Kapil Sharma is back with his show and while the set is bigger and the look is grander, the gags are still the same, observes Namrata Thakker.
In 2013, Kapil Sharma stormed the small screen with his talk show Comedy Nights With Kapil on Colours TV.
After three successful years, he moved to Sony Entertainment Television with a new show, The Kapil Sharma Show.
Kapil tasted success with the show as it continued for five seasons.
Now, he moves over to Netflix with his new show, The Great Indian Kapil Show, which premiered over the weekend.
On the surface, all of Kapil's shows have had a few changes here and there but at the concept level, they are the same. Yes, with Netflix on board, the show obviously looks bigger, shiner and better. But content wise, sadly, there is no upgrade.
The first episode featured movie superstar Ranbir Kapoor, his mother Neetu Singh and sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, as they inaugurated Kap's Cafe.
The theme of the show is that Kapil is runs a cafe on the airport called Kap's Cafe but that hardly makes any difference.
The episode starts off slow and feels like a snooze fest with the same old jokes packaged differently.
Kiku Sharda as Chef Dhaniya Lal is the first to greet the guests but he can't up the comedy quotient with his not-so-funny character.
But he does make up for it in the latter part of the episode by mimicking Sunny Deol from Gadar.
The show really takes off when Sunil Grover makes his grand entry as Dafli. Yes, Grover is back with Kapil after a long hiatus and it's definitely exciting to see them together!
While Grover's Dafli is same as his old character Gutthi, it is still fun to watch because the character and the actor playing it were missing from the screen for so long.
Sunil Grover's comic timing and expressions are bang on. He can easily make you laugh even if he is doing the same old routine.
In the episode, we see Dafli flirting and dancing with Ranbir, which is nothing new but because it's Sunil Grover, you end up enjoying it.
Krushna Abhishek plays Bobby Deol's character Abrar from Animal and does a pretty good job.
He and Kiku Sharda as Sunny Deol really do tickle your funny bone.
As a viewer who has followed Kapil's shows over the years, I expected more.
I expected better jokes, more sophisticated even, since it's streaming on Netflix.
I expected better characters for the cast to play.
More than anything, I expected Kapil to raise the bar.
Still, The Great Indian Kapil Show is watchable.
It's one of those comedy shows you can enjoy with your entire family without worrying about being embarrassed.
The Great Indian Kapil Show streams on Netflix with new episodes every Saturday, 8 pm.
