How did Vijay Sethupathi fare as a Host?

Bigg Boss makes a COMEBACK with Season 8 with their tagline - Aalum Puthusu, Aatamum Puthusu. Evidently, the show was structured around Boys Vs Girls for the first 50 days which has never been done before. Looking past, the makers filled the spots of the contestants with 20-somethings, a similar strategy from the previous season.

There is more.

Bigg Boss always made the bunch of contestants diverse by bringing notable personalities from different streams and industries. Not anymore. The majority of the contestants were Serial or Webseries or Media artists with only Jeff hailing from a different pod - a Rapper. This worked well for the show as they were able to quickly jell along since they all knew each other prior the show. There was lesser tensions and frictions.

Kamal Hassan and Vijay Sethupathi

Another big change in the show was Vijay Sethupathi stepping in as the new host, replacing the icon, Kamal Hassan. Doing a postmortem analysis, Vijay Sethupathi was his classic self throughout the weekend episodes. He brought with him a fresh set of "Weekend Watchers" who could not care less on what the contestants do on weekdays.

Kamal Hassan, known for his intellectual approach always handled the remarks of the audience and the contestants temperaments with a soft hand. He believed in preaching life values in the garb of the show and threw crumbs of morals in all his opinions - to the audience and contestants alike. This led to a lot of contestants making daylight escape after indulging in nefarious deeds throughout the week, and wearing a sorry face in front of Kamal Hassan. The fans felt Kamal Hassan was dealing with them like a Mamma Bird.

Vijay Sethupathi becomes the New Host of Bigg Boss

Not anymore. Vijay Sethupathi making a sweeping entrance into the show, walked with guns blazing. The audience almost felt sorry for the contestants during the initial few weeks as he dealt even the slightest show of arrogance and misdeeds with an iron hand. Over time he softened up to them but never restrained his words towards any form of indignity.

The audience were swooned with his approach and loved his authenticity as a host. He did not take the footsteps of Kamal Hassan and showed no sign of anxiety at the thought of audience making comparisons with his predecessor.

It worked like Magic.

The Show revived Vijay Television's dominance in Reality TV and all the contestants emerged as Crowd Favourites in the public eye. This happened 5 years back with Season 3.

Vijay Sethupathi struck gold in his first hit and as mentioned by the Channel Head, Mr Balachandran Ratnavel, the new host is all set for his next season.