Comicstaan Season 3 is here, and it’s definitely a show you could watch over the weekend and have a good time. It follows a standard format from the previous seasons, where each episode has a mentor that helps the participants train for that particular week. However, this season has one small change: the mentor, at the end of each episode, gets to reward an extra 0.5 points to a contestant they thought performed the best.
The judges are Sumukhi Suresh, Neeti Palta, Zakir Khan, and Kenny Sebastian who basically sit around and give the contestants points that then impact their scores and decide where they will be placed on the leaderboard. Other than that, the show’s rules haven’t changed much from the previous seasons, and here’s what I thought about it.
1. I'll admit it; I haven't finished any of the Comicstaan seasons before this. In fact, this will be the first season where I surpass 3 episodes. I haven't seen the show before, so this third season is actually like the first one for me.
2. I’m watching the improv episode, and I get this feeling every time I watch improv. It’s so hard! I couldn’t do improv in a setting like this even if my life depended on it. The only time I do improv well is when I’m applying for leave and my boss suddenly starts questioning me about why exactly I need it.
Boss: Why do you need a leave now too? You took two days off last week as well!
Me: Yes, and… *sweats profusely*
3. This roasting round is the best, hands down. No matter what you say, roasting is the best form of comedy because of how brutal and unapologetic it is. Nothing is off limits, and it’s always fun to see that.
4. So, I am at the sixth episode now, and this contestant, Gurleen, from Chandigarh, is so consistent! I have enjoyed each one of her performances (she absolutely killed the improv round) and she is crushing the leaderboard too. Right from stand-up, observational comedy, roast, and even improv, how can someone be so good at all forms of comedy? This truly baffles me.
5. Kanan Gill is the only reason I am watching the seventh episode. I have no other thoughts apart from this. His jokes are basically the byproduct of an existential crisis mixed with a very witty sense of humour. Plus he's cute too.
I rest my case.
(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)
6. Okay, just kidding. I actually have a favourite contestant now! It’s Shreya Priyam without any doubt. She’s not perfect. Unlike Gurleen, she doesn’t nail each of her performances. She has a graph that’s constantly wavering, but man, did she kill it with this set in the seventh episode. You’d have to watch it to find out exactly what I mean, but spoiler alert, Kanan awards his extra 0.5 points to Shreya in this episode!
7. Sumukhi Suresh has the most wholesome laugh ever. She’s even been roasted for how loud she is in several episodes, but that doesn’t change anything! She still laughs so loudly that you just know it’s coming from the heart, and I’m here for it. Also, the way she laughs at herself when is the target of a joke is so adorable.
8. Can I just say that these mentors have been somewhat underwhelming? Especially Prashasti in her episode and Sumukhi and Anu Menon in the episode where Anu mentors? We have such a high standard set for them, but most of them end up disappointing when it comes to their own performances (except Sapan and Kanan). The contestants are way better than them by a considerable margin!
9. I’m slightly slow when it comes to math, but even I can say we don’t need these many leaderboards. It just adds to the confusion. At the end of every episode, hosts Kusha and Abish take us through the individual episode leaderboard, then ask the mentor of the episode whom they’d like to give their 0.5 points. They then show a new leaderboard that reflects this score. Then, they show a final leaderboard that represents a cumulative score from the previous weeks and shows where each contender ranks. This takes about 10 minutes every episode and is just so unnecessary!
10. Guys, comedy is not easy by any means. The same goes for hosting, which Abish and Kusha do amazingly well. Even though mentoring is so tough, the way the contestants perform indirectly reflects the training given by the mentors. So I’d say, probably the easiest thing in the show was being a judge. Get paid for laughing, that’s all. But we all know people who have already mastered this skill aeons ago.
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