#8. The Most Boring 'Bachelor' Ever?
My unfiltered thoughts on the reason ABC cast Zach Shallcross as our current Bachelor, and who they *should* have cast instead.
Hi! Issue #8 is all about The Bachelor franchise. I am *not* spoiled on this season, so don’t worry if you’re watching Zach Shallcross try to find a wife. I don’t know what happens. If you don’t watch The Bachelor, you can totally still enjoy this issue, and it may just reinforce your decision not to watch it, lol. Buckle up, this is kind of a long one…
“I’m just a dude who loves family, football, and frozen pizzas.” This is how our most recent Bachelor, Zach Shallcross, introduced himself to 30 women who are expected to fall all over themselves vying for his affection–and want to marry him!!–in the span of just six to nine weeks. I guess ABC couldn't figure out a better way to market this milquetoast 26 year-old as our new Bachelor, so the tagline they anointed him with is just “Mr. Right Reasons.” But by doing so, aren’t they sort of saying that every other lead they’ve cast maybe wasn’t there for the right reasons…?????
Absolutely no one was excited for this season of The Bachelor. Zach Shallcross is the Bachelor we never asked for, and a huge portion of Bachelor Nation is over it. A *lot* of people are jumping ship for shows like Love is Blind, which I also watch, and listen. I get it. Only three seasons in, Love is Blind has already produced a couple or two that actually feels like they’ll go the distance–obviously referring to Lauren and Cam… not Colleen and Matt, oof–and there have been a few truly great people to come off the show. I, for one, am a huge Deepti fan (I still tear up a little when I watch this clip). But Love is Blind just isn’t The Bachelor, at least in terms of how invested I am in watching it. At least not yet.
Don’t get me wrong, Love is Blind is a decently entertaining show. I’ll probably keep watching casually next season, but it’s missing a certain ‘pizazz’ for me. Beyond the pods phase and watching just-engaged people see each other for the very first time, sometimes awkwardly unsure if they should hug, kiss, go for an ass-grab, or maybe just run away, the show is just not that interesting. That was really illustrated for me in Season 3, when a recently engaged couple have a conversation about how to unclog a toilet when you don’t have a plunger while in the bathtub together. Ew.
Love is Blind always loses me a little after the first few episodes. I typically find myself very uninvested in whether the couples actually get married or not (especially in Season 3), whereas I’ve often been on the edge of my seat come fantasy suites and proposal day on The Bachelor. I mean, do you remember when Rachel Lindsay sobbed so hard over her breakup with Peter Kraus that her lashes came off? Or when Ben Higgins told two women he was in love with them, only to then smash one of their hearts into little Jojo Fletcher shaped bits one episode later?
Love is Blind is a little too focused on everyday life to really make great TV. The Bachelor, on the other hand, is pure escapism at its finest. It’s idealism, competition, and romance, punctuated by sparkly gowns, waterfalls, and helicopters. The contestants go on dates all over the world! There are private planes! It’s romantic, fantastical, and yes, dramatic. Couples go bungee jumping, zip-lining, or yachting together, and they definitely don’t talk about the time one of them took a shit at their friend’s house. The format, which has been pretty much the same for 20 years, works.
Ten years ago…
I opened the doors to reality TV’s rose-colored heaven (hell?) in 2013. My inaugural season was the ninth Bachelorette–wedding dress designer Desiree Hartsock–who is still married to the person she picked during her finale and all-around seemingly great guy, Chris Siegfried. I started my journey on what, in my opinion, was an absolute *banger* of a season, even though it’s widely considered pretty forgettable. Say what you will about Desiree–perhaps she, too, was a little “boring”– but her season was excellent. She fell head over heels for a good looking, surfer bro type named “Brooks” who eliminated himself in third place, and then suddenly has a light-bulb moment at the very end of the season that her person *all along* was actually nice-yet-also-slightly-boring-guy Chris!
Desiree loses at least a gallon of water out of her eyeballs after getting dumped by Brooks–a conversation in some stunning beachside location during which she tells Brooks that she loves him, and he’s the only one she feels that way about–and is so distraught that she almost stops her season after he leaves the show. But then she rallies, pretends like nothing happened, and a few days later, Chris proposes! She accepts! And THEY ARE STILL MARRIED!!! The most impressive part of all of this, honestly, is that I recited all of that from memory. It’s been 10 years, and I can still tell you exactly what went down at the end of that deliciously dramatic season. That’s why The Bachelor is so good. This show hooked its claws in me 10 years ago with this epic storyline, and they’ve been buried in my psyche (for better or for worse…) ever since.
For me, The Bachelor franchise has always been about the marriage between idealism and escapism. I never get sick of watching beautiful people in beautiful locations put themselves through the ringer in a high-pressure attempt to find love, even if it doesn’t last. At least they tried! And we got to watch! And the scenery is always stunning–even if our lead is crying her eyes out, it’s near tranquil, turquoise waters!
ABC, we have a problem
Fast forward to 2023. Multiple racism scandals and a few seasons without international travel in recent years aside, The Bachelor producers know there is a problem. I’ll give them just enough credit to go there. Though we’ll never know for sure, I think casting Zach Shallcross as our next lead was ABC’s attempt at finding their next Desiree. At returning the show to its former glory; a slightly more innocent time without influencers and contestants who were there just trying to get famous. Ten years ago, Desiree was cast as “America’s sweetheart;” a pretty plain-Jane type who went out in third place after having her heart broken, and would go into her own season with “sincere intentions.” Sound familiar???
The problem with that strategy is that we are simply in a different era. Social media has changed our beloved game in such a fundamental way that it’s impossible to go back to the days when a social media following wasn’t much of a consideration when signing up to go on the show. We–the viewers–have changed. We expect more from our leads and top contestants. We expect their parasocial offerings to be just as good as what they do on our TV screens. And the contestants clearly want more than just love at the end of the experience. They want sponsored deals and possibly even an entirely new career.
And you know what? Desiree said just last year that she wouldn’t go on the show today. According to Des, Bachelor relationships often don’t last because one (or both) of the people are just seeking fame, because it’s “too obvious” that you can just become an influencer after the show now. As someone who grew up in poverty and had massive credit-card debt when she signed up for Sean Lowe’s season of The Bachelor, Desiree said she wouldn't go on the show today out of fear that she would be singled out for not having “the right clothes, the right makeup, the right look.”
In a way, I get what she’s saying. Even though Desiree herself did become an influencer, kind of, she is also still a wedding dress designer (she was a bridal stylist while on the show, which helped launch her career as a designer). After experiencing a lot of backlash to her season’s wild ending, Desiree also wrote a book about how “her reality TV dreams gave way to rough roads of unexpected twists, public scrutiny, and rejection.” I can’t help but feel like this is how a lot of the leads feel these days, that they’ve been sort of destroyed by The Bachelor, even if it worked out for them. It shouldn’t be this way. And maybe it’s why ABC’s first choice for lead every season–the people we actually want to see find love–often turn the job down.
It’s clear to anyone actually paying attention that the producers have started villainizing their leads instead of protecting them. If we can’t have who we actually want to watch fall in love, we’ll just pick someone else and then watch them suffer! The Bachelor/ette used to feel like an extremely prized, coveted position, but now, you may be better off just going on Bachelor in Paradise. Zach Shallcross is just the most recent in a spat of leads that have felt unremarkable or uninspiring to the audience–Clayton Echard, Rachel Recchia, Katie Thurston, Matt James, and Clare Crawley come to mind. These are leads that ABC picked sort of randomly, and then never helped us, the audience, fall in love with them. And if we aren’t in love with them, how do we expect the 30+ people cast on their season to be?
There was a golden age of The Bachelor franchise, and we are certainly past it. ABC and the producers have lost their way in recent seasons, and it’s unclear if they will ever be able to recover. They brought in a “Desiree” to lead this season (and funnily enough, the man who broke Des’s heart first, “golden boy” Sean Lowe) but so many people aren’t even giving it a chance to get off the ground. ABC is clearly trying to recapture the magic of yesteryear with this casting choice–maybe one of the women will break Zach’s heart near the end and then he’ll have to pivot and we’ll get Desiree’s ending all over again!!–but I’m not sure it will work this time. Nobody cares enough about Zach for it to matter.
The professional era
So why am I *personally* still watching this show that’s clearly longing for its glory days but is currently kind of a train wreck? I’ve thought about this question a lot since watching Zach’s night one premiere last week, and I think I’ve finally come up with the answer.
As I’ve said before, The Bachelor/ette is my sports. I pay $10/month for access to extra content from my favorite Bachelor podcast, ‘Game of Roses,’ which treats The Bachelor like a genuine professional sport. I don’t think I’ve ever missed an episode. Every week when we’re in season, I anxiously await the “play of the game” and “Jorge Moreno bystander of the week” to be awarded. Sports coverage–when the sport is The Bachelor–is wildly fun. My watch experience has been enriched 5x since discovering ‘Game of Roses’ in 2020.
Here’s where I’m going with this. Any loyal professional sports fan would likely agree: You don’t give up when your team has a bad season. Sure, you might need to drink twice as much while you watch and feel the urge to scream at your television more often than usual. Maybe you’ll bounce from a watch party early, or exasperatedly smash the “off” button on your remote before the game is fully over. You might talk shit to your friends about how fucking awful the team is right now, or watch the game while you’re doing something else, like folding laundry or posting Instagram stories. But you don’t give up entirely. Sports fans are loyal. You come back the next season, hoping for a better outcome. And that’s exactly what I find myself doing with The Bachelor in recent seasons. I’m sticking around because I’m no quitter! And I believe the show can get better. I’m still hoping producers can recreate some of the magic from past seasons–Desiree’s post-dumping pivot, Rachel’s tear-soaked lashes, Peter and Hannah’s “we fucked four times in a windmill” proclamation, or Colton’s fence jump–if ABC just gets their shit together.
And in some ways, it is getting better. We’re all just so blinded by how offensively boring Zach is to actually notice. Did it occur to anyone else that there has been very little cattiness between the women so far this season? That’s new. And I have to say, I love it. I tensed up when Christina Mandrell realizes that she and another woman were wearing the same dress in different colors on night one, but was genuinely delighted when she said: “You know, what can I say? She’s got great taste. In men and dresses.” Normally, this would have been an obvious place to manufacture petty drama between contestants, but it didn’t happen. Producers attempted to establish a rivalry between Christina and Brianna in Episode 2, but it didn’t take (yet). And I love it! For the most part, the women seem to actually like each other so far! Even if the oldest woman on the show this season is 30 years-old and that makes me want to pick up my TV and smash it on the floor, it’s progress!
Another thing that’s gotten a lot better this season is the producers are actually protecting their lead. Even if Zach is dull as hell and everyone knows it, the producers are doing their best to make him appear desirable. It was a year ago that ABC made former Bachelor Clayton Echard read mean tweets about himself live on stage, and even more recently when they brought in a children’s choir to sing “Clayton sucks!” during night one of Gabby and Rachel’s season. But being the Bachelor is a prestige title! An esteemed position! If it’s not, why the hell would 30 women sign up to date and possibly marry him?! They seem to be protecting Zach more, at least so far. Producers did a nice job in Episode 2 of putting Zach in a leather jacket and making him at least *appear* like he could be a bad bitch. Even if he’s not exactly up on a pedestal (did you see that little moment in the premiere where he gets locked out and is rescued by Sean Lowe? Lol), they are doing their best to remind everyone Zach is very tall and therefore super desirable by default.
The women I have my eye on for Zach’s future wife right now are Gabi (my favorite gal thus far), Jess, and Bailey. I also think Charity, Christina, and Katherine are all solid picks for his final four. I am so turned off by Greer that I refuse to put her in either of these categories. We’ll see how this season progresses over the next few weeks, but in the meantime, let’s take a look at all the men ABC could have cast for a better season instead of Zach Shallcross, just to torture ourselves a little.
Mike Johnson
We all know that Mike Johnson should have been the first Black Bachelor a few seasons ago. No shade to Matt James, but Mike Johnson was right there. Why would they cast someone who had never gone through the process before instead of this incredible human?! Mike was passed over the first time for Pilot Pete (an entertaining disaster of a season), a second time for Matt James, and it would have been an absolute chef’s kiss to finally cast him for Season 27. This is controversial, but I genuinely think the fact that Mike is under 6’0” tall is the only reason he hasn’t gotten the job (he’s 5’11”). According to @BachelorData, there have only ever been two Bachelors under 6’0” – Juan Pablo Galavis and Jake Pavelka. Matt James is a staggering 6’5”; Zach is (apparently, somehow) 6’4”. I have been holding out hope that maybe Mike would get the job someday, but he now appears to be in a relationship. His podcast with Rachel Lindsay’s husband, Bryan Abasolo, was also kind of unceremoniously canceled recently, and I have to wonder what’s going on there…
Peter Kraus
There is absolutely precedent for dipping back into the archives and casting a ~36 year-old former Bachelorette runner-up. In fact, it’s happened twice in the last six years. Casting Peter Kraus as the Bachelor would have been like choosing predecessors Arie Luyendyk and Nick Viall, whose seasons were honestly pretty great. This man is from the midwest! He owns a business! He has EXCELLENT taste in women! When Peter was in talks to be the Bachelor after finishing second on Rachel Lindsay’s season, he insisted he would only do it if he could spend more time with each person individually and actually see them in their natural habitat. He also requested relationship counseling for himself and his final four so they could work things out on a deeper level. This is a season I would have savored. I will be mourning this loss for a while.
Rodney Mathews
The entire beach started sobbing when Rodney and Eliza didn’t work out on Bachelor in Paradise Season 8, and Rodney was sent home. That’s how much they all loved this man. He absolutely oozes being there “for the right reasons” out of his freaking pores. He is 30 years-old, 6’0” tall, and a former college football player. Though he’s just a little too teddy bear-esque for me to actually take him 100% seriously, this would have been a good season. It would have made a lot of people happy. Certainly more than Zachy, at the very least!
Tyler Cameron
Although he has already turned it down once, I thought this year ABC might pony up and pay Tyler Cameron whatever it took to get him to star in Season 27. Can you IMAGINE the ratings??? He’s worth a million dollars, IMO. He did that stupid Dirty Dancing competition show, so clearly everything has a price. I was very much on team #paytylercameron, but alas, it was not to be. And apparently now he might be dating Kristen Cavallari?????
Ethan Kang
There has never been an Asian Bachelor in 27 seasons of this silly show. Ethan Kang, one of Rachel’s guys from last season of The Bachelorette, is funny. He’s 6’0”, 28 years-old, and has a very normal life. He’s a guy that I think so many people could get along with swimmingly. Unfortunately, I don’t think Ethan would pack the punch that this show really needs right now (his Instagram following is just too small), but at least Ethan has a personality! I would have loved to see him in the lead role. At least more than poor Zachary…
Greg Grippo
Since Zacharius was cast as the Bachelor well before Greg and Victoria Fuller got together, Greg is still on my list of Bachelor replacements for our bud Zach. I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have done it (he was very refreshingly inactive on Instagram for like a year after Katie’s season aired, despite his sizable following), but we can still dream. Although we aren’t in Tyler Cameron territory, I think the women of Bachelor Nation would have lost their damn minds over a season led by Greg Grippo. And you never know–Greg sat in the hot seat on stage at AFR for Victoria even though he definitely didn’t have to, so he’s still at least somewhat involved with this franchise whether he likes it or not.
Whew! That was a lot. Thanks for reading, and praise be our beloved game. <3
What’s Up This Week
2021 Olema Cotes de Provence Rosé
Availability: Massive, I think?
MSRP: $16
Worth it: Yes. For $16? Yes.
Discovered: At Total Wine while looking for a rosé under $20 with a professional critic’s rating of over 90 points, to drink of course while watching The Bachelor premiere.
Appearance: Very pale coppery salmon, extremely transparent
Nose: Pretty! Cold, white flowers with dew drops and a bit of sulfur (not good) but it blows off as the wine gets more air. (Sulfur is a natural preservative that often dissipates as the wine aerates.) Notes of strawberry juice box, slate, and heavy mineral.
Palate: Low flavor intensity, but crisp and refreshing, with a nice edge of creaminess to the texture. Balanced by appropriate acidity, the body has all the right proportions, perhaps unlike Zach, who you would never know is 6’4”. Easy to drink, not overly complex. Huge amount of river rocks, with underripe raspberry and lemongrass. And a pretty white floral finish.
Conclusion: If you would dare to wear a neck kerchief or one of those absurd French hats while visiting the Mediterranean, this wine is your ride or die. However, if you like a more new world explosion of flavor, or a real palate beating, this wine is probably not for you. Very drinkable, but this wine is a great example of what you do to any of James Sucking’s published scores: subtract 2-3 points, and then it’s dead on.
The new brand that I have been helping develop for over two years at work, Lavune, launches TODAY!! In the summer of 2020, I went over to my boss’ backyard for a quick photo shoot and finally got to smell the three candles we had been working on to launch as part of the cupcakes and cashmere Shop. They were so good that I told them I thought we needed to create a separate brand, and over two years later, here we are!
All three candles are incredible, but my favorite is “Nightcap”. If you are a person who loves sandalwood as much as I do, this might just be the best candle you’ll ever smell. I’d describe it as intoxicating, addictive, seductive, and slightly masculine. Every time I walk by and get a whiff of it, I’m reminded why we went through the entire process of creating a second brand in the first place. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely worth it.
I finally decided if I love or hate the “Lavender Haze” music video. It’s both. I hate the first minute and 45 seconds, and love the rest. The purple pool! The lavender smoke bomb dance party! The outer space fishbowl! Lots of lovely eye candy in this video, including the transgender model that stars with Taylor, Laith Ashley.
“Tyre Nichols’s Death is America’s Shame” by Charles M. Blow for The New York Times Opinion is a must-read this week:
After Covid lockdowns eased and people were once again gathered for things other than protest, their priorities snapped back to a noninterventionist normality. Their cabin-fever racial consciousness was like some kind of delirium, an outgrowth of end-of-the-world ideations.
As the world reopened, elections approached and crime and inflation rose in tandem, interest in police reform and protecting Black lives from police violence melted away like ice cubes on a summer sidewalk.
I know I’ve picked this as show of the week before, but Episode 3 of The Last of Us on HBO absolutely destroyed me. I already knew I loved the show from the first two episodes, but Sunday’s 75-minute stunner cemented The Last of Us as the best thing on television right now, in my humble opinion.
Far from what you would expect from a show about a zombie apocalypse that’s based on a video game, “Long, Long Time” is an emotional journey from start to finish that had me clutching Paul’s hand with tears streaming down my cheeks for at least ten minutes. Starring two completely unlikely actors–Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation and Murray Bartlett from The White Lotus in unusually serious performances I wasn’t expecting from either of them–this episode following the lives of two people in a post-apocalyptic landscape spanning 20 years is simply beautiful. I would be shocked if it doesn’t win any awards. I won’t tell you anything more about it, because I think it’s better to go in without any expectations. Just trust me on this one.
That’s it for me! See you next week.
K bye,
Kelly
P.S. Last Friday, paid subscribers got issue #7, “Ghosts of Wedding Dresses Past,” in their inbox. It was an emotional thing to write–an essay about showing Paul photos of myself in the dress I picked for a wedding that never happened, and why I didn’t invite my mom to go shopping with me this time. Thank you so much for all the amazing comments!! 😭 I have more thoughts and photos to share coming soon.