13 Reality TV Hits: Best Season Was...

Ultimate season: 10
Winners: Nicole Scherzinger & Derek Hough
When Pamela Anderson, Chad Ochocinco, and Shannen Doherty are effectively turned into also-rans, you know you've got a strong season. Whether the competitors were almost unfairly good (former Pussycat Dolls frontwoman Nicole Scherzinger, Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater Evan Lysacek) or deliciously bad (hate-watchable reality star Kate Gosselin, way-too-old-for-this-mess astronaut Buzz Aldrin), there wasn't a weak link on season 10. Third-place finisher Erin Andrews eventually became DWTS's cohost in season 18. The season also set a precedent for allowing semi-professional dancers to compete, upping the quality of the routines and resulting in a spate of winners including Glee's Amber Riley, former Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Melissa Rycroft (who took third in season 8 before winning All Stars), and Olympic Ice Dancing gold medalist Meryl Davis. —Lanford Beard & Samantha Highfill

Ultimate season: Micronesia—Fans vs. Favorites
Winner: Parvati Shallow
This is the season in which a poor ice cream scooper from Hell (Michigan, that is) was convinced by a bunch of hot babes to give up his immunity necklace?and then got promptly voted out by those same babes. Micronesia had it all—major blindsides (poor Ozzy), brilliant strategy (Parvati established herself as one of the best gamers ever), and fascinating personal relationships (Hulk-like Joel and pageant coach Chet were a modern day Odd Couple). It was all capped off by one of the most bitter and bizarre final Tribal Councils ever. A must-watch for any reality competition fan. —Dalton Ross

Ultimate season: Five
Winner: Taylor Hicks
As the Idol pendulum swings, solid winners (Carrie Underwood, Phillip Phillips) are typically surrounded by a few clunkers. To pick the ultimate season, though, you have to look beyond who was showered in confetti to how that person took the title. To this day, the fifth season remains Idol's most competitive final (only 1 percent of the vote split the final 3), as well as its the most-watched (racking up an average of 30.6 million viewers per episode). Of course the real winner of the season ended up being fourth-place finisher Chris Daughtry, who is now the show's most commercially successful non-winner (he's also the third-ranking Idol vet overall, behind Kelly Clarkson and Underwood). Unlike many seasons, this season also managed to net major recording contracts for nine finalists—the most of any season. Sure, silver-haired Soul Patrol-er Taylor Hicks looked more like a joke than a contender when he first auditioned in Las Vegas— even Simon Cowell predicted he'd never make it to the final—but the Alabaman beat future TV star Katharine McPhee after surviving eliminations that took out breakthroughs including Daughtry, Elliot Yamin, future Dancing With the Stars champ Kellie Pickler, Mandisa, and Ace Young. Hicks was never the one to beat, but that made watching his groovy and unusual rise to victory all the more exciting and surprising to watch. And who doesn't love to see Simon Cowell eat his words? —Jake Perlman

Ultimate season: 13
Bachelor: Jason Mesnick
Winner: Melissa Rycroft...until Mesnick dumped her for Molly Malaney on After the Final Rose
Is there even any question? Single dad Jason Mesnick single-handedly fulfilled The Bachelor's long-standing (and usually empty) promise of the most shocking?finale?EVER by proposing to twinkly-eyed Melissa—and then dumping her on live TV because on second thought, sorry, he loves spunky Molly instead. If that wasn't enough, Jason originated the now-classic Bachelor move known to fans the world over as the Balcony Cry™. What a generous guy. —Kristen Baldwin

Ultimate season: Six
Winner: Maggie Ausburn
For most viewers, the most defining season of Big Brother will always be the second one, when the show assumed its current recognizable format, and Dr. Will gleefully supervillain-ed his way to to the grand prize. But season six offers up the purest distillation of everything that makes Big Brother such a wonderfully bananas exercise in reality-TV gamesmanship. Starring a host of future All-Stars like Kaysar, James, and Howie, this season kicked off with one of the show's trademark nonstarter-twists (secret partners!) before escalating into all-out war between two powerful mega-alliances. It all led up to an all-female final four—and the first great run by Janelle, one of the best players the game has ever had. The following season of All-Stars was wilder, and more recent seasons have seen a new generation of Big Brother superfans with next-level strategies, but season six is the best example of what Big Brother can be. —Darren Franich

Ultimate season: Celebrity Apprentice 2
Winner: Joan Rivers
Joan and Melissa Rivers' attack on ''whore pit vipers'' Annie Duke and Brande Roderick is the stuff of reality-show dreams. But it wasn't just that incident that makes this one of the best seasons of any show ever. There was also the time that Dennis Rodman abandoned his task to get wasted with some hotel guests?who had not even invited him! And I have made it my personal mission in life to make sure every single person on planet Earth is fully aware that Clint Black used one project to make an advertisement insinuating he masturbates using Tide detergent. While reading a book by Donald Trump. What can I say? Mission: Accomplished. —Dalton Ross

Ultimate season: Five
Winners: Chip & Kim McAllister
With season 25 starting this fall, it gets more and more difficult to pick a best season, but the cast and route of season five help it hold up. In addition to memorable locations—on all six inhabitable continents no less—such as the Great Pyramids, Luxor, Kilimanjaro, and New Zealand, the challenges stand up; remember 4-foot-tall Charla carrying 55 pounds of beef through the streets of Uruguay or ''my ox is broken''? Plus, this season also ushered in the Yield (later replaced with the U-Turn), the non-elimination penalty, and the era of reality overlap, with Alison of Big Brother 4 appearing with her boyfriend Donny. —Dalene Rovenstine

Ultimate season: Two
Winner: Jermaine Paul (coached by Blake Shelton)
In The Voice's second season, the show was still fresh and novel. Solid word of mouth had built around the thrill of the live blind auditions, and those crazy spinning chairs translated into crazy not-so-spinning ratings. Plus, the original four coaches—Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Christina Aguilera, and Cee-Lo Green—were intact but began to amp up the banter and the competitiveness. In later seasons, the coaches' back-and-forth would become rote, and the musical-chairs judging panel didn't do much to help save it, but back in season two, it was perfect. —Marc Snetiker

Ultimate season: Five
Bachelorette: Jillian Harris
Winner: Ed Swiderski
Bear with me here, rose lovers. Sure, Jillian wasn't the most ravishing Bachelorette we've ever had (that honor goes to Emily Maynard), and the methodology of her ''hot dog test'' for potential suitors was dubious at best. What makes this season tops, though, is the truly awful selection of men from which she had to choose—robo-stud Jake Pavelka, guitar-strumming villain Wes Hayden, neurotic nerd Reid Rosenthal, professional sleazebucket Jesse Kovacs, and woozy-boozy Ed Swiderski (the eventual ''winner'')?almost all of whom ended up on subsequent seasons of the trashtastic spin-off Bachelor Pad. Sorry, dear Jillian, but your bad romantic luck was the gift that kept on giving?to us. —Kristen Baldwin

Ultimate season: Four
Winner: Christian Siriano
Season four featured talented designers, interesting challenges, (mostly) fair judging, and a winner who remains the biggest name from the show. The cast—including Sweet P, Chris March, and Elisa Jimenez—are memorable, King Kors still ruled, and the trio of Jillian Lewis, Rami Malek, and Christian Siriano was an impeccable final runway match-up. This was back when actual fashion icons (Donna Karan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Roberto Cavalli, Monique Lhuillier) were guest judges, and Tresemmé seemed like worst sponsor yet (nine seasons later, once Runway had moved from Bravo to the Lifetime network, we would learn that Red Robin, you will never ''make it work''). —Dalene Rovenstine

Ultimate season: Four
Winner: Joshua Allen
Three years after American Idol changed the landscape of competition series forever, co-creator Nigel Lythgoe brought another idea to Fox about a similar style of show but for dancers—thus So You Think You Can Dance was born. Through his previous experience, Lythgoe started the show off on solid ground, but it wasn't until season four in 2008 that the show really found its groove. The season is probably best remembered for the playful rivalry between Joshua Allen and Stephen ''tWitch'' Boss (shown) that lasted until the end when Allen became the series' first hip-hop winner. But don't feel bad for the runner-up since tWitch has arguably become the Dance's biggest personality, starring in three Step Up movies (produced by frequent SYTYCD judge Adam Shankman). Debbie Allen's protégé Will Wingfield and future DWTS pro Chelsie Hightower were just some of the other finalists on the strong season that also expanded to six audition cities. During Mary Murphy's second season as a permanent judge and Cat Deeley's third as host, the lovely ladies also got more comfortable and playful with Lythgoe, and the format of the show as well. An expanded repertoire came into play this season, meaning Allen had to master routines in Broadway, samba, swing, disco, jazz, and (for the first time ever) Bollywood, to name a few. The Texas native set the standard that all future winners need to think they can dance in many different ways to really be successful. —Jake Perlman

Ultimate season: Battle of the Exes (22)
Winners: Johnny ''Bananas'' Devenanzio & Camila Nakagawa
Let's face it: Despite the extraordinary, inhuman feats of strength and endurance The Challenge has been serving up since 1999, what makes the series so addictively watchable is its complex web of hook-ups, showmances, and sexual tension. Exes distilled both of the series' clinchers in one place, kick-starting the season with a Challenge in which the estranged lovers had to wipe honey off each other by any means possible. It was an ironic reminder of how the relationships on The Challenge rarely stick—but also just pure voyeuristic pleasure. Some of the Exes weren't exactly legit (just the ''on a break or ''we hooked up once because we were bored'' variety), but for longtime fans, seeing the reunion ostensibly meant-to-be couples (CT and Diem, Cara Maria and Abram) was satisfying before the athletic fireworks even began. —Lanford Beard & Samantha Highfill

Ultimate season: Three
Winner: Eva Pigford
Cycle three had everything: ''Mutilated Precious Brownies,'' lessons in respeito, a ''snout'' saga, umeboshi, and even Taye Diggs. It's also the cycle that gave the world ANTM's highest concentration of legitimate entertainment professionals, including winner and eventual The Young and the Restless star Eva Pigford, fiercely real Vogue Italia groundbreaker Toccara Jones, and Yaya DaCosta who'll soon star in the Angela Bassett-helmed Whitney Houston biopic I Will Always Love You. Of all Top Model's cycles, this one heard the call ''You wanna be on top?'' and really ran with it. —Lanford Beard & Hillary Busis