In a bid to consolidate its now dicey #1 GEC channel slot, Star Plus seems to have borrowed a leaf from its rival, Colors’ book, i.e. the fantasy supernatural genre. Naagin 3 continues to break the charts, week after week.
No wonder, after a good run of its new weekend horror show, Qayamat Ki Raat, STAR honchos have just started another spook fest, named Nazar, for its daily late-night 11 pm slot.
Kudos to Producer Gul Khan, for, like Qayamat Ki Raat, Nazar has quickly ticked all the boxes. Bhojpuri actress and former Bigg Boss 10 contestant, Antara Biswas, popularly known as Monalisa, is playing the daayan, Mohana, to the T. She has brought out the sheer evil that a witch is expected to have. Just one point though– would it not have been better had she shed a few more kilos, to make her really look hot?
Coming to the story, it opened well, with the daayan killing a poor person 25 year ago and taking away his age to increase her life. Years later, she does the same to another young girl, whose dead body looks aged. Thus the creative very quickly establishes Mohana’s evil persona.
Back then, she had snared good guy, Mridul (Ankur Nayaar), by making him enter the daayan chakkar. She then marries him, gives him two kids, but takes away his life as well.
In a bid to keep it pacey, the creative went over the flashback in too much haste. There will be more opportunities though, when the story again goes into rewind mode.
Cut to the present, you have the quintessential good step-mother, Vedashree (Ritu Chaudhary Seth), who will do what it takes, to save her adopted son, Ansh (Daayan and Mridul’s offspring), from the evil clutches of his mother, who needs to get him married to another witch (Ansh’s girlfriend, Ruby), in order to return back from the dead. She had been burnt at the stake and her mortal remains locked away.
While Harsh Rajput is doing a decent job as Ansh, we really feel that he is not yet able to effectively bring out the inner war between his good and bad side, as the demon in him is finally coming to the fore. However, early days still to judge him!!
Lead girl, Piya (Niyati Fatnani), is the only one who can save Ansh from going down hell’s way. No wonder, Vedashree is desperate to get them married.
Interestingly, Piya’s mother, Divya (Smita Bansal), had saved the Rathod clan from Mohana in the first place. Since then, she has disappeared. In a strange coincidence, Piya now lands up in the same college as Ansh, and prevents him from killing someone. The coincidences don’t end there. Even her father, played by Sumit Kaul, who is doing research– you guessed it right– on evil spirits, works in the same college. Her mother left her hubby for some undisclosed reason, when she was a kid. What a small world indeed!
To fill up the canvas, Ansh has an extended family, complete with tayas and chachas. Ashita Dhawan stands out among the crowd, as the dim-witted but good-natured bhabhi with a takiya kalaam– “Yeh bhai sahi hai”.
One thing does not add up– how come Ansh’s biological sister, Kaajal (Pallavi Gupta), does not show satanic powers? Also, doesn’t the daayan want to enlist the daughter into her tribe as well? The youth brigade is complete with two more cousins.
Alas!! We would have loved to see more of the effective Computer Graphics (CG) in such a show. However, we must admit, that the high-pitched drama and the way it has been shot surely catches audiences’ eyes.
In a bid to emphasise the daayan, there are several scenes of her walking with reverse pointed legs. Though there is not much of CG used, the makers have effectively brought out the fear and thrill quotient in the scenes.
4 Lions Films helmed by Gul Khan indeed knows the pulse of the TV watching viewers. While they have a masala drama show in Ishqbaaaz, they have the beautifully etched tale of a father and daughter in the musical drama Kullfi Kumarr Bajewala. And now with this spooky entertainer Nazar, Gul has indeed taken note of what appeals to the viewers. One speciality with 4 Lions Films shows is the grandeour and manner in which they are shot. And Nazar has taken the production value one notch higher!! Considering that Gul has created a hat-trick of shows that are doing well on the ratings chart, we can only appreciate the efforts put in.
All said and done, Nazar has opened to a decent 1.7 and that too on a dead slot. It only helps the overall GRP race of STAR Plus. Also, this means Star has abandoned ‘Nayee Soch’ and gone back to the tried and tested. Guess they have realized that the core TG still wants the old kind of content.
We at IWMBuzz.com rate Nazar with 3.5 stars out of 5.
