I don’t really have a questions, just some unsolicited opinions! LOL!
First, I get what you are saying about announcing Joey 20 minutes after they had the break up talk, being awkward. Maybe they can work in one sentence to remind people it was 4 months ago. But, IMO, the ATFR is the perfect place for the announcement. It’s a 100# Bachelor Nation live audience and emotions are high for a runner up fans. Not announcing would have been very disappointing, especially with Joey being one of the most popular runner ups in quite a few seasons! I think almost every fan wanted him! He’s like a human version of a Golden Retriever! Later on GMA would not have the same impact! Also, they had 15 minutes to fill up! But it’s not like it’s the norm. They usually NEVER announce the next Bachelor on the Bachelorette ATFR. There’s still a month before filming begins it didn’t HAVE to be done. Plenty of leads weren’t announced on the ATFR. It has nothing to do with not wanting Joey as the Bachelor. I said for 2 weeks it’s probably gonna be him. It’s how they went about it I had more of an issue with.
Second, I had high hopes for Charity & Dotun making it after the show. Until the DWTS announcement! Except for Sean, that show is like the kiss of death for these couples! I hope I am wrong though! Zach & Kaity got it right! Go home and start a normal life!
Thanks!
Comment: I mean, actually for the Bachelorette side, outside of Gabby, who didn’t it work for? Trista and Ryan still married. Melissa Rycroft and her husband still married. Hannah Brown wasn’t with anybody when she was on the show. Kaitlyn and Jason’s breakup had nothing to do with DWTS. That was 2 years ago. So it’s really only Gabby’s. It’s more on the men’s side. Jake, Chris Soules, Nick, and, who else? Was it just those 3? Yeah, those relationships didn’t last very long after appearing on DWTS. Only Sean and Matt James seemed to have made it through.
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Steve, enjoyed your Bachelorette recap. Agree with you that it was bizarre that ABC didn’t promote the announcement of the new Bachelor.
Still, I have to disagree with you that “Everything about the Bachelor tease last night was botched.” Was it “poorly hidden”? Yes, if you really believe they went out of their way to hide it. I don’t. You are THE spoiler guy, yet you seem to think it’s a negative that Deadline and People gave major plotlines away — as if that hurts the show. I don’t think it does. I’m not saying it hurts the show. But I guarantee ABC wasn’t thrilled it was accidentally released early. If that was the case, they’d jus shoot their final rose ceremony in front of an audience every season, and we know they aren’t gonna do that. They go to the greatest of lengths to keep their final rose ceremony a secret. To have People spoil it by accidentally throwing a pic of Dotun proposing to Charity in a pic in a story about Jesse’s pregnancy, and it being gone within minutes, shows that someone wasn’t happy it was out, or they would’ve just left it up. Same goes for Deadline.
I read every RS column all season and know all the spoilers. I listen to your podcast daily. I watched the entire 3-hour finale knowing (most) everything in advance. That’s what fans of the franchise do, and I think production knows that. Yes, there’s a certain faction of fans that do. But there’s WAY more people that don’t follow every detail of the show and know spoilers than those that do know.
I don’t think Joey’s talk on the couch with Charity fell flat because he knew he was returning shortly. If the next Bachelor announcement isn’t made on AFR, when should it be made? I listened to Joey’s talk with Charity differently because I knew he was going to be announced in a few as the next Bachelor. That talk would not have gone better if he had no idea they were choosing him. Instead, ABC got to promote him by bringing him back. I liked it. As a fan of Joey and happy endings, I’m glad producers gave it to us on AFR. I didn’t want the night to end where I felt happy for Charity but bad for Joey, so I think the show got it right. That’s the thing. The Bachelor announcement has RARELY been announced on the Bachelorette ATFR because they’ve always had a month or two between Bachelorette ATFR and Bachelor filming. The next lead for Bachelorette is almost always announced on the Bachelor ATFR because they start filming that week. For the longest time, Bachelorette ATFR was airing end of July beginning of August, which is a good 6-7 weeks before Bachelor filming began, so there’s plenty of time where you can hold off your announcement, something they’ve done for years. But with the last 2 Bachelorette seasons starting July 11th (Gabby/Rachel), and June 26th (Charity), while their finales aired closer to Bachelor filming, there was still time where you didn’t HAVE to announced it on the Bachelorette ATFR. So to say “if not on ATFR, when should it be made,” all I’m saying is this is very new for them to do this, and it’s worked in the past to hold off until just before filming began. Not saying there’s a right or wrong way to do it. Just showing their track record with it.
This was a great Bachelorette season, a clear departure in tone from the Mike Fleiss seasons. Part of the reason is Charity, part is because she had so many great guys, and part is because production focused on “the right stuff” and didn’t create chaos and drama, I think it was one of the best seasons ever. I don’t disagree on that other than the double standard at the end of the show I find a bit weird, which will be discussed in tomorrow’s podcast with Game of Roses.
You’re much more critical of the Bachelor franchise shows than other reality shows. Maybe that’s because you care about it more. Obviously, your opinion is your opinion and isn’t wrong, but other shows don’t seem to get the criticisms that Bachelor shows do. I mean, you can criticize every reality show, because more and more stories are starting to come to light of what’s happening behind the scenes with them and how mistreated contestants are. Bachelor probably gets the most for 2 reasons: 1) there isn’t a reality show on TV right now that’s been around longer and 2) we’ve heard some of the major problematic things that have happened behind the scenes in regards to racial discrimination, body discrimination, sexual harassment, etc.
I’ll give you an example. I watched The Big D — on your suggestion — and did enjoy it. Still, I have so many problems with it. As you mentioned, it was weird the couples’ children were never spoken of. That’s not just weird, it’s a game changer, and I think production failed there. It makes no sense to keep that a secret — and obviously the people there were told not to mention their kids.
The last episode was botched when the editing of the final vote didn’t show us everyone voting. They tried to make it as if it was a close vote when we all knew who the final couple standing would be. Then we got screen crawls that didn’t tell us if they were crawls written in 2021 or yesterday.
Reading comments after the show, Casey and Ben clearly NEVER planned to make it work after the show. However, the show led us to believe they’d try. I don’t like being lied to. I heard your interview with Devon and Alexis, so their screen crawl was also really misleading.
I know Bachelor is your bread & butter and that naturally means you have more to say about it than a one-season show. I’ll be honest, though. I don’t think I’ll return for a 2nd season of The Big D if it happens because I don’t feel the producers were fair to the audience.
OK, I’ve rambled enough LOL. Thanks for listening.
Comment: I agree on the Big D stuff – to a certain extent. Angelique, Casey, and Dede didn’t talk about their kids on purpose, because they didn’t want to expose them. However by doing that, the audience was missing a big piece of the puzzle. Like, anybody that saw how Brooks treated Casey would be like why would she ever want to anything to do with that guy? Well, it’s because she’s tied to him for life with their son. Yes, I wish it was brought up more, but, I understand them not wanting to talk about kids on the show. It was their personal choice. I can’t wait for people to hear my interview with Casey coming up the next couple weeks. It’s one wild ride.
With that said, I don’t think it’d prevent me from possibly watching a season 2. The show was really good outside of the whole kid thing, and I thought it did a really good job of eliminating the stigma behind divorce.
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Steve,
I pay for Hulu without ads, yet somehow I was forced to endure to ever-annoying Grocery Store Joe and Serena Maybelline ad while watching the finale episode today. What’s with ABC/Hulu trying to force them and this ad?
Maybe I’m alone in this but I would be curious if any other readers felt annoyed having to watch that before getting to the proposal.
Thanks!
*And happy belated GOTCHA day to Luca! Such a good dog!
Comment: I don’t watch on streaming so I had no idea this was a thing. Sorry you had to endure that.
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Steve,
1. I listened to your podcast this morning. I agree there haven’t been enough women on DWTS because of Mike Fleiss but I think Melissa was also on DWTS right? Didn’t she go on after Jason rejected her for Molly? And she was also on the DWTS All Star Show? Well, Melissa wasn’t a lead, so Fleiss’ thing was he didn’t want his leads fresh off an engagement going on the show. Directly from Kaitlyn’s mouth as she quoted Fleiss saying that once. Yet he had no problem with the men doing it. There’s too much evidence out there (which definitely includes last nights Vice show) that stacks evidence against Fleiss of how much he favored men and what his stance was on women for a long time. And that’s a major issue the show dealt with for years.
2. I was watching Dotun and Joey meet Charity’s family and I had one question. Where was Nehemiah??? No one knows. Did he address it on social media yet?
3. I listen to the Game of Roses podcast and they have really been so complimentary of this season with Charity. I agree with them. I think she was a spectacular Bachelorette and the producing was better as well. They didn’t have to put down their lead or create unnecessary drama.
They also said Charity was not Mike Fleiss’ choice for the lead and she would not have been chosen if he was still there. Chad says he knows who Mike’s choice was but he is not sharing that information.
Chad and Lizzie are also saying they think that letting go of Mike Fleiss (and many of his loyalists who left with him) made a huge difference. What are your thoughts? Did you think this season was better than recent ones? Do you think Mike Fleiss leaving has made a difference? We talk about this on tomorrow’s podcast with Chad and Lizzie. They seem to think so.
4. I noticed there were no bachelorettes of color on the Men Tell All to support Charity. Rachel Lindsay told Kaitlyn that she had been asked to come on MTA but she turned it down because they weren’t willing to pay her what she felt she was worth. She had no idea why Michelle and Tayshia weren’t there.
Do you think they should have paid Rachel what she asked? Any thoughts on why Michelle and Tayshia weren’t there? Rachel wants nothing to do with the franchise. Michelle was relieved from her Bachelor Happy Hour show rather quickly, so it seems like she’s moved on from the franchise. And once Tayshia was dumped as a co-host after Michelle’s season, she hasn’t done anything in the Bachelor Nation world, so it looks like she’s moved on as well.
5. They gave Charity and Dotun a trip to Greece but I thought that was a lousy prize compared to the $200,000 Michele and Nayte got. Certainly you question some of these “parting gifts” the show is giving out. Pretty lopsided.
6. I look forward to seeing Charity on DWTS but I am a little concerned that it may be hard on their relationship. I heard an interview today with Extra where Dotun said he is moving to L.A. to do his medical work there. But still it seems many couples have broken up from the stress of the lead going on DWTS. Do you think it will be hard on Dotun and Charity?
Thanks for all the great coverage this season including your excellent spoilers. Much appreciated. You have kept me very entertained.
Comment: As mentioned earlier, that seems to be more of a Bachelor thing than Bachelorette thing.
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Hi Steve,
Observation regarding the last episode of Charity’s season. They had Dotun announce to her that she’s going on DWTS. For her part, she looked stunned and thrilled. But…
On Instagram about 10 minutes after that aired, the DWTS page showed a segment of Charity walking and saying how she is joining. The outfit she was in was the red jacket dress she work on MTA. So it’s one of a few things:
1) She really didn’t know (find that hard to believe since you have a contract)
2) She knew and they filmed her doing a slow motion walk weeks ago
3) She didn’t know and she filmed that walk, not knowing what promo they would use for outside the Bachelorette
I agree with you that Joey’s announcement seemed to fall flat and it was very obvious. I didn’t like their new shtick either with random women in the audience. They were really trying too hard on that.
I can’t wait for you to cover Golden Bachelor, but just like gold, it’s like Fort Knox getting any intel! I do have some mentioned in today’s Daily Roundup and on Page 1.
Comment: I honestly didn’t pay enough attention to that, so, my guess was it was #3 that you suggested.
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Send all links and emails to: steve@realitysteve.com. To follow me on Twitter, it’s: www.twitter.com/RealitySteve. Instagram name is RealitySteve, or join my Reality Steve Facebook Fan Page. Talk to you tomorrow.
