The 50 grand premiere review: Urvashi Dholakia, Karan Patel show suffers from Bigg Boss hangover; no celeb will win Rs 50 lakh prize

Yes, despite the show offering a variety of personalities with TV stalwarts like Karan Patel, Ridhi Dogra, Urvashi Dholakia, and Prince Narula competing with reality show 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 deliver unwanted drama just to be seen in the crowd of celebs that is currently on the show.

Also Read: The 50 contestant Mr Faisu: ‘In a captive reality show, people do anything when they get frustrated’

 

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The 50 concept

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. Usually, in captive reality shows, there is a host who guides the contestants through their journey. However, on The 50, there is just ‘The Lion’ and his army who will anchor the show. Who stands behind that mask of the lion is under wraps, but it’s ‘the Lion’ who is the game master, and he has all the decision-making powers on the show. Interestingly, the prize money that the contestants are fighting for doesn’t belong to them. It’s a fan prize pot worth Rs 50 lakhs.

As explained in the show’s first episode, every contestant will perform for his or her fans, and the one who 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 to pick the lucky winner remain unclear.

The 50 episode one

On Sunday, The 50 premiered, and right from the first scene, the show established that it meant business. 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 chosen as the team captains. The contestants were given a choice to join the 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 pick; these cards had numbers one to five, so those who picked the red card with number one would go opposite those who picked the blue card with number one, and so on. At the end, 25 contestants were saved, and those unsafe were given another chance to come back in the game. The bottom 25 played musical chairs, after which 10 contestants landed in the danger zone. The captains of the winning teams were then 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. Their reason to evict the social media influencer was that he didn’t interact with anyone in the first few minutes of the show. A few highlights in this episode were that, during the task, Karan Patel also lost his cool. He got into an argument with Siddharth Bhardwaj after the latter pushed him during the race. Threatening to ‘break his bones the next time’, Karan warned Siddharth not indulge in such behaviour especially with him. Another one was Urvashi Dholakia, struggling to perform the task. She tripped multiple times during the obstacle course and eventually needed cheering and help from fellow contestants to cross the finish line.

 

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With the show kickstarting, we also got to see some undercurrents between the contestants. Nikki accused Karan, Urvashi, Ridhi, and a few others of making their own ‘TV serial gang’ and ignoring the rest. While content creator Maxtern, aka Sagar Thakur, was seen laying groundwork to confront Elvish Yadav’s friend Lakshay Kaushik over a past controversy.

What works with The 50?

The show is interesting when it comes to contestants performing tasks. It does keep 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 it means business. On shows like these, we often see the makers make the episodes unnecessarily dramatic to just grab eyeballs, but here, the drama is minimal, and it looks organic for most of them. While The 50 has not 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 makers seem to be very clear on what they want to deliver. So far, the tasks on the show have been very interesting and something that the audiences could connect to. But how it all unfolds going further remains to be seen. As of now, this show is not creating any unrealistic standards for its players and its audience.

Don’t Miss: The 50 contestant Ridhi Dogra says this will be her first and last reality show: ‘Sleepless nights, anxiety…’

What doesn’t work for The 50?

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 this isn’t a personality-based show; it’s more skill and strategy-based, so picking unnecessary fights and arguments won’t help. Similarly, Digvijay Rathee and Siwet Tomar need to shed their Roadies baggage. Another challenge that many contestants need to overcome is to stand out on the show.

 

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With 50 celebrities in the game, one needs to put in extra effort to shine. Unfortunately, in the first episode, Love Kataria, Siwet Tomar, Nehal Chudasama, Dushyant Kukreja, Shiny Doshi, Yuvika Chaudhary, and so many more simply made a blink-and-miss appearance. Another drawback the show makers need to look into is establishing fan involvement in the game with all the more clarity. The selection process for the ‘lucky fan’ who wins the prize money for a task needs to be communicated well.

The 50 has the potential to establish a firm footing in the Indian reality TV space only if a few contestants don’t end up making this another Bigg Boss with unnecessary fights and arguments in the days to come. The 50 streams on JioHotstar every Monday to Sunday at 9 pm and on Colors TV at 10:30 pm.