Joe Millionaire
OK, so you take a bunch of women, an attractive-looking guy (and rich to boot!), and throw them all in a house for a romantic elimination-style Reality Show competition. What's that, you say? It's been done before? Not original?
Well, how about this: the guy (Evan Marriott) isn't really rich, but he's a working-class laborer who's pretending to be rich - for the sake of the camera? Well, then you'd have Joe Millionaire.
The show was a standard Bachelor-style setup - each week, Evan would send off another lady who hadn't quite earned his affection. At the end of the show, he revealed his lack of finances to his ultimate choice (they didn't last as a couple), and they were given a million dollars to split between them.
Joe Millionaire had an impact on the reality genre that is not to be overlooked: it was one of the earliest successful programs that could be described as "The Bachelor with a twist". There was a second season - complete with new Mock Millionaire - and this time, the ladies came from all over the world (understandable, as The Reveal from the first season was, thanks to its popularity, common knowledge in the United States). It didn't do nearly as well ratingswise, and that was it for the franchise.