Dolly Singh Is Back With Her Series ‘Best Worst Date S2’: Who Will Palak Pick?

“The audience is looking for good content. And when they get it, they don’t mind spending time on it,” said Dolly Singh talking about the second season of her well-received romantic series “Best Worst Date.” She is back as ‘Palak‘ in this engaging rom-com that dives deep into the tumultuous world of dating.

Content creation, acting, producing, writing, directing – Dolly has mastered it all! Her creations and performances have been both, binge-worthy and entertaining. As an audience, we’re always craving good, wholesome content and Dolly always comes through with her writing and acting prowess!

Know all about Season 1 right here: Creator Dolly Singh Creates Magic With New IG Series: “Best Worst Date”

Into The ‘Best Worst Date Season 2‘

Season 1 was quite a hit with its teasing storyline where every episode ended with a cliffhanger, leaving us wanting for more. Dolly Singh’s character Palak‘s delicious chemistry with Manav (played by Kunal Bhan) and relatable banter with her best friend Kavya (played by Tanushree Das), made it a binge-worthy series. ‘Best Worst Date Season 2‘ looks a lot more refined – from the cinematography to music to fashion.

It is visually stunning with a longer storyline and duration that enables the audience to connect well with the characters and stay with them. With the real Nikhil (played by Pranay Pachauri), coming into the picture, Palak is now stuck in a heart vs. mind dilemma to choose her “the one.“ As the creator, executive producer, scriptwriter and actor of the series, Dolly’s knack for storytelling and her ability to engage her audience is on full display, already making the series an instant hit.

Foraying into short-form storytelling, the actor-creator decided to create a new page dedicated to her stories called ‘Dollywood Films.‘ So if you haven’t binged seasons 1 & 2 already on her new page, go do so ASAP! Check out the ‘Best Worst Date Season 2‘ trailer to get a glimpse of Dolly Singh’s stellar work:

We had so many questions! So we did what we needed to do – ask the creative mind behind this series herself, Dolly Singh! Read on:

Palak’s dilemma between Manav and Nikhil is so relatable! After Season 1, how did you approach developing these characters and their evolving storyline while keeping it relatable?

You know what happens in the first season – Palak goes on a blind date and ends up meeting the wrong guy but he turns out to be the right one. But in the finale, the real Nikhil appears. I knew that going forward with the second season would mean a love triangle. I wanted the audience to be confused between the two choices and play with that feeling.

With these two choices, I also wanted to signify growth. So I wanted one to be a reflection of the fun, passion and adventure that you want and seek in a relationship, and the other guy to be stable & sturdy – someone you can see yourself settling down with. I think all of us face these kinds of dilemmas from time to time and as we grow.

Our way of making these choices also depends, like if I’m 22 I might choose someone who gives me a lot more passion and adventure, but if I’m turning 30 I think I will choose stability. That’s how I wanted to keep it relatable to everybody because when it comes to making a choice or looking for someone we also look at our own list, right? That checklist changes as time goes on so I wanted this season to be a reflection of that heart vs. mind situation, whether it is in the context of relationships or career.

The episodes in this season are way longer than the usual Instagram reel format of 90 seconds. What was the brave creative thought behind this?

It was definitely a tough decision to make because as a platform Instagram and its algorithm favours shorter content. The shorter it is, the better it performs generally, and 90 seconds is still like the longer limit of a regular reel. So last time we made sure that all our episodes were under 90 seconds and thus they would reach explore pages and new people – the overall reception was wider.

This season, we were dealing with more real issues. The first season was more like fantasy where you go on a blind date and you meet the wrong person who becomes the right person, et al. But this season was more rooted in reality. We wanted the characters to be able to speak properly and not be these comical, fast-paced humans who are only talking in dialogues.

A major factor was that the audience really complained about the duration last time. They felt that it was really short, it would end before it would start, and they were honestly pissed. If you go through the comments of season one, you’ll see how many people requested longer episodes because they were enjoying the story so much. That gave us the boost and courage to take that leap and really dedicate ourselves to letting the episodes go longer.

Of course, as the creator looking on the business side of it, I would want more viewers and a bigger reception. It was hard for me to go beyond 90 seconds. My director and I would constantly discuss it because he would want to show his creative vision and a director’s cut while my creator side would want to keep it shorter in duration.

I really wanted my first two episodes to be under 90 seconds because I thought that would give it the boost it needed in the algorithm. Fortunately or unfortunately we couldn’t, it was not possible, the footage was a lot and it would have felt too choppy and bad if we had cut it down. So we decided to let it be and go with longer episodes in general.

How do you feel about its reception?

To be honest, I’m extremely surprised by the overall performance, engagement and interaction for the almost three minutes on average episodes! Getting that sort of interest from people was amazing. So overall, I’m really happy because it might not have done those millions of views, but every person who watched had something to say. If you go through the comments in the second season, they’re much better than the first season.

People genuinely are writing paragraphs as comments, they’re invested in the story. And I think the longer duration of episodes gave them that depth to be able to go inside the show and really understand the characters. So I think it was necessary, I don’t know if I’ll keep doing it again and again, but I think when necessary I won’t fear going for longer episodes because the audiences are receptive.

We think the audience has less attention span and while it is true, I also feel that the audience is looking for good content. And when they get it, they don’t mind shelling out some time for it if it deserves it.

For the last episode, you tried something you’ve never tried before: letting the audience decide who Palak should choose. How did you come up with this idea? Do you feel the audience made the correct decision?

The finale, I’ve honestly never seen anybody do it before. Of course, we had Bandersnatch on Netflix where you could play the whole show. But I’ve never seen someone leaving the final of a show in the audience’s hands. I was writing it as a regular story with a regular ending but it just struck me that if we’re doing it on a platform like Instagram where we have engaging tools like a poll, we can actually experiment and use it!

Tomorrow if I go make a feature film, I won’t be able to experiment too much but this is a place where I can take these chances, have fun with it and that’s what I decided to do. Some of my friends and even my director Anurag were not fond of it from the get-go. Of course, production-wise also, we had to shoot two endings, which meant one more episode to shoot which required more money, time, and energy going into the project. But I wanted to try it out and see what the audience makes us do and absolutely loved the way it all panned out.

I was hoping that people start fighting in the comments and get so invested that they are confused, and that happened. I am actually very happy with the choice because even when I was writing just one ending I would have chosen the same guy ‘Nikhil.’ I wanted to show how when you grow older, you look for stability. But I like the fact that even the audience felt the same way and they chose the person I would have chosen anyway.

Although to be fair, even if they had chosen the other guy, Manav, we had obviously committed to it. The episode was written for it and it would have taken the story in a completely different direction. So I think that was very fascinating for me to see what is it that people will go for. That was such a fun exercise to do and made me as a creator interact with my audience so much and that’s a great opportunity I think.

What message were you hoping to convey through Palak’s ultimate decision?

Through Palak’s decision, I wanted to showcase how life can change, how your choices and checklist can change, and how the foundation of those choices can change. Palak had so much passion and adventure with ‘Manav’ who is spontaneous, who watches and reads the same things, and is like her. Then there is a ‘Nikhil’ who might look boring from the outside but he’s a guy you can rely on who is always going to be there.

Through Palak’s dilemma, I wanted to show that even though she has a lot of passion with Manav, she is torn because now that she’s 29, she’s also looking for stability. She’s also looking for someone she can spend days with and not worry about things too much. As we were doing the story, we also realized that Palak was obviously the most flawed character this season. She was the one lying and two-timing people, and we also wanted to address that.

Even though your protagonist can have those flaws, it’s important to not glorify them, address them properly and make sure you talk about them. Just because she’s the protagonist, she can’t lie, do whatever, and get away. I didn’t want to do that.

When Palak made her decision, Manav threw a curveball her way. Have you already thought about what will happen in Season 3 or are you in the brainstorming process currently? Give us a sneak peek, please!

Without giving too many spoilers away, I feel both the boys kind of threw a curveball at her in some way. There are some starting thoughts I have about season 3. We knew from the get-go that if people choose Manav, this is how we will proceed if a season three happens and if they choose Nikhil, this is how we’ll go about it. Again, I want to showcase real problems, real people and real relationships. We’ll probably delve more into that and I’m very excited!

I don’t want to give away too much because it’s still at a very very initial stage even in my brain. Like it has to be just as fun and exciting, but at the same time, be equally relatable – that’s the biggest feeling that I want to achieve with this. Women and girls are generally my go-to audience to cater to. So I want them to be able to relate to these stories and share it with each other.

The way Dolly Singh effortlessly weaves everyday thoughts into her writing is commendable. On a platform where new formats and reinvention are critical, she has created a new way of storytelling which broadens her spectrum as an actor-creator. This 7-episode short Insta series kept the audiences hooked to every episode. We already need the next season to drop!

Way to go Dolly! Please keep giving us more such binge-worthy content and drop season 3 ASAP!! How did you find the “Best Worst Date season 2? Let us know in the comments below!