Superstars - Episode II

As I mentioned after last week's opening episode, Sun TV's Superstars grabbed my interest enough to make me look forward to the second episode. The promise of watching interesting acting performances rather than the now-stale imitation of other actors and the idea that we could be watching the birth of a star captured my interest. So I watched Episode II on Sunday. While it didn't turn me away from the next episode, it didn't particularly thrill me either. The only consolation was that we got see more Simran than in the 1st episode.

After all those dramatic proclamations of suspense about the eventual big prize, it was rather anti-climactic when Vijay Adhiraj revealed the prize in the 2nd episode itself. As expected, it was the chance to play the hero and heroine in a film produced by the same production company that is behind the program. But he did leave some suspense since he mentioned that the technicians involved in the film would be revealed one at a time in future episodes.

Like last week's show reel on Superstars, this week's episode kicked off with a montage on Tamil cinema's super heroines. This one had pretty interesting trivia about actresses over the years and included the usual suspects like T.P.Rajalakshmi, Savitri, Padmini, Saroja Devi and Sridevi. Also part of the filler were 2 music performances by Yogi B. One sounded like an original song while the other was a remix of Ilaiyaraja's classic Madai Thirandhu... from Nizhalgal. They were good if you are a fan of his music and definitely more welcome than the salsa dance we were subjected to last week.

The most disappointing aspect of the episode was the fact that we didn't get to see any of the contestants perform this time either. We got to see only 4 or 5 candidates - all of them guys - from the initial screening process(one of the judges here was Saravanan) that narrowed the field from 2000 contestants to 100 and the program ended with the selected 100 candidates gathered around on the stage. But the competition from now on is different from what I thought last week. The first 10 episodes will see 6 contestants eliminated and 4 going through in each episode while the next few will see 4 contestants eliminated and 6 contestants going through in each episode. Following that will be the quarter finals, I'm guessing.If nothing else, the large number of eliminations promises that there will be a lot of action in the first few episodes.

Simran, looking gorgeous and every bit a heroine, made an early appearance this time. But she didn't have much to say. Most of the talking was done by Madhesh, who was the special judge. He has directed Vijay's Madhura and is currently directing Vijayakanth's 150th movie Vithagan. Though Vijay Adhiraj introduced him as a director who had directed several superstars, I'm not sure of his other movies.

I can't think of any other fillers the show can put in next week. So hopefully, we'll finally get to see atleast some of the contestants. Let's wait and see...