28 seasons of the Bachelor. Are you kidding me? Do you think anyone and their mother back in 2002 when this all started ever thought for a second they’d be premiering their 28th Bachelor (and 48th season overall) last night in January of 2024? I certainly don’t. You probably had better odds of Fleiss being shit canned from this show for being a giant…oh wait. That happened. Well, you know what I’m saying. It’s pretty amazing if you ask me this show is still here after all these years. They’re like an old pair of socks. They’re comfy, they have holes in them, and they stink to high heaven. But hey, they’re yours and you feel at one with them. That’s the way I look at the Bachelor. Stinky, old socks. Or something like that.
You know how I’ve always said the first episode is usually always the same? I mean, it is, but last night they did try to change things up a bit. First things first was the show opening with a scene from the final rose ceremony in Mexico of Joey standing at the altar crying, there’s a rose on the table, we see a van driving away, and Joey walking back with production seemingly upset, and taking off his jacket. Again, we don’t know the context of what this was. I’m assuming they want you to think the final girl he chose dumped him and drove away. But just to me, it seemed like it was his final 2 girl who had just left, and Joey was sad. Pretty much like every other Bachelor who’s dumped his final 2 felt in that moment. But I don’t know the exact answer as to what the context was of that clip. If I find out, of course I’ll tell you. What I do know is I’m confident in the spoilers this season, so to me, what I care about is the end result.
Usually we don’t get to the limo entrances until about 30 minutes into the show. And usually we’d see every single woman exit the limo, walk to the Bachelor, say her intro, and say her goodbye, and walk into the mansion. Nope. At least not anymore. Within the first 5 minutes of the show, we were already at limo entrances. They didn’t spend a ton of time with the fluff piece on Joey. It was a quick glimpse back to Charity dumping him, him meeting with family, and boom, he’s in a limo on the way to the mansion. No talk with a former Bachelor the day before, barely any talk with Jesse, just boom! Right into it. Definitely unexpected but something I think I would give them an “A” for this episode.
Then they basically started killing two birds with one stone and that was they combined the women’s limo entrances with their intro videos. I thought it was a nice touch and a good time saver for them, but two things were executed wrong. 1) They only showed us 4 women with intro videos: Lexi, Maria, Kelsey A., and Daisy if I counted correctly. Usually 6-8 women a season get intro videos. And 2) the videos last night were shorter than usual. Maybe I’m off, but usually those videos that they used to show before the women made their limo entrances was around :60-:90 seconds. Last night seemed like they were only about :30 seconds. So props on trying to speed things up to give us more time at the cocktail party, but I’m not so sure on the execution of it all.
The other thing that’s changed, and it wasn’t just last night – it’s happened for a few seasons now – is they just flat out burn through limo entrances of women that don’t last long on the show. I don’t know what season it started, but for the longest time on opening night, every contestant on the show got a full limo entrance. We see them step out of the limo, walk to the Bachelor, and we see a convo between the two before they head inside. Now unfortunately for some women, you don’t even get that. Last night they had a run of 7 women – Chandler, Marlena, Starr, Talyah, Nat, Sandra, and Sam – who didn’t get their full entrance shown. Usually it was just them standing in front of Joey one after another, intermixed with a voice over and ITMs of Joey talking about what a great night it is. And look at those names. If I’m not mistaken, without going back through the spoilers, none of them last past rose ceremony #2. I think 5 of those 7 were gone last night. So sucks for them, but for the overall pace of the show, it helps them because it allows for more time at the cocktail party.
And lets be honest, I think last night was probably the most unimaginative group of limo entrance “gimmicks” they’ve ever had. It could just be a sign this show is moving in a different direction when it comes to the limo entrances and not focusing on it as much, which I commend them for. We’ve said for the longest time the gimmicks were getting old and tired. Much better to cut time from that so we can see more of the interaction inside, no? I’m telling you, having covered this for as long as I have, the fact that the limo entrances were all done around 30 minutes into the show is about 25-30 quicker than normal. So yeah, we got some extra time at the cocktail party with him interacting with women than we normally do. The Bachelor: 48 seasons in and we’re still trying to get it right!
