I know, you’re thinking, who cares about The Bachelor on ABC?
But the show and its counterpart, The Bachelorette, have become an industry, and staples on the network since 2002. Yes, two thousand two.
I wrote yesterday about how totally insipid the already fairly low IQ show has become. On Monday night’s episode, the guy who is the Bachelor came down with COVID in London. The 20 or so young women who were all “in love” with him didn’t care if he was sick. They wanted to win. They wanted the final rose, the engagement ring, and publicity. It was a hilarious disaster.
More importantly, Monday’s show also had the lowest number of total viewers in 22 years: 2.8 million. Two years this week, “The Bachelor” scored 5.3 million viewers. That’s nearly 50% less.
That season, the season average was 5.5 million. This season so far the average is 2.3 million — and it’s not going to improve.
The rose is wilting, and almost dead. The bloom is off the rose. As this season sinks into ignominy, it may be time to wrap this enterprise up. “The Bachelor” has outlived whatever usefulness it had. The novelty of seeing stupid, shiny, inarticulate, somewhat illiterate people trying to fall in love instantly has lost its juice. In syndication, it would be a hit. But taking up precious prime time real estate? Enough.
Another issue besides boredom is that “The Bachelor” lost its mojo after host Chris Harrison was pushed out. He got tongue tied into a mess when a recent winner, who was Black, asked him “Extra” about a female contestant who’d attended parties on a Southern plantation. Harrison, ill-equipped to deal with this, defended the young woman and plantations. And he was gone after just under two decades. (Note: the plantation girl ultimately got engaged to her Black suitor, who forgave her. You can’t make this stuff up.)
ABC already moved “Dancing with the Stars” off to streaming. “The Bachelor” is next.
