The 50 great premieres: On Sunday, the new captive game-based reality show the 50s opened its doors not only to the contestants, but also to the public. While The 50 was compared to Bigg Boss, Banijay Asia’s show proved that it has more to offer. The 50 has many former Bigg Boss contestants, but the format of the show leans more towards a concept similar to Khatron Ke Khiladi, just an extremely soft version of the show hosted by Rohit Shetty. With 50 celebrities locked in an elegant palace for almost a month, The 50 features them performing tasks similar to games many of us played as children. Unfortunately, what can get in the way of an interesting concept of the show is that many contestants assume that this show is another Bigg Boss.
Yes, even though the show offers a variety of personalities with TV stalwarts like Karan Patel, Ridhi Dogra, Urvashi Dholakiaand Prince Narula competing with reality TV faces like Nikki Tamboli, Rajat Dalal, Bebika Dhurve and several other contestants, many have a serious Bigg Boss hangover. They want to get into arguments, pick unnecessary fights, and provide unwanted drama just to be seen among the crowd of celebrities currently on the show.
Then read: 50’s contestant Mr Faisu: ‘In a captive reality show, people do anything when they feel frustrated’
The concept 50
What also makes it important for the show’s contestants to stand out is the absence of a formal host for a format like this. Typically, in captive reality shows, there is a host who guides the contestants throughout their journey. However, in The 50, only ‘The Lion’ and his army will be the presenters of the program. Who is behind that lion mask is a secret, but it is ‘the Lion’ who is the master of the game and has all the decision-making powers in the show. Interestingly, the prize money that the contestants are fighting for does not belong to them. It is a fan prize worth Rs 50 lakh.
As explained in the first episode of the show, each contestant will perform for their fans, and whoever turns out to be the best performer, their lucky fan, will win the prize money for that particular task. But what makes this ambiguous is that nowhere in the episode do we see any invitation for fans to participate and place their bets on the contestants, so the criteria for choosing the lucky winner remains unclear.
Episode one of the 50
The 50 premiered on Sunday, and from the first scene, the show established that it was serious. The contestants were divided into 10 groups of 5 people each. Urvashi Dholakia, Rajat Dalal, Mr Faisu, Karan Patel, Krishna Shroff, Monalisa, Prince Narula, Ridhi Dogra, Nikki Tamboli and Shiv Thakare were elected team captains. Contestants were given the option to join whichever team they wanted. The first episode also featured Himesh Reshammiya as a special guest who sang while the contestants performed the first task, which was an obstacle course.
Each team had five players who were given a card to choose from; These cards had numbers one through five, so those who chose the red card with the number one would go in front of those who chose the blue card with the number one, and so on. In the end, 25 contestants were saved and those who were unsure were given another chance to return to the game. The final 25 played musical chairs, after which 10 contestants fell into the danger zone. The captains of the winning teams were given the power to eliminate one contestant from the 10 who were in danger.
After discussions, Krishna, Karan, Prince, Faisu and Shiv decided to eliminate content creator Vanshaj Singh. The reason for evicting the social media influencer was that he did not interact with anyone in the first minutes of the program. Some highlights of this episode were that during the task, Karan Patel also lost his cool. He had an argument with Siddharth Bhardwaj after the latter pushed him during the race. Threatening to “break his bones next time”, Karan warned Siddharth not to behave like this, especially towards him. Another was Urvashi Dholakia, who struggled to accomplish the task. He stumbled several times during the obstacle course and ultimately needed applause and help from his fellow contestants to cross the finish line.
With the start of the show, we also got to see some undercurrents among the contestants. Nikki accused Karan, Urvashi, Ridhi and a few others of forming their own ‘TV serial gang’ and ignoring the rest. While content creator Maxtern aka Sagar Thakur was seen laying the groundwork to confront Elvish Yadav’s friend Lakshay Kaushik over a past controversy.
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What works with The 50?
The show is interesting when it comes to contestants performing tasks. It keeps you on the edge of your seat as a viewer. Unlike Bigg Boss, this one gives the contestants some interesting tasks to perform. The show is fast-paced and serious. In shows like these, we often see creators make episodes unnecessarily dramatic to simply grab attention, but here, the drama is minimal and seems organic to most of them. While The 50 hasn’t tried to copy other captive reality shows like Rise and Fall, The Traitors or Bigg Boss, its originality is what makes the show stand out.
In terms of the new concept, the creators seem to be very clear about what they want to offer. So far, the tasks of the show have been very interesting and something that the audience was able to connect with. But it remains to be seen how everything will develop in the future. For now, this program is not creating unrealistic standards for its players and its audience.
Don’t miss: 50 contestant Ridhi Dogra says this will be her first and last reality show: ‘Sleepless nights, anxiety…’
What doesn’t work for The 50s?
While the show looks promising, some contestants like Nikki Tamboli, Rajat Dalal, Bebika Dhurve, Archana Gautamm and Shrutika Arjun need to get out of their Bigg Boss zone. Especially, Nikki Tamboli needs to realize that this is not a personality-based show; It’s more skill and strategy based, so picking fights and unnecessary arguments won’t help. Similarly, Digvijay Rathee and Siwet Tomar need to shed their roadie baggage. Another challenge that many contestants must overcome is standing out on the show.
With 50 celebrities in the game, it takes extra effort to shine. Unfortunately, in the first episode, Love Kataria, Siwet Tomar, Nehal Chudasama, Dushyant Kukreja, Shiny Doshi, Yuvika Chaudhary and many more simply made an intermittent appearance. Another drawback that the show’s creators need to consider is more clearly establishing fan involvement in the game. The process of selecting the “lucky fan” who wins the prize money for a task needs to be well communicated.
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The 50 has the potential to establish a firm foothold in the Indian reality TV space only if some contestants don’t end up making this another Bigg Boss with unnecessary fights and arguments in the days to come. The 50 airs on JioHotstar every Monday to Sunday at 9 pm and on Colors TV at 10:30 pm