The main problem of the show “Survive in Dubai” was mossy

Sooner or later, TV passions were to unfold in Dubai. The symbol of oriental luxury and cosmopolitanism is an excellent decoration, to which you just need to add characters. And they’ve added it.

“Survive in Dubai” seemed like a very intriguing project even at the filming stage. Luxury and desert, stars and ordinary people and, of course, that same Dubai aura that excludes everything related to modesty and restrained manners. True, while everything is very modest and restrained.

According to the rules, a team of stars competes with mere mortals for the right to live in a five-star paradise. Those who lose in competitions spend the night in the desert and get acquainted with the luxurious country in the mode of lack of food, money and air conditioners. In such a situation, a fight is expected between capricious famous sissies and people who are not afraid of difficulties and are always ready to help their neighbor.

In fact, everything is not quite so. The stars have mastered the rules of decent tone well and treat each other very respectfully. Neither Anna Khilkevich nor Natalya Rudova exploit the images of blond furies, Olga Seryabkina is clearly not pretending to be a pop star. David Manukyan and Timur Batrutdinov, though reluctant to part with dark glasses, try to smile affably.

The people’s team gathered people who are clearly craving exorbitant public attention. They constantly say something, while forgetting to formulate thoughts, and sometimes they quarrel like provincial starlets. It is also a little surprising that the luxury in the frame looks like the interior of a wealthy collective farm, and the desert, on the contrary, is indecently beautiful.

But all this, of course, is nit-picking. The main problem of the project is that this adventure genre is hopelessly outdated. Even before the participants of the show begin their competitive races, it is generally clear what will happen and how it will be commented. And each episode of this not the most reactive action is comparable in timing to a full-fledged feature film.

In general, hopes for celebrities and wealthy people do not justify themselves yet, and the further the plot of the show develops, the clearer it becomes that in the Emirates, of course, it was necessary to shoot something completely different. How great it would be to get a reality TV show about our so-called relocators. About rappers-foreign agents, tax refugees specializing in infogypsy, and other very entertaining public. It would be interesting to see how they live there (there is a suspicion that it is not bad at all), how they spend their millions. Find out if they yearn for birch trees, and listen to emigrant monologues.

But, as it often happens, all the most interesting things pass by television. Although why? Here is a folk team in the desert milking a goat. It’s also fascinating in its own way.

POSPY, ROCK ‘n’ ROLL

Friday night on TV is often musical and there is sometimes some variety on the air. Last week, the twentieth anniversary of the Star Factory was celebrated, and on other channels they showed the performance of the Pilot group and Dmitry Kharatyan.

The perception of music in recent years, of course, has changed slightly. Who would have thought that many representatives of the despicable pop music would turn out to be people who have complete order in their heads. And some rock giants will turn into clowns carrying some kind of nonsense.

The concert of the “Star Factory” can hardly be called a great musical event. A very colorful selection of graduates of a popular TV project with songs that have a certain nostalgic effect. But all the participants in this show did not try to look somehow significant. They sang what still caresses the ears of schoolchildren twenty years ago, recalled factory adventures. No fuss, but all business.

With the concert of the Pilot group in the Salt program, everything turned out quite differently. “I have changed over the years,” Pilot leader Ilya Chert said importantly and added something about the West he hated. He really has changed. In the late nineties, when “Pilot” appeared, Ilya resembled a young courtyard philosopher, who, in everything, has his own opinion, expressed in songs.

Now Ilya Chert is mature, he is a little over fifty. He still has his own view of what is happening around him, and he probably considers this view to be the only correct one. He is, of course, not alone. And he is among those musicians who are much more suited to perform their songs than to speak. There is still a kind of magic in his songs. And on stage, the Devil looks like a real rock and roll. During the interview, this magic evaporates, and only a slightly angry, middle-aged man is left in front of the camera, absolutely sure that he is right.

A rocker, of course, doesn’t have to be a nice person. Rogueness is also part of the charisma. But rockers have always been loved, including for their cunning squint, a fig in their pocket, for the fact that they are on their own. A rocker speaking in slogans seems completely uninteresting. It’s better to let pop stars tell funny stories. They have more truth.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29063 dated July 5, 2023

Newspaper headline:
lazy extreme