KOLKATA: Riding on the success of the earlier seven seasons, Zee Bangla is ready to soon roll out season eight of its popular reality show, Mirakkel Akkel Challenger. The upcoming season will once again see host Mir Afsar Ali aka Mir in top form, and will be directed by Subhankar Chattopadhyay.

While the previous season ran for 72 episodes, the eighth season is likely to have around 56 episodes initially. This season too, there will be participation from Bangladeshi stand-up comedians – a norm established since season six of the show. To encourage promising talent from the neighbouring country, Zee Bangla has even held auditions at four locations there including Chittagong.

Asked about the focus on comics from Bangladesh, Chattopadhyay said they could speak well and had a unique style of entertaining the audience. About the auditions, he informed, “In the first week of this month, auditions in north Bengal including Cooch Behar were completed. Auditions in Kolkata will be decided only after the polls.”

The channel is upbeat about promoting season eight of Mirakkel. Plans are afoot to launch a marketing campaign around the show theme, i.e. fatafati 8. The show’s official facebook page has already garnered over 964 likes, what with the ever popular Mir posting “Khub taratari asche Mirakkel akkel challenger 8” on it.

A one-of-its-kind reality show, Mirakkel premiered on Zee Bangla in 2006 and has been a hit with the people of Bengal ever since. “It is also very popular among the youth and many puns and wit from the show are common amongst all sections of people,” said a media expert. He attributed the show’s success to Mir’s larger -than-life presence and the satirical and political songs in the show among others.  

For Chattopadhyay, the format of the show is the winner. “On an average the GVT (gross viewers in thousands) last year was around 1400,” he said.