Rebel Billionaire

Trying to follow what happens on Rebel Billionaire is truly a difficult task.  Apparently the program combines the entrepreneurial concept from Mark Burnett's The Apprentice (NBC) with the crazy adventurism of Fear Factor (FOX) and sets it in the world-wide arena like Jerry Bruckheimer's Emmy winning The Amazing Race (CBS).  Sounds confusing?  It is.

Rebel Billionaire is Richard Branson's (a billionaire who owns the Virgin empire) brainchild where the top prize is a flamboyant British billionaire that has built his company (Virgin) into one of the world's biggest brands. He's famous for being adventurous and never being afraid to take risks.  The contestants on his show are supposed to do the tasks that he, himself would have done, such as climbing a hot air balloon (which he does climb himself) to have a tea on top of. 

The show has not received the best ratings in its first week but it has been all over the news, with commentators claiming that it is one of the most exciting reality TV shows out there, beating Survivor, Big Brother, American Idol and any other television show where real people make idiots out of themselves for the whole nation to watch. 

But the show has a lot of entertaining potential, for example the opening has Branson introduce himself as "Branson…Sir Richard Branson" to the well-times cue of popular James Bond theme song Live or Let Die of the movie with the same title.

And so the real rebel billionaire has made his dream into a reality and there's nothing wrong with that.    And although it's true that FOX producers have a history of lawsuits -- shows may seek litigious resolution for damages / copyright infringement – there's a chance that this will be the hottest (balloon) reality show up to date.