.

The first thing that slightly puts you off about the third season of Bigg Boss is the list of inmates (or participants). When the show started off in India, the main difference between it and Big Brother (the original English show) was the fact that the Indian show dealt with celebrities, while anyone and everyone could participate in the British show.

For the Indian audience, who were just getting used to the paparazzi and 24/7 monitoring of celebrity lives, this was a game changer. Sitting in the comfort of their homes, they could watch and know everything about the celebrity’s life — how he ate, spoke and slept.

But this time’s inmate list is somewhat of a dampener. After all the brouhaha about inviting public opinion before selecting the inmates, the Indian audience did feel a tad disappointed to see names like Vindu (Dara Singhs’s son) and Kamal R Khan (writer-dicrector-producer of Deshdrohi) in the list of 13 inmates. There were rumours of Navjyot Singh Sindhu backing out at the last moment. And you wonder how the producers used public opinion to identify inmates.

Though Bigg Boss never had top-ranking celebrities, it always managed to get people who made an interesting show. If Anupama Verma and Aryan Vaid’s televised love story and eventual breakup was straight out of a novel, Monica Bedi’s first public appearance after being released from jail made perfect TRP material. This time around, none of such interesting stuff may be on view in the show because it is difficult to imagine how the inmates will gel with each other, being so different from each other.

Apart from Bindu and KRK, the list of inmates include the gorgeous Poonam Dhillon, Aditi Govatriker, Shamita Shetty, Ismail Durbaar, Bakhtyar and Tanaaz Irani, Raju Srivastava, German model-turned-Bollywood actress Claudia Ciesla, Rohit Verma, Rakhi Sawant’s mother Jaya Sawant and Sherlyn Chopra.

Though Sherlyn (known for her famous quote ‘I want to die in a bikini’), Aditi and Shamita are expected to set the screen on fire, one wonders what to expect from the other participants. Oh yes! Rakhi’s mother may have loads of stories to tell about how and why her daughter did not invite her family to the televised swayamvar and subsequent engagement.

But the name that may sail Bigg Boss 3 through is Amitabh Bachchan. He, as always, excelled in his job as the pop anchor of the show in the first episode. Though the chord that he struck with the audience and participants in Kaun Banega Crorepati was missing, there were ample instances to prove that the Big B alone could maintain TRPs for the show if everything else failed.

The producers of the show, and other experts, feel that things will change dramatically in the next few weeks. While Rohit Verma, the lone representation of the LGBT community in the house may have stories to tell us about his sufferings in the country, Sherlyn Chopra may offer a visual treat to the glamour-starved inmates in the Bigg Boss house. Poonam Dhillon, on the other hand, may add the old worldly charm to the house.

There are also a number of firsts in the third season of Bigg Boss, the most interesting one being a jail inside the house. Inmates who will not be carrying out the orders of the Big Boss correctly, will be jailed and punished for their misdeeds. Another ‘first’ for Bigg Boss Tritiya, is the contest to have a viewer come in and stay in the house along with the inmates.

Watch Bigg Boss — 3 on Colors at 9 pm.