Splitsvilla 7: Even a crazy king can't spice up this episode

Splitsvilla 7’s latest episode is about choosing a new king. And connections, a lot of them. It’s exciting stuff. Not. For most Indians connections means you know someone important and they will get some job done for you. In the Splitsvilla dictionary, it means “crush”. Considering the contestants and the things they have to do, it takes a massive leap of faith to believe anything they could crush anything other than hope in love and humanity, but MTV would have us believe that some “connections” have indeed been formed in Splitsvilla. Of course, the connections are about as bad as the phone connection in pre-1992 India. Case in point: Ashwini, who explained in detail how his ‘connections’ went from one girl to another and finally ended up in/on/with — grammar fails us in Splitsvilla — another.

Moving on, it’s fast becoming obvious that in the Splitsvilla universe, that macho is the way for men to go. This is why the task before the guys in the contest in this week’s show was called Manforce King’s Quest. (You may now beat your chest, a la King Kong.)

The contenders: Ashwini (his “connections” helped him get to be one of the top two choices) and Shravan. The boys had to do some archery; then drag a box to a bunch of keys, open the chest, get a hammer out of it and break down a wall to become king. We can only hope someone plays this episode to the Prince of Wales. In case you thought that this was a joke, there’s a background score that swells as much as it can to convince us that this an epic battle. If only both Shravan and Ashwini could at least pretend to know what to do with a bow and arrow.

Ultimately, Shravan managed to break the wall down. Cue in cringes (from us) and music that sounds like its from the Jodhaa Akbar soundtrack.

As usual, much of the entertainment in Splitsvilla is unwitting. Here are a few quotable quotes from the last episode.

“I didn’t expected that he would be nominated,” said Ashwini about Shravan. Grammar didn’t expect it could be mangled quite like that either.

When asked why he didn’t get any votes, Mayank (Mr India) said, “I don’t know why, maybe they have sympathy with me.” Maybe sympathy has an alternate meaning too in Splitsvilla?

At the end of the Manforce King’s Quest, King Shravan is given the option of dumping seven girls. Continuing its ode to Game of Thrones, a “book of fortunes” is presented and opened. The book has the power to changing decisions taken by the king or the queen. It is also written in actual English and includes phrases like “baited breathed” and words like “prophecy”. Naturally, host Nikhil Chinappa has to translate all this into regular, Splitsvilla English for the contestants.

The dumping ground saw the usual fight between the contestants and the king. The boys had to convince the king not to dump the girl(s) they like. The vote-out also also convinced us that Shravan was given the brief to behave like a psycho for this episode. The only person who was amusing was Mr India Mayank who insisted, “Yaar Puja se mere baat bhi nahi hui hai. Usko maat nikalna.”

The biggest fight was when Sanjana was voted out. Why did this dastardly fate befall her? According to Shravan, it’s because she kept changing her “connections”. A shrill Sanjana responded to this accusation with: “Are you trying to raise a finger at me? This is national television. How can you say these things about me? I have a life and family to go back to after this show.” Apparently, Sanjana isn’t just going back home, but back in time to the Victorian England or to an alternate universe where liking more than one guy on a reality TV show has serious, real life consequences.

And that is truly the woe of our times. This is national television.

Disclaimer: Splitsvilla airs on MTV India, which is part of Viacom 18, a joint venture between Network 18 India and Viacom Inc. Firstpost is published by the Network 18 Group.