Punchlines lose fizz

They should have put up a statutory warning — no journalist was harmed during the shooting of this film!

A news channel with the tagline ‘Sabse Tez, Sabse Aage’; a fidget-spinning boss Panchal (Pankit Thakker); entertainment editor Nikki Kothari (Abigail Jain), who steals ideas and does fake telecast to stay popular; a street smart intern Ashutosh Chavra (Rishabh Chadha), who tells Nikki, “You need a bright, young brain to exploit. I am the perfect candidate.”

We get the general idea!

And this ready-to-be-exploited intern, hell-bent on encroaching Nikki’s territory because he feels ‘entertainment safe hai’, and the Stree-reincarnate Nikki (the message ‘Stree aa rahi hai’ circulates on the office WhatsApp group whenever Nikki walks into the office), hell-bent on not giving him a chance, makes for the preamble to the ‘love begins with a divorce’ premise of this seven-episode romcom.

To prove their mettle, these two entertainment journalists jump into a sting operation head-on. They bribe a government official to issue a fake marriage certificate. Instead, a genuine certificate is issued and the two find themselves legally married. The fact that Nikki has an NRI fiance, who is obsessed with luxury brands, makes matters complicated.

To give writer Ghalib Asad Bhopali his due, some of the punchlines are hilarious, but he stretches it a tad too far. By the time the actual plot reveals itself (was it the third or fourth episode?), most of the punchlines lose fizz. Even the situational comedy seems forced.

Bhatt, like a competent copy editor, gives away the storyline in the title itself, even at the risk of making his fare a predictable one. It’s a given that Nikki and Ashu will try for a divorce, and it’s also a given that they will fall in love. A sub-head ‘Pyaar Toh Hona Hi Tha’ makes sure that we stay on the right trajectory. But while dealing with the news channel, the director allows his imagination to run riot. After prime time host Mayank is fired as he is found to be having a scene with the editor’s wife, Nikki and Ashutosh are put in his place. Their nok-jhok in front of the camera proves to be the TRP-puller.

Agreed, newsroom politics can be as potent as real politics. Agreed, TRP is directly proportionate to the shrill quotient of the the prime time host. But two hosts fighting on camera like cats and dogs with the hapless guests walking out of the studio is taking journalism to another level altogether.

And by the time we reach that stage, even the crackling chemistry between the two and their sincere performance can’t hold our attention. It evokes the same urge like watching those high-decibel prime time debates — to reach for the remote!