What the Love! with Karan Johar: Nothing interesting about it

Karan Johar is everywhere. He is one of the go-to men from the film industry for hosting awards functions. He can be trusted to make celebrities reveal their innermost secrets while enduring his probing questions about their personal lives.

Now, he is playing the love guru to find romantic solutions for singletons with non-existent love lives in What the Love! with Karan Johar, a seven-part dating reality show streaming on Netflix. Accompanying him in his mission are fashion designer Maneka Harisinghani and hairstylist Shaan Mutathhil, who make these singles look good and apparently better prepared to find true love.

Just how good or bad is this dating reality show? Most viewers have trashed it on social media, which is not surprising for several reasons.

Johar and co. believe that makeovers play a big part in helping people find love, which is not true in real life. The host tries to be progressive by reminding of his broad-mindedness from time to time. Does that work? Not always, as any viewer who sits through all the episodes is bound to realise. Celebrities make guest appearances with each one of them meeting the protagonist of an episode. The problem is, nobody does much beyond looking good in unexciting interactions with their dates who can’t believe their good luck.

The chosen singletons are an overweight doctor, a gay graphic designer, an overworked chartered accountant, a fashion designer with a physical scar, a business analyst with low self-esteem and a jet-setting businessperson.

While the choice of characters is diverse, the least bad moments of the show are mediocre because of Johar's inability to ask interesting questions as he often can. At times, it seems that the entire project has been wrapped up in a hurry to meet unrealistically tough deadlines. Should that be not true, however, Johar has done a pathetic job.

While none of the celebrities is impressive, Parineeti Chopra is passable while mingling with the guests in the singles party episode, which is the first of the series, freely. Arjun Kapoor bores the hell out of the viewer during a prep date with the doctor, while Ali Fazal seems thoroughly confused and amused while turning up for the first same-sex date of his life.

How much of the show is scripted and what percentage of it is spontaneous are questions none can answer. Since we have been told that it is a reality show, however, one must add that a few lines of well-written and rehearsed dialogues used from time to time might have made it somewhat appealing.

The end product unleashed by Netflix is dull, clichéd and tiring. Do you intend to watch it?