Silly Little Country

The Bachelor

Having read on one of the trashy sites I visit that the finale of this season's "The Bachelor" (on ABC) would be the bachelor (Jason) selecting and proposing to one of the bachelorettes (Melissa) in the Final Rose Ceremony (just a tad medieval) and then for the follow-up episode dumping her and taking up with one of the other bachelorettes (Molly) in the After The Rose update, I decided I had to at least check in on the extravaganza last night from time to time.
I found myself almost having to rush to the bathroom to vomit a few times (I have vomited twice in 60 years), so it is good I did not do more than just checking in occasionally. The prediction turned out to be quite true. (It was not quite a prediction - the predictor claimed he had good sources and it seems he was right.)
You can read about it in the predicter's entertaining blog, and more tersely if somewhat scatologically in Dlisted's description.
Dlisted has a description that struck me exactly what was going on:

So, stupid ass Jason came out and said that after spending time with DeAnna 2.0 (aka Melissa), he realized they weren't right for each other. Again, Jason makes Teddy Ruxpin look like Meryl Streep. He needs John Robert Powers STAT! Then Melissa came out, Jason broke it off with her and she proceeded to show him up in the acting department. Finally some People Choice Award-worthy shit! I even think Melissa went off the script and ad-libbed a little! She's a true professional. That's probably why there were so many pauses, because Jason didn't hear his pick-up line.

After Melissa and Jason played out their scene, she gave the ring back and stormed off into a waiting limo. Then Molly came out, Jason asked her to be his and they lived happily ever after. When Molly said, "Is this for real now?", I shouted, "Shut up, bitch."

For the record: Jason told People that he wanted to quit Melissa off-camera, but producers said it was in his contract that it had to be done in front of everybody.

Some bitches think Jason and the Bachelor producers were the only ones in on the fakery, but I think Melissa and possibly Molly were in on it. They realized this season was about as exciting as a dehydrated lima bean, so they concocted this dramatic shit to keep us awake. A more dramatic ending would have been if a gigantic tidal wave hit the house and took all of those fake ass whores out.

The reference to a DeAnna above arises from the fact that in a similar show called "The Bachelorette" Jason was one of the aspiring bachelors, proposed to DeAnna, and got rejected. They even brought DeAnna back to beg Jason to come with her because her relationship had not worked out. (And the 2.0 reference is great, because I have not been watching this stuff and I thought it was Melissa when I saw that scene and it made no sense to me until the brain got it.)
So another reality show brings nothing resembling reality to the screen, just much lower-paid actors and screenwriters and production values. This was really apparently just a bit of a soap opera, poorly done.

Not to say the participants are not vaguely real people rather than just actors without lives beyond the show, particularly after the season ends. I am sure Melissa's agent is setting up the talk show rounds, ditto for Jason and Molly, but they will need other lives some time. And the times people spend together on that show do NOTHING to help predict what would happen in a normal life. The producers send them on dates involving paragliding in New Zealand, being on their favorite soap opera set, all sorts of things none of us could ever do. What do these poor folks do when they wake up in the morning and there is nobody from ABC to tell them what magical experience they will have that day? People with as few resources as Jason will start noticing a hole in his life.
All of which would suggest that the relationships that come out of "The Bachelor" are not likely to do very well. And this is true. At best one might say they are vaguely 1 for 12, with the 1 being generous.
So don't get me wrong. There are reality shows I love - "The Amazing Race", particularly. It does exactly what "The Bachelor" does not do. It puts pairs into situations where they have to make decisions, often tough ones, where they depend on one another to succeed, where things can go arbitrarily wrong, and where I suspect some of the participants actually learn some things. More entertainingly, the competing couples have to make tricky decisions about when to co-operate (rarely but not never) and when not. It seems to pose some of the real questions life poses, other apparently than having to make serious economic decisions about limited resources.
The predictor, by the way, managed to get one of this year's sort-of-quarter-finalists to do an interview and it is VERY interesting. Not everyone is just acting, ABC likes to get the girls a bit sloshed, ABC tries to make them all go over the top a bit, etc. etc. Surprise. What I liked in the interview is her description of the sense of camaraderie that can devevlop among a bunch of people imprisoned in a surreal environment for three weeks.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 3:22 PM