‘The Golden Bachelor’ Works Because It’s an Hour
In my capacity as Professional Bachelor Liker, I’ve had to justify my devotion to the tortuous franchise among my friends and loved ones. If Bachelor in Paradise is on while we’re on vacation, my family will make snarky comments about how ridiculous the drama is.
Whenever a former contestant is making the online gossip rounds, I get @-ed in the group chat to provide context, with a tone that implies: “Explain your silly garbage to me, a smart person who likes smart things.” For the last few months, though, everyone from my sister to my childhood best friend’s mom have told me how much they’re loving The Golden Bachelor. But why? Gerry’s story is lovely, though not uniquely compelling. The grandmothers of The Golden Bachelor aren’t any nicer to each other than the aspiring influencers of The Bachelor (who, despite the perception that the show is all catfights and gossip, often end the season as besties for life). As my esteemed colleague Kathryn VanArendonk pointed out in her review, The Golden Bachelor is nearly identical to The Bachelor in its format and framing. But there is one crucial change that makes all the difference for these new viewers: The Golden Bachelor is only on for an hour.
The Bachelor’s run times have been steadily creeping up since its first season of six hourlong episodes in 2002. For years it roamed the TV Guide as a 9 or 10 p.m. oddity, sandwiched somewhere between Dancing With the Stars and Jimmy Kimmel. Then, in 2008, everything changed. ABC brought back The Bachelorette after a three-year hiatus and moved it to a plum two-hour, 8 p.m. slot. The following season of The Bachelor got the same time slot and notably featured the first Bachelor to be pulled from its sister show’s runners-up. Thus, the Bachelor Industrial Complex was born. Cut to 2023, and Bachelor run times can stretch to a full three-hour prime-time block, with recurring contestants popping up all over the franchise. It’s simply too much Bachelor!
Those of us who’ve been keeping up with the shows all these years have become burned out on its endless, circular story lines. (Oh, Gerry’s in love with two women? Get in line behind every Bachelor since Ben Higgins.) It’s no secret the franchise has been in dire straits for a while, with ratings plummeting as shinier competition like Love Is Blind ascends. The Bachelor has tried to compete with those young upstarts by throwing gimmicks at the wall to see what sticks, like when they cast two Bachelorettes without really fleshing out what that would look like. The Golden Bachelor is one such gimmick; this gambit has seemed to work out for them, with Gerry’s premiere seeing the highest ratings for the series in over two years.
I get it! These new Golden Bachelor fans are just learning what Bachelor Nation has known for years — it’s fascinating to watch people try, and mostly fail, to find real love in a wildly artificial setting. But they’re not burdened with the daunting prospect of losing an entire evening to the same repetitive conflicts The Bachelor uses to fill its run time each season. At a sleek single hour, The Golden Bachelor moves its story lines along at a more palatable pace. It doesn’t feel like homework when I see a new episode pop up on my Hulu queue. In short: It’s an hour!
I worry ABC’s response from The Golden Bachelor’s success will be to make more Golden Bachelor. That is the wrong strategy! The solution isn’t to make The Golden Bachelor more like The Bachelor, with a Golden Bachelorette, Golden Bachelor in Paradise, Golden Winter Games, et. al. The solution is to make The Bachelor more like The Golden Bachelor. It is, presumably, the producers’ hope that at least a healthy contingent of new Golden Bachelor fans will tune in for The Bachelor when it returns in January. I have to imagine they’ll check out quickly if they’re expected to sit through two or three full hours of the same drama they just watched (in short form!) on The Golden Bachelor. The easiest solution to keep it from feeling like a slog? Trim the fat. Please.