Anyone who follows this blog knows I’m a big fan of high-quality content. Beautiful shows, movies, larger-than-life superhero experiences, and well-created videogames.
But sometimes I just want something easily digestible. Something that makes me laugh because it’s absurd. Something low maintenance that lets your brain unfocus for an hour or so.
That’s where my love of reality TV comes in, and in the newest season premiere of the Bachelor AU, Australia makes its first foray into a threesome of bachelors. That’s right instead of one mediocre man, we get three men who the nation has not yet decided to hate or not.
Thomas, Felix and… Jed are all out looking for love in a brand new format that brutally shakes up the old Bachelor format and throws it out the door.
Gone is the first night of women hopping out of limos, doing whatever they can to make an impression on the Bachelor. This time the three men went on blind dates before the new mansion was even opened up. With 10 roses they go on what seems like hundreds of dates.
There are the basic ones, where ladies have prepared a nice meal or drinks at a nice place. But the things I will remember are tantric yoga, ice skating, and the simulation of a human birth from a very creative medical professional vying for Felix’s attention. And SHE didn’t get a rose. That’s right, the bachelors don’t have, what Jed calls “Golden Tickets” for everyone, which means there’s a lot of rejection. It starts with Jed getting a no and then spiralling, not giving out any roses for about ten dates, and then finally getting into it. Thomas and Felix get a better hang of it, clicking with some but not with others.
The big sell for this season is it’s turning all the tropes on its head. Supposedly, and the trump card is how different each of the guys are. There’s Felix, your TYPICAL bachelor, bleeding heart, six-pack abs, and a love of sports (cue the highly physical single dates all season.) There’s Thomas, whose accent I can’t quite place, who is even more emotional and granola than Felix, into breath work, and yoga etc. Then there’s Jed, or “Machine Gun Jed” the tatted-up drummer who is more guarded but is also more bombastic. All that is to say, as the bachelors usually do, they will be revealed as the same kind of guy, the same kind of meh, but for the moment I am intrigued by them.
Osher, our beloved, lovely host reveals a very important thing at the start of the episode. The men aren’t just looking for a match, they’re looking for marriage as they are all handed personalised engagement rings. So we are creeping into Married at First Sight/Love is Blind territory. Clearly, the producers have been taking notes and want to capitalise on the success of those formats. Because that’s what it feels like, a totally different show than the Bachelor in its previous form. They’ve given up their tacky Sydney mansion with its courtyard and fairy lights and replaced them with a glitzy Gold Coast shag pad straight out of Love Island.
So yes, there are a lot of changes. But is that bad? Not really, because these changes fostered one of the strongest season openings this franchise has had in a while. I snorted, cackled, and stared agape in horror at times but it was entertaining. Whether it was a contestant with an outlandish blind date (Body painting anyone?) or Jed’s initial spiral into madness that saw him destroy several women, there were so many great ups and downs in this premier that I have to admit how much fun I had watching it.
While we don’t know exactly yet how the season goes, which bachelor will turn out to be the biggest disappointment, or which girl will be labelled on Twitter as the “Stage 5 Clinger”, we do know we’re up for something fresh, and something entertaining. While I’m probably not going to review every night, I’ll definitely be watching, and if you like soapy TV trash, so should you!