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The biggest stars in the country put on their television shoes soon, and before Salman Khan starts his Power Of 10, Akshay Kumar gets in your face with Fear Factor, and Shah Rukh Khan can ask if you’re indeed Paanchvi Paas Se Tez, we decided to take a preview.

While most of us are familiar with Fear Factor, we take a look at the original American game shows, the other two shows are based on, in a prelude to what we Indian viewers are in for.

Salman Khan hosts Power Of 10
Original Show Title: Power Of 10
Original Host: Drew Carey

Basic premise: A contestant has to guess an answer polled to several Americans — ‘how many Americans hold two or more jobs?’ for example. The contestant will guess a percentage, like 46 percent, and is then allowed to advance based on how close s/he is to the actual figure.

Format: The contestants will be given a point-margin which keeps decreasing as the game keeps advancing — which means they can be upto 40 percent off the mark for the first $1,000 question and need to give an exact answer for the final $10,000,000 question.

Potential: Carey’s a comedian, who hasn’t been informed about the answers beforehand, and often livens up the proceedings by giving his own take on the answers and having fun with the contestants. It’s a really interesting fit for Salman and it might just be a great treat to see an unscripted Khan ad-lib with random people.

Let’s just hope the questions are as wackily fun as the original, which polls random things about Britney Spears, pro-basketball and ice-cream to bring out stuff that is really anybody’s guess.

Bottomline: It’s not a great original, but Salman could make it work. Or tank.

Shah Rukh Khan hosts Kya Aap Panchi Paas Se Tez Hai
Original Show: Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?
Original Host: Jeff Foxworthy

Basic Premise: People over the age of 18 are given questions on various subjects taken from school textbooks for Classes 1-5. Answering correctly, with the help of a studio-selected Class 5 student, leads them to the $1 million cash prize.

Format: A group of Class V students sits around on benches while each of them is chosen, for turns lasting two questions, to be a Classmate to the contestant. The contestant can choose category and grade of question — ‘Class 2, Science’, for example — and is then given three lifelines:

He can Peek, which means he can see the Classmate’s answer and choose to use it or not; he can Copy, which means he has to use the Classmate’s answer even though it looks wrong to him; and he can Save, which means if he answers incorrectly but the contestant is correct, he is credited with the right answer.

Potential: The show is ridiculously watchable as common men and women routinely foul up elementary questions. Charmingly, the kids sit around and laugh at these adults struggling with answers they are well aware of, and Foxworthy, a smart stand-up comic, is cheeky yet sincere, like a fun schoolmaster.

He is, however, not a star. Shah Rukh Khan is one, and while he can surely pull the contestant’s legs and make them feel at ease, this seems a miscast role for two reasons:

1) The attention will be on Khan rather than the contestant and the game itself and

2) the show might backfire because Khan, being as major a star as he is, could seem too cruel to the common man, simply because of the show’s format.

Bottomline: It’s a fantastic original concept, but Khan will have to walk a very thin tightrope.