New Delhi, Sept. 24 -- Back in 2007 when Farah Khan made Om Shanti Om, I had described the film as an award ceremony minus the awards: a series of in-jokes and celebrity-heavy sketches stitched around a reincarnation plot. Channelling entertainers like Manmohan Desai, Subhash Ghai and even Bimal Roy, Khan deftly and hilariously spun a reincarnation spoof that - thanks to the blinding wattage of its leading man Shah Rukh Khan - worked even as a straight romance. The moment that title track plays? Goosebumps.

The new Netflix series The Ba***ds Of Bollywood borrows a lot from Farah Khan's playbook, but lacks her storytelling finesse. Watching these 7 uneven episodes is like sitting through a school play: it's not ideal by any standard, but ...