The Bachelor franchise has been a favorite of mine since high school — The Bachelor and Bachelorette, The Bachelor in Paradise and the Golden Bachelor and Bachelorette all fill my reality television cup in their own unique ways. However, this past year it has been evident that the shows are struggling to adapt to audience desires, and the producers know it.
The peak(s) of The Bachelor
No franchise can reach a low without highs to compare it to. The Bachelor, being the most popular reality tv dating show, has had many peaks throughout its run.
Many fans say that the best era of the show was from seasons 13-17 (2009-2013), which I cannot attest to because I was five to nine years old and not interested in this genre of media. However, at this point the show had been going on for long enough that production was high quality, but it hadn’t quite become the clout-chasing network many people see today. Those competing on the show were genuinely falling in love, which is an aspect many fans believe has been lost in recent years.
Another peak of the show, that I was actually around for, was Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor (season 23), Hannah Brown’s season of the Bachelorette (season 15) and, dare I say, Peter Weber’s Bachelor season (season 24).
Though these season’s failed in the romance department — Colton ended up with a restraining order from his final pick before coming out as gay, Hannah’s winner had a girlfriend the whole time and Peter changed his mind after proposing — they delivered in entertainment value. Colton’s fence jump, Hannah moving the podium and champagne-gate from Peter’s season are moments I still reference to this day.
What made these seasons so entertaining is that the endings were unpredictable, but there’s only so far you can go until audience members are sick of expectations not being met. Peter’s season took it to that limit. So whether it was because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dramatic aftermath of Peter’s season or the firing of long-time host Chris Harrison, the series had a couple of low seasons following these ones.
Enter Joey Graziadei — the perfect bachelor. Joey was the franchise’s 28th bachelor, and was the most universal fan-favorite the show had seen in years following his run on Charity’s Bachelorette Season (Season 20). He was emotionally intelligent, down-to-earth, seemed like a normal guy who somehow ended up on reality tv and he was really, really cute.
His season also had a fantastic cast of women that brought the right amount of drama and romance. It felt like a call back to earlier seasons with its authenticity, while still bringing in the drama and humor we have grown accustomed to in the modern era of the franchise. At a time where Bachelor heads were clearly floundering — cancelling Bachelor in Paradise, introducing a senior citizen version of the show — Joey was a symbol of hope.
A recent decline
Following season 28’s high rating and record breaking views, the Bachelor cast Jenn Tran, one of the women vying for Joey’s heart, as the next Bachelorette (season 21). Now, I love Jenn and I knew from her first one-on-one date with Joey that she would make a great Bachelorette. However, the show set their lead and subsequently themselves up for failure in a few ways.
- They led everyone to believe that the Bachelorette was going to be either Daisy or Maria, and didn’t do any work to make Jenn seem like she wasn’t a consolation prize.
- They paraded the fact that Jenn was the first Asian American Bachelorette. This is great, but after humiliating her worse than they had humiliated any other franchise lead, people started to question if the showrunners actually care about their people-of-color cast members.
- The men on this season were clearly not background checked.
Fans of the show were disappointed when Jenn’s season ended and it was revealed that her final pick, Devin, had been lying about his feelings towards her the whole time. When Jenn was forced to watch her proposal on live television next to her ex-fiancé, sobbing the whole time, people were rightfully upset with the producers. And, yes, I mean forced.
“Do I have a choice?” Jenn asked before her proposal aired.
This didn’t leave a good taste in anyone’s mouth.
The following and most recent season of The Bachelor starring Grant Ellis didn’t serve as much of a palette cleanser.
The season was only nine episodes long, the shortest since 2008. In my personal opinion, which many others online also hold, this season felt rushed. By the time hometowns came around, not only did one girl not even have a one-on-one date with Grant, but it felt like each of his connections were lightyears behind those of previous seasons. Additionally, we didn’t get enough time to get to know the women or even Grant, since he played a smaller role on Jenn’s season.
Also, Grant was not really liked by much of Bachelor Nation. He released a song called “Party Girl” right before the season aired, which caused many to believe he was using The Bachelor to kickstart his music career. Then throughout the season, Grant had a bad habit of saying the wrong things and leading women on … especially Litia.
I broke down Grant and Litia’s breakup on a previous reality check, but in summary: everyone thought Grant was going to propose to Litia, including her, because he basically said she was the one, multiple times!
In my opinion, I think Grant is the type of person who doesn’t think more than five minutes ahead of his current reality. When he is with Litia, he can see her as his wife. When he is with Juliana, he is in love with her. Should he have been more mindful and handled the contestants’ hearts with more caution? Yes, of course. Is he evil and manipulative? No, he is not.
However, this is the second season in a row that has left bachelor fans entirely disappointed. Right now the series with the most positive reception from their audience was the last season of the Golden Bachelorette, starring 61-year-old Joan Vassos — which has a marginally smaller viewership.
While Grant’s season was airing, they announced that they were skipping a season of The Bachelorette — which hasn’t happened since 2006 — and instead bringing back Bachelor in Paradise, a show where Bachelor and Bachelorette alumni are invited to find love on the beach.
A hail mary in paradise
During Grant’s After the Final Rose live special, Jesse Palmer announced that after its hiatus, Bachelor in Paradise would be returning with a twist; the goldens are coming to the beach.
Yes, you heard that right. The show where previous contestants date each other with much less structure while showing much more skin is now going to feature people over the age of 60 AND those in their 20s and 30s.
I think the showrunners did this for two reasons.
- The Golden franchise has received a lot of positive feedback and is full of personalities that audience members adore.
- The concept is shocking and people are already so curious how this is going to be formatted. They are bound to tune into the first episode, at least.
My guess is that there will be two separate dating pools — Paradise beach and the Golden shores — and they will do fun activities together.
Will this bring them the ratings that they need? I’m not sure. However, I will be tuning in. Let me know if I need to take a break from my relaxing summer to write about it
Author: Heather Turner
Editor: Anna Mower
Photos courtesy of ABC Entertainment
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