TL;DR: Comedy Night with Champions made a comeback after two years, but it’s not hitting like it used to. Meanwhile, Comedy Darbar is out here dominating the Nepali comedy game with some damn good skits and energy. The bar has been raised, and it shows.

Y’all remember when Comedy Club with Champions did a full 180 and came back with an all-new cast, calling it Comedy Club with Champions 2.0? Yeah, that disaster. It was so bad it had people scratching their heads like, “Wait, is this an April Fool’s prank that never ended?” The vibe was off, the jokes were off-er, and the humor? Straight-up in the ICU.

Fast forward almost two years, and the original gang finally announced their comeback with Comedy Night with Champions. The hype was real. The lineup? Even realer. Suman Karki, Sajan Shrestha, Bharat Mani Poudel, Suman Koirala, Kailash Karki, Mexam Gaudel—all the OGs. Also returning to host and direct is Bishal Bhandari along with Deepa Shree Niraula as Archana Puran Singh.

The first episode dropped last week and I was like, “Here we go, again!” but as the episode progressed, it started to make me go… wait a minute, I have seen this before. It’s the Comedy Club with Champions 2.0 all over again. Yep, it was so off, it made me question, “Hey Mundre ko Comedy Club, is that you?” I was half expecting Mundre to pop out from behind the curtain shouting, “Surprise! Gotcha again!”

Still, I was cool. Maybe episode one was just them dusting off the cobwebs after a two-year nap. Maybe they needed to warm up. Like, do some comedy yoga or whatever.

Then episode two dropped—and… meh. Still flat. Still felt like someone told the jokes a second earlier backstage and left the audience with the leftovers.

And that’s when it hit me: Was it always like this and I was just too comedy-starved back then to notice? But no, I’ve got solid memories of me laughing my arse off at their old skits. These folks were fire.

So, who do we blame for our now-sky-high expectations? Enter: Comedy Darbar.

I mean, those people have spoiled us. They’ve taken this format and cranked the humor dial up to eleven. Their energy, timing, and absurdity—it’s unmatched. Watching them feels like your favorite meme came to life and brought friends.

Did you see their latest “Lok Special” episode? Man, it was so good. If there were an IMDB for Nepali shows, it would be sitting pretty at 9.0, maybe even a 9.2 on a good day. Meanwhile, the first two episodes of Comedy Night would be chilling somewhere around 6.0, max.

But hey, I’m not here to throw shade and bounce. I’m still rooting for Comedy Night. They just got back, and I’ll give them a few more episodes. Comebacks take time, and greatness isn’t microwavable.

Even Comedy Darbar took their sweet time before they reached this level. And now look at them—they’ve built one of the most fun shows on Nepali TV. So yeah, full respect, full kudos—Comedy Darbar isn’t just wearing the comedy crown, they built a whole damn castle.