Top Five Reality Show Contestants

1. Dr. Will Kirby (Big Brother 2 & All-Stars)
The evil doctor is the all-time champion of reality show contestants. He won the first season of Big Brother to be played under the Head of Household rules by repeatedly blatently lying to everyone and telling them up front that he was doing so. He was nominated four times, surviving every such trip to the chopping block, largely because people hated him so much and wanted to take him to the finals. He gave an arrogant speech in the finals about how people needed to consider whether they were happy with themselves, and yet, people voted for him to win anyway. On All-Stars, he told the houseguests how much he hated each and every one of them and that he wanted to be kicked out of the house and would throw competitions until he was evicted. To paraphrase his words, he made the target on his back so big that it disappeared.

2. Richard Hatch (Survivor Borneo & All-Stars)
The fat naked gay guy was a reality show pioneer, developing a strategy that his successors across the world of reality television would follow. Richard sought out a close alliance with Rudy that survived through the final tribal council. He took on the role of provider by catching all the fish, making himself indispensible. At the same time, he made people think he was an arrogant jerk by sitting in a tree during tribe meetings and cavalierly walking around naked. Everyone wanted to go up against Richard in the finals and he knew it, to the point where he pulled out of the final immunity challenge. Thanks to Susan's memorable snake-and-rat speech, Richard became the first-ever sole survivor. In All-Stars, Richard's naked body got Susan to quit the game, but Richard himself was bamboozled a week later. (Too bad figuring out how to pay your taxes wasn't one of the challenges on Survivor. Richard could have avoided a lot of trouble.)

3. Kendra Todd (The Apprentice 3)
While original Apprentice Bill Rancic won the job through relentless hard work and smart decisions, Kendra brought an element of strategy to the game. During the early weeks, she laid low and let the larger-than-life personalities that NBC loved to cast fight things out among themselves. She steered clear of the personality conflicts and coasted through under the radar. Once the field thinned, Kendra turned her game on, displaying an incredible work-ethic (including pulling an all-nighter to finish her team's automobile brochure) and devising an ingenious, fool-proof technique -- convening informal focus groups of target consumers to determine what the marketplace (and the judges) were looking for.

4. Rob Mariano (Survivor Marquesas & All-Stars, The Amazing Race 6)
Boston Rob played the part of puppet master early in his first Survivor foray, but once the teams were mixed up, he lost his edge. However, Rob was just getting started. He owned the season of Survivor: All-Stars, scaring Lex out of voting off his new romantic interest and alliance-mate, then welching on his deal with Lex the very next week. Rupert and Jenna were similarly afraid of voting off Rob when they had the chance. In perhaps the biggest coup in reality show history, Rob assured himself of a million dollars before the final tribal council votes were read by proposing to co-finalist and eventual champion Amber. Then, when the two were selected to run The Amazing Race, Rob injected the game with a theretofore unknown element of malice, bribing a bus driver not to open a back door and convincing other teams to sit out a roadblock so that Rob wouldn't have to chow down six pounds of organ meats.

5. Matthew Kennedy Gould (The Joe Schmo Show)
While not on this list for brilliant strategic play (after all, his show was a hoax), Gould was both the perfect rube and an incredibly endearing protagontist. Blissfully naive, Gould bought the hoax hook, line, and sinker, never once questioning the often ridiculous and inconsistent set-ups during the course of the show. His breakdown at the end of the show, punctuated by his trademark line, "What is going on here!" is a reality show classic. However, the unpredictable element that Gould brought to the show was his incredibly sweet personality. The relationships he developed with the fake characters became so strong that "eliminations" became an emotionally draining experience. He was also so visibly uncomfortable when he was forced to be handcuffed to Molly, the virgin and her "boyfriend" showed up. You almost felt sorry for the guy when the secret was revealed. Gould was the star of the show anyway, but he was truly America's favorite.