I have to think that the Bachelor is somehow (at least subconsciously) appealing to men because you have all these women vying for one guy’s favor. Very Henry VIII. 
The Bachelorette is weird to me in a different way.
I wish I liked it more because I know people who watch it!
Watch??? Are you kidding me? I not only watch, with my sons, either in person or long distance, but ds1 and were in a Bachelor pool this season with some former co-workers. He won, and I got second, but we both picked JoJo over Lauren B. When ds2 was in HS, we used to host watch parties for the premieres and finales each season for a bunch of kids. So much fun. Ds1 and I listen to the Juliet Litman podcast each week and love a weekly blog another cc mom told me about. I loved Ben because he looks like my ds2, who loves JoJo so much he said that he would apply to go on the show if he was older.
JoJo was not only incredibly hot, but she was the realist of all the contestants and avoided drama. Her skin color was an amazingly perfect tan. And she looked better in the water without all the makeup. Just stunning. I didn’t care for her finale dress. That red number from the hometown dates … Should be enshrined in some All-time World Right Choices Hall of Fame.
Lauren and Ben look sincerely happy. But I can’t wait for The Season of JoJo. Which begins in late May, I believe.
Yeah, I’ll be watchng.
I watched it in the first few seasons and then got tired of it.
My college aged daughter watches it every week. The first episode she spoiled it for me by telling me the winner.
I don’t like knowing the spoilers.
Spoilers were out by the first episode???
Oh, yeah. Reality Steve is on it. People report where the show is taping and what girls are on dates so people who want to know can. That was a controversy in our pool. One woman looked up the winners and filled out her bracket accordingly so was DQ’d. Duh, we all could have done that. The other thing ds2 and I didn’t like is that we had to fill out the bracket before the first show so all we had to go off of is bios. I didn’t like that. I’m a good reader of people, and I think I would have picked Lauren B over JoJo given the chance to see their interaction. As it is, I had the final three so I think I did a damn good job!
In a word, NO!
I have watched it for years with two, or more some weeks of my Ds. It is great fun in a group! I always read Reality Steve so know before the season even begins who it is who ‘wins’. I like knowing and being able to watch with the knowledge of the outcome and see how it affects the behaviour of both the man and the woman. It is usually pretty clear several weeks in who will be chosen. There are almost always signs. It is an entertaining show, a ridiculous concept but fun to watch. The fact that the vast majority of couples don’t end up staying together is no big surprise.
I liked JoJo a lot more in the ATFR show than earlier. She is clearly much more intelligent than she was portrayed in the show’s editing. One of my Ds picked her to win. She liked her a lot and absolutely loved her clothes and jewellery, recognizing a lot of the same brands she buys. The rest of us liked Lauren. We all found Ben kind of boring, to be honest.
All the girls were vulnerable, to a degree, but some of them were vulnerable in fake, scripted ways. I think JoJo really was vulnerable. She really had been hurt by past relationships and she really was afraid to open up her heart to Ben. But, she couldn’t help herself. They don’t call it “falling” in love for no reason. You can’t help it sometimes.
She tried so hard to not to fall for Ben and yet she did it anyway. And then her worst fears happened. She was literally shaking in the season finale. That wasn’t scripted. That wasn’t fake.
I can’t compare Ben to previous B’s because I didn’t watch more than thirty seconds of previous shows. But, form what I can tell, he was a huge improvement over previous B’s that probably looked amazing in a suit but had the charisma of a fish. I am guessing. He was clearly a sensitive guy, you could play a drinking game based on how often he cried, geez, get him a tissue again, for God’s sakes, but that was one of the reasons the ladies seemed to like him. He was in the trenches with you. He was crying too.
Thanks for you thoughts!
I used to watch the last 10 minutes of the show years ago with my kids. They were about 6, and they’d take a bath and be ready for bed, but they liked to see the dresses and vote on which dress should get a rose. I didn’t want them to watch the dates, even though back then the show was much more PG than PG-32/R. Originally, the show was only an hour and that was plenty.
I see it sometimes now, but can never keep the group straight until there are only 5 or 6 left. This season they made it okay that I couldn’t tell them apart because they were all named Lauren/Laura.
I don’t watch TV and thus I don’t watch this show. However, I saw one episode one year (yes, with my older D), and so I know the gist of the show. And I can see how it might be entertaining or how someone might get hooked on it.
Anyway, I just can’t get into the concept. A guy picks a woman out of 25, but the women are not getting to pick the guy (other than they chose to be on the show). Yes, there is the Bachelorette, but my point is the same in reverse. How do all these women even know they like this one guy? He gets an array to pick from and they don’t. That is not the real world. Further, I find it kinda weird that a guy can be dating so many women at one time in a romantic fashion (not just a single date with each one, but multiple dates with many of them). Yes, in the real world, dates overlap in an initial phase of dating and meeting someone, but I like to think about 6 dates or so into it, someone’s not also 6 dates into multiple other people too. The whole premise to me just is not really like life. Besides that, I would think a date situation would feel someone stilted knowing it is being filmed and watched by others. Still, I can see how the show might be entertaining.
Anyone who actually thinks contestants fall in love on these shows or that anything else remotely authentic occurs on them needs a shower, a nourishing meal, a nap, and then total immersion in the first season of “Unreal”, a terrific series that purports to show what really goes on behind the scenes on a Bachelor-style reality show. Granted the show is fiction, but I think it’s a healthy antidote to the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises.
Of course it isn’t reality! No one pretends that this is how ‘love’ should happen. And in most seasons, it hasn’t. The couples split up after a few months and go their own way. The couples who have progressed to marriage are still together and a few now have children.
I realize the show is not realistic or doesn’t mirror real life. I think a more realistic premise or situation would be if the show had 25 women and 25 men and dating one another until some couples emerge. 
@ #33
That and if there were no unlimited budgets. Gee, no, now that you mention it, I don’t normally fly my dates in on a helicopter to a remote private island for tea and crumpits. Maybe have the “middle class” version of dating.
You’re talking about Bachelor in Paradise, which I have never watched. They take a bunch of the losers from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and throw them together for drama, sex, and tears.
Now now, Cinderella just had one dance with the Prince and it was off to The Vegas Chapel for them.
I find the premise gross and not at all “solid.” 25 ladies waiting breathlessly in line to get a rose from some random guy the casting director selected. “Pick me, pick me!”
Um, no.
Yup, the idea of tons of people vying for the same guy/gal at the same time and willing to do “what it takes” is unappealing to me as well.
I haven’t watched any of the previous Bachelor/ette seasons, but I did end up tuning in to the last 30 minutes or so of the finale. I thought JoJo was drop-dead gorgeous, but I found myself cringing and wanting to correct her grammar so many times. And I’m in the camp of those who are uncomfortable with the concept, even believing that the entire thing is completely scripted. (I did wonder, though, if Ben was caught off-guard when his hometown pastor made his appearance – he had a truly believable deer-in-the-headlights reaction.)