Grant Ellis, star of ABC’s “The Bachelor” this season, was stressed out. Narrowing his initial dating pool of 25 women down to two had been tough enough. But grappling with the dilemma of who he would chose as his wife was agonizing.
Working through his indecisiveness by the end of Monday’s finale, Ellis proposed to client services advisor Juliana Pasquarosa, breaking the heart of the other finalist, venture capitalist Litia Garr.
Ellis — the second Black male star of the reality series — wasn’t alone in facing a tough decision.
As the curtain closes on Season 29, “The Bachelor” franchise has a bad case of formula fatigue, facing a cloudy future after being rocked by a stream of misfires and controversies, including lackluster love stories, sloppy vetting, insensitive handling of contestants of color, charges of traumatizing contestants and, most recently, leadership upheaval.
When it premiered in 2002, the reality dating series was considered a novel concept, attracting millions of viewers at its peak. But despite maintaining a loyal base of Bachelor Nation fans during its more than two decades on air, the franchise has failed to keep pace with cultural shifts and fast-moving social trends.
Now, in the wake of a streaming revolution which has transformed how we watch television, and a new stable of provocative and sexy competitors, the show has been bounced from the ranks of elite reality series.
“Bachelor” host Jesse Palmer with runner-up Litia Garr in “After the Final Rose.” Though the series was a novel concept when it first premiered, its formula hasn’t evolved much over the years.
(Christopher Willard/Disney)
“‘The Bachelor’ has the most uncertain future it’s ever had, even in its early years,” said Andy Dehnart, creator of and TV critic for realityblurred.com. “I wouldn’t say that about any other longstanding broadcast reality franchise. Sure, there is declining viewership on broadcast, but ‘Survivor,’ ‘Big Brother,’ ‘The Amazing Race’ and ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ aren’t going anywhere.”
Emma Rose Gray, co-host of the “Love to See It with Emma and Claire” podcast, which recaps “The Bachelor” and other series, agreed: “The rise of dating shows that feel more of the moment knocked ‘The Bachelor’ off the very comfortable pedestal it occupied for decades. The producers haven’t been as nimble as they need to be to meet the moment we are in.”
Others are more blunt: “The quality of the show is not good,” said Ashley Tabron, a North Carolina high school teacher who started watching the show in 2017 when Rachel Lindsay made history as the first Black “Bachelorette. “It’s not that much fun to watch. I think it’s at a crossroads to keep up with the other shows.”
Illustrative of the decline is Ellis’ season — average viewership has hovered about 2.4 million, down nearly a million viewers from the previous season of “The Bachelor,” which featured professional tennis instructor Joey Graziadei.
Insiders privately acknowledge the difficulties and admit it’s time for a refresh and reset of the aging franchise. Producers have already put an indefinite pause on moving forward with the next installment of “The Bachelorette,” which usually follows a season of “The Bachelor.” (Announced during Monday’s finale, “Bachelor in Paradise” will air this summer and include contestants from “Golden Bachelor” and “Bachelorette.”)
A change in leadership will be part of the revamp. ABC and Warner Bros. Television, which produces the franchise, have remained mum after a report from Deadline said that showrunners Claire Freeland and Bennett Graebner would be stepping down. The duo took charge in 2023 after the show’s creator Mike Fleiss exited. According to a report in Variety, Fleiss’ exit came after Warner Bros. Television launched an investigation into allegations directed at him of racial discrimination behind the scenes; Fleiss denied the charges.
But instead of reversing course, Freeland and Graebner ran into their own difficulties in trying to make the show more inclusive and enticing. They were also accused by several staffers of creating a “hostile” environment behind the scenes, according to Deadline, but have denied the allegations.
In the meantime, other dating shows have caught fire. Launched in 2020, Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” has become a powerhouse, capturing the pop culture zeitgeist with its outrageous mix of surprise and unpredictability. The series focuses on a group of singles going on “dates” with prospective partners sight unseen in a windowless room, separated by a shimmering blue wall, in the hopes of getting engaged in just 10 days. Netflix also has other dating series, including “Perfect Match,” which features a mix of contestants from the streamer’s reality shows.
Contestants Madison Errichiello, Taylor Haag and Brittany Dodson in Season 8 of “Love Is Blind.” The Netflix show has captured the pop culture zeitgeist since it launched in 2020.
(Netflix)
“‘The Bachelor’ for years had the mantle of being the top headline, tabloid headline-generating and drama-producing franchise, but it’s lost that standing to ‘Love Is Blind’ and other shows on streaming networks,” Dehnart said.
“The Bachelor” had little competition when it premiered in March 2002. The show’s premise — a group of young single women all competing for the attention of one man who would propose at the end of the season — was an instant hit, attracting 10 million viewers in the first episode. That viewership skyrocketed to 18.2 viewers by the season’s conclusion.
The fairy-tale concept of romance and roses inside a tightly-controlled bubble proved irresistible for those viewers looking for escapist fare or an upbeat love story. The cast spotlighted attractive men and women, often in revealing clothes that showed off their toned and athletic bodies. The show traveled internationally to gorgeous locations.
While some of those attributes have carried over into newer dating reality series, compared to “The Bachelor,” they feature far more cultural diversity and participants of varying body size. The failure to become more diverse is a key component behind the franchise’s fall from grace, said Denhart.
“The show lost its way because of its failure to diversify over so many years,” he said. “By parading the same brand of white male year after year after year, it became boring. They’ve done a little bit better in recent years in finding new faces, but then did an absolutely horrible job of producing them and making outrageous drama out of racism and bad choices.”
To be sure, there have been significant bright spots for “The Bachelor” franchise in the past few years. “The Golden Bachelor” spinoff, which featured 72-year-old widower Gerry Turner dating a group of older women, was a ratings hit for ABC, drawing in millions of viewers outside the core Bachelor Nation fan base.
Joey Graziadei, Season 28’s Bachelor, with partner Jenna Johnson on “Dancing With the Stars.”
(Eric McCandless/Disney)
During Season 28 of “The Bachelor,” Graziadei won over fans with his natural warmth and charm. After proposing to Kelsey Anderson, he extended his winning streak by scoring the top prize on “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC’s dancing competition show.
Although host Jessie Palmer said that a record number of women applied to be on Ellis’ season, the former pro basketball player lacks Graziadei‘s star presence. Also, the women in his cast have not produced a clear standout who would be considered a strong candidate for “The Bachelorette,” if and when it returns.
“The issues are not with Grant — he is fine,” podcaster Gray said. “Grant is fine. He’s not the best Bachelor or the worst. This show has cast and made hay out of a lot of mediocre white men over the years.”
And unlike James, who in 2021 became the first Black Bachelor, Ellis and producers has pointedly sidelined his cultural identity. Aside from an off-the-cuff comment about his “struggles as a Black man,” he was not shown initiating or engaging in conversations with non-Black contestants about issues that interracial couples might face, such as religion and the raising of children, over the course of the season.
“Bachelor” viewer Tabron said the absence of discussions about race might be based on an overabundance of caution due to the numerous mistakes during James’ season. “With Matt’s season, the show really went headfirst into having difficult conversations, and then fumbled them very badly,” she said.
James’ season fell apart following an uproar over photographs that surfaced of contestant Rachael Kirkconnell at an antebellum South-themed party. Then-host Chris Harrison defended Kirkconnell in a combative interview with Lindsay on “Extra,” where she was a correspondent, which created greater controversy. Harrison eventually left the franchise after nearly 20 years. (James pursued a relationship with Kirkconnell, but the couple broke up when the controversy erupted. They got back together in 2021 before calling it quits earlier this year.)
Matt James, the first Black lead of “The Bachelor,” with Rachael Kirkconnell from Season 25.
(Craig Sjodin/ABC)
James later charged the all-white producing team of betraying their promise to show him as an accomplished Black man who had overcome many personal and professional challenges. Graebner said in an interview with The Times last year that the show “let Matt down” and that production resources had been established that were not in place during James’ season, “which went wrong on so many levels.”
Ellis was a contestant on “The Bachelorette” starring Jenn Tran, the first Asian female lead of the franchise. Although promoted as a milestone and a progressive move forward, her stint, which featured a near-absence of Asian suitors, has been labeled by longtime observers as the franchise’s lowest point.
During the live finale, a distraught Tran revealed that the man she had chosen as her husband-to-be, Devin Strader, had ended their engagement a month before the broadcast. Strader joined Tran onstage minutes later, and she wept as the footage of her joyous proposal to him was played back. Viewers accused the show of cruelty in making Tran relive her heartbreak on live television.
“There was so much goodwill coming out of ‘The Golden Bachelor’ and Joey’s season,” Gray said. “But the way Jenn was treated reignited the historic anger over the treatment of people of color. The audience felt, ‘We don’t come to these shows to see people get tortured.’”
After the finale, reports surfaced about Strader having been arrested in 2017 on suspicion of burglarizing the house of an ex-girlfriend. He had not informed producers of the arrest when he was interviewed for the show.
“Missing a past history that included past police reports is very, very concerning,” Gray said. “Are people safe going into this franchise? Women should be able to trust the casting department to be the last line of defense.”
Gray added that she felt there was still hope for “The Bachelor,” especially if producers inject more comedy and lightness into the franchise. “They really need to take this opportunity to really reset leadership, and think about what makes the show special at its core,” she said. “They need to have a little more fun with it. It needs a new life force.”
