I’m not a huge fan of reality TV, but I’ll admit there are a few shows I’ll watch. I’ve seen most seasons of “Survivor,” and “Big Brother” has been a summertime guilty pleasure time-filler for several years. I even enjoyed watching “The Celebrity Apprentice” back when it was funny instead of painful to see the star of the show constantly make a pompous fool of himself.
Despite these brief forays into the dark side of television, I’ve never watched an episode of “The Bachelor” before. All I know about this show is what I’ve picked up about it through tangential pop culture exposure, which basically means Saturday Night Live skits that make fun of it. The monumental two-hour finale of the current season was just on last night. Since I’m on spring break right now and there really wasn’t much else on TV, I decided to see I’ve been missing….
*It opens with a studio audience applauding. So, wait, what? Are we actually going to be watching these people watch the show? And who is this smarmy game-show-host-looking dude narrating the obvious between the commercial breaks?
*Okay. Now the show starts. The Bachelor’s name is Nick. My first impression is that he’s the kind of pretty boy hoping for a career in modeling cardigan sweaters. The first of our two finalists is named Raven, and she is cute. Really cute. She has a molasses-thick southern accent, and it totally works for her. Nick and Raven are hanging out with Nick’s family, who are all with them in Finland, for some reason. Does Nick or his family have some kind of ties to Finland? I kind of feel sorry for the family here, because I’m sure that once Nick was chosen to be on the show, the family found out they were being dragged into the on-camera experience of it all to support him. Even though they are at least getting a free vacation out of it, they now have to play along with the premise of the show like any of this is the least bit genuine. I personally would be uncomfortable knowing that my family members were sitting around in a staged living room having “in depth” conversations about my relationship with any woman I was dating, especially if I knew it was being filmed and edited to serve a narrative.
*Everyone in the family likes Raven, but it’s time for her to move on. Here comes finalist #2, Vanessa. She’s a special needs teacher, which automatically puts her into a pretty rarified class of human being. On top of that, she’s unrealistically beautiful. Of the two finalists, she seems to be the one who is more of a thinker, while Raven is really good at angling her head slightly when she smiles. Vanessa isn’t buying into the whole “unscripted” fairy tale of it all. She’s cautious, and not afraid to express that. I like the hesitation. She comes across as more intelligent and realistic about this whole thing, like she’s thinking, “I know I agreed to be on the show, but if I’d known I’d end up so deep in all of it I would have had some justifiable second thoughts.” Between her interviews, Nick claims that his type is a woman with a strong personality. Okay buddy, sure it is. I’m calling it right now: According to how all of this has been edited, Vanessa will win. She gets the rose, the ring, the showcase showdown, whatever the big prize is at the end of this.
*Throughout all of their admittedly brief interviews, Nick’s family members keep bringing up other women he was involved with that broke his heart. So, hold on: Has he been on this show before? Did he compete for a Bachelorette, or, from the sound of it, two or three of them? Do the producers of this franchise keep recycling the same soulless individuals until they’re all matched up, like they’re doing a public service to the rest of us who make up the gene pool? Now Nick’s sister (I think) just said “He’s here to find that forever love.” WHO TALKS LIKE THAT???
*Commercial break, and we have two movie trailers: “The Fate of the Furious,” in which Vin Diesel apparently engages in a street race with a submarine, and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” which is going to be great so I won’t make any jokes about it. I’ll just say I’m kind of surprised to see these two trailers. I would have expected “Beauty and the Beast” buying ad time on this show instead.
*The commercial break is over, and Nick walks back into the living room, saying hello to his family and hugging everyone. Did I miss an edit? Wasn’t he just in this house with these same people right before he took Vanessa outside to walk her to her car and say good night, which happened, like, ten minutes ago?
*Cut back to the studio audience. The Ryan Seacrest/Chris Hardwick host mannequin takes an informal audience poll which widely favors Vanessa. This makes sense because the show is ultimately supposed to end in marriage, and of the two women remaining only one of them carries herself like an adult.
*Nick has one more date with each woman before he has to make his fateful decision. It seems like every time he speaks to the camera, he’s speaking in the clichés he’s already used multiple times in the past forty-one minutes. I can imagine what would be highlighted in a word cloud based on the transcript of this show: Love. Heart. Soul. Trust. Felt. Moment. Thank you. Life. Forever.
*Nick and Vanessa go horseback riding through Finland. She’s from Canada and acts like she’s never seen a snow-covered landscape before. They visit a tiny little cabin which seems to be the home of a character I’ll call Subtitle Santa, at least until he stops speaking in Finnish to highlight the authenticity of the setting, and starts using the smaller English words Nick can follow. After they enjoy Santa’s hospitality and pretend to appreciate the crappy little handmade gift he had for them, Nick and Vanessa find a campfire in the woods and sit down for a serious talk. Something still isn’t sitting right with Vanessa. She’s listening to her gut, and her gut is sending up warning signs. Nick tries to calm her fears, mostly by talking to her like someone who left his career as a social worker to pursue his dream job of writing Valentine-specific greeting cards. Is this show always so sad and dramatic? Did anyone ever have fun? It had to be more interesting to watch back when there were still sixty-plus women stabbing each other in the back when they weren’t taking turns making out with Nick. Because that is the reality TV template, after all. Not this maudlin crap.
*Nick and Vanessa continue their deep and troubled discussion later back in Vanessa’s cabin, which leads to more tears. How uncomfortable it must be to be one of two people lying on top of each other on a couch in front of a crackling fire, crying, while a huge TV camera only seven feet away is pointed right at you.
*The next day and we’re back with Raven. She sees Nick and runs up, jumping into his arms and wrapping her legs around him, just like Vanessa did the day before. I suspect there might be some kind of test during the auditions when the women need to prove they are physically capable of this maneuver before they’re given serious consideration as cast members. I mean, contestants. They both smile widely when they see each other, and the smiles seem genuine. Nick has smiled more in his first ten seconds with Raven than he did during his entire day with Vanessa, which means, according to reality TV bylaws, he of course is going to pick Vanessa.
*They go skating on a frozen lake, which seems like it’s supposed to remind the viewers of a previous date somehow? For the record, skating on a frozen lake isn’t great fun because lake ice is super bumpy, to the point where my sister actually dragged a garden hose down to our lakeshore one winter to try and…wait for it…flood the lake. It didn’t really work. Nick and Raven cuteskate long enough for Raven’s fans to get their hopes up, and then they find another wilderness campfire to sit by. Their fireside banter sounds much more like two people on their second date than on the verge of engagement. How long has this season been going on? How much time has elapsed in real life for these two to get to know each other? Nick quickly steps from the fire pit and soon comes back awkwardly carrying two or three large husky puppies, because they’re cute and I guess they have something to do with Finland and winter.
*Later that night it’s time for Serious Indoor Fireside Talk with Raven. It turns out to be more fun and flirty than dark and serious, which, again, of course means Vanessa will win. During their talk, Raven says the word “alleviate.” I believe this is the first four-syllable word anyone has used on the show. Props to Raven.
*Commercial break. A movie trailer for “Life,” which, to borrow from David Spade, was a great movie the first time I saw it…when it was called “Alien.” There’s also an ad for Wedding Day Diamonds, Minnesota’s favorite engagement ring store. Okay, this makes sense.
*And wouldn’t you know it, the very next scene when the show starts back up is someone knocking on Nick’s door, and it turns out to be a guy with a briefcase full of engagement rings. I’m guessing this ring guy is a series regular. When they’re done choosing a ring, he says to Nick, “I hope this one works,” seemingly referring to the relationship he’s about to pick. Not reassuring.
*Cut to Vanessa, listing her concerns about getting involved in a serious relationship. Cut to Raven, saying something about how she's been searching for real love her whole adult life. I'm sorry, but you're 25, which means your whole adult life spans about thirty-seven minutes. Cut to the iconic final rose sitting on some kind of a plate or a tray, framed like the golden idol Indiana Jones was going after in the opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
*Commercial. Ha! "Beauty and the Beast" trailer! Called it!
*Okay, someone’s getting dumped now. Time for the bloodsport. Raven gets out of her car first. Does this always signify she’s about to go? Is the first one he talks to always toast, or is there still some hope for her? Nick can’t look at her for more than five seconds and looks like he’s about to throw up. Now he’s crying. She knows what’s up, but stands there looking at him without betraying any emotion. No, wait, there’s a tear. Wow. That didn’t take long at all. Short and sweet. The actual conversation was about as long as their staged goodbye embrace must have been, so the camera man could run through the snow and film it from three different angles. Raven is driven away, telling the camera how she doesn’t know if she can ever find love. “I don’t know if it’s possible.” Please. You’re 25 years old! Not to mention drop dead gorgeous! If you go back to Arkansas and get a job at a sports bar, I suspect you’ll have at least nine marriage proposals by the end of your first shift. They might not all be winners, but the law of averages has to be working in your favor. I think you’ll come out of this experience just fine.
*Raven disappears down the road, and Nick is left standing there outside in his suit, looking like someone who had his car break down on the way to a New Year’s Eve party. He’s crying again. I’m not criticizing him for this; I’m a cryer myself, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I just hope the producers are keeping this guy stocked in Visine.
*The music gets all Hans Zimmer dramatic as Vanessa’s ride pulls up. Holy cow; she cleans up nice. Nick tips his hand right away with the tears and his “first time I saw you” proclamations, and soon the two of them are doing this nervous dual handholding thing that makes them look like two third-graders playing Mercy during recess. Finally he steps back, goes down on one knee, and takes the ring box from his pocket. He slowly and strategically opens it to make sure the name of the jeweler printed inside the box is aimed directly at the camera.
Because nothing says eternal love like product placement.
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