The Khiladi Factor

Formula for a successful reality show? Simple – Hire a celebrity. But not just any celebrity, a Bollywood superstar. Really, it’s that simple provided you have the monetary means to do so.

And to mark their entry into the competitive Indian television industry, COLORS has managed to just do that. Box-office action hero, Akshay Kumar is all set to make his small parda debut with reality show – Fear Factor Khatron Ke Khiladi. If I am not mistaken, this is basically a revival of desi-Fear Factor, which once upon a time was aired on AXN and hosted by what’shisface Mukul Dev.

Personally speaking I think roping in stuntman Akki baby was a smart move the by channel heads. However I would have preferred to watch regular junta as contestants rather than the chosen 13 wannabe bimbettes.  Seriously, one look at the names and you will get what I mean.

Yaana Gupta, Aditi Govtrikar, Pooja Bedi, Sonali Kulkarni, Anita Hasnandani, Meghna Naidu, Tapur & Tupur Chatterjee, Nethra Raghuraman, Anjana Sukhani, Dipannita Sharma, Vidya Malvade and Urvashi Sharma.

Clearly the folks at Endemol India (Production House) are being lead on by the Music Channel trend – greater skin show better TRPs. I mean other than this I really don’t see the reason why the above mentioned women were chosen for the launch series. So going by the usual reality show norms, one can expect – cribbing, shrieking, sympathy seeking and (hopefully a hell lot of) bitching.

However the action king remains the main USP of the reality show. And I for one will be glued to the idiot box to see whether King Kumar manages to tilt some of his box-office luck onto the small screen as well. Another interesting bit would be to watch what tactics are employed by rival channel Sony Max in order to remain ahead in the TRP department with their Salman Khan -hosted Dus Ka Dum.     

If one is to believe apna gossip columns, then the small screen is soon going to witness one heck of a battle, all thanks to the (highly publicized) Salman-Akshay rivalry. No guessing though whose side I am on.