“Standup Girl” has been winning rave reviews from audiences since its launch several months ago, a show focusing not only on an amateur standup comedian, but also her environment, her friends and, most importantly, her family. We have tuned in with enthusiasm 3 days a week, loving the antics of Zara’s (Zara Noor Abbas) family, her sweet romance with Kabir (Daniyal Zafar) and her growth as an individual…..and then, suddenly, the story took an odd turn. With only one episode remaining, can the show wrap up in a way that’s satisfactory for audiences? Or will “Standup Girl” wind up being yet another show that should have been great, but faltered due to poor choices? Starring Sohail Ahmed, Zara Noor Abbas, Daniyal Zafar, Adnan Shah Tipu, Saba Faisal, Saqib Sumeer, Tamkinat, Saad Azhar and others, the story has been written by Awais Ahmed and Adeel Afzal and directed by Kashif Nisar.
The past few episodes have taken a grating turn to focus on Kabir ghosting Zara, completely cutting off communication and taking over his family responsibilities after his father’s death. Zara, understandably, arrives to confront him and is shocked by what she finds. But shock aside, Kabir will not have any sort of conversation with Zara. He will speak formally to her family, who also arrive unannounced and embarrass her further, he will speak to Johri about Zara in a manner which brushes off the topic, but he will not speak to Zara at all, despite giving her messages of meeting her and claiming they will talk. At this point, not only is Zara irritated beyond belief, but so is the audience. Was it really necessary to waste five episodes on this angle? These five episodes have revolved around Kabir avoiding a conversation. Why? What are we getting out of this? To put it simply, an excellent, entertaining, lovable drama has been tedious, grating and unbelievably slow for the last five episodes. Sure, they’ve given us some enjoyable moments with Sohail Ahmed’s antics as Ameer Khan, Tamkinat and Saqib Sumeer making us smile from ear to ear with their adorable post-wedding banter and so forth…..but is it enough?
There is so much to explore in “Standup Girl,” aspects of the story we absolutely expected to see. Where is Zara’s growth as a performer? Where are the scenes of Zara accepting her family? Where are the scenes of her family accepting her choice of profession? Where is all of this? This is what we expected to see. Sure, we can assume that Kabir’s entry in Zara’s life was meant to be one to trigger her motivation. Kabir’s dreams remaining unfulfilled will be Zara’s inspiration to fulfill her own……but this should not have been the focus of a solid five episodes. There is too much to explore in this story and not doing so is a disservice to an excellent show. Sure, the final episode could be excellent, but how much can be crammed into one episode? “Standup Girl” is one show that could have easily been drawn out to 40 episodes without any complaints, there’s that much material to be covered. It’s not clear who dropped the ball here – do we blame the writers or the director? But someone dropped the ball.