Joe Millionaire - The Next Joe Millionaire

The Next Joe Millionaire

The second installment, following the same premise, was set in Northern Italy, primarily at the Villa Oliva in Tuscany. Marriott was replaced by 24-year-old David Smith from Midland, Texas, who, viewers were told, had earned only $11,000 the previous year as a cowboy on the rodeo circuit. Needing to find contestants who were unaware of the first show, the producers went to Europe and cast 14 English-speaking European girls from the Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, Italy and Sweden. During casting, the women were told by Fox casting agents that the show they were going to appear on would involve a group of European girls interacting with American males on an island somewhere.

There was also a new "hostess," a then-unknown Samantha Harris. The butler was, once again, played by Paul Hogan.

However, the show's popularity, which depended entirely on its charade, dissolved very quickly. As the Associated Press put it, Joe Millionaire “has gone from one of TV’s most surprising successes to the new season’s most spectacular flameout.” FOX’s entertainment chair Sandy Grushow said, "Our instincts told us from the very beginning that 'Joe Millionaire' was a one-time stunt and I think we got greedy." He added, "We tried to sneak it by the American public a second time and we got called on it."

Initially, Fox appeared to promote the show to its American audience as a massive practical joke played on some snobby European women, who were shown nursing champagne-induced hangovers and depicted as turning up their noses at assimilating the lifestyle of an American cowboy. Smith was shown as polite and well-mannered, but unable to grasp any of the phrases or words he was taught in the different European languages or remembering the details of the faux-millionaire ruse he was expected to carry out. The show's climax occurred when one of the contestants, Linda Kazdová, from Czech Republic, was brought back to the show after eliminating herself, and was later selected by Smith as the winner. By that time, though, the show's popularity had irreversibly declined, and no more seasons were produced.

A theme throughout the second series was the place of materialism and surface beauty in world culture. The show presented the world as a tapestry lain out for the contestants to frolic in, not as a real environment where real people live. Discerning viewers could also note the manner in which creatively deceitful audio editing, heard in many of the voice-overs from contestants, characterized much of the production. The 'Joe Millionaire' series was a benchmark of a whole era of Fox Television reality shows that followed a similar formula—perpetrating a big scam on a group of unsuspecting contestants, with the audience watching them go through embarrassing situations, only to provide a 'happy ending' by awarding the eventual survivors a large sum of money.

Instead of sharing a million dollars, like Andrich and Marriott had in the first show, Smith was awarded a ranch in Texas, while Kazdova was given a check for $250,000. As with the first installment, the couple's post-show interaction was short-lived, as Smith and Kazdova were separated by distance shortly after the show aired. After an unsuccessful attempt at a show business career, Smith abandoned the rodeo and currently works as a deputy sheriff in south Texas, still living on the ranch he was given at the end of the show. Kazdova went back to Prague to continue her education and currently resides in San Francisco, working as a marketing manager for a telecommunications firm. Several of the other contestants -- Giada Benedetti, Olinda Borggren, Alessia Loungo DiGiacomo, and Yassmin Pucci -- went on to film and television careers in their native lands.

The Next Joe Millionaire drew less than 7 million viewers a week with a season finale attracting only 9 million viewers.

In 2010, 'Entertainment Weekly' listed 'The Next Joe Millionaire' as being among the '50 Biggest Bombs In The History Of Television'.