THE BACHELOR

Today I move away from the seriousness of the law to the triviality of network television.

Last night I saw a train wreck of a show called The Bachelor. Actually, I only watched about 40 minutes of the program. It’s pretty horrible. I don’t plan on watching it again.

But first: where does this show come from? It seems to be a blend of a television show from decades ago called The Dating Game and the current, immensely popular, American Idol.

The Dating Game was also pretty bad and it worked like this: A bachelor would ask questions of three bachelorettes who were hidden from his view by a screen. Based upon the answers, he would choose one of the three and they would go on a date to some exotic location. Sometimes the roles were reversed and a bachelorette would have to choose from among three bachelors.

On The Dating Game, the questions were usually lame and designed to evoke mildly suggestive responses. For example, a bachelorette might ask, “Bachelor number one. If I were a fish, what kind of bait would you use to catch me?” And then bachelor number one would have to show that he was on his toes by coming back with a provocative and titillating response.

The Dating Game also made a big deal of announcing that the dates of its winners were chaperoned. And so I developed this mental image of the bachelor and the bachelorette occupying different hotel rooms while an armed chaperone patrolled the hallway preventing any late night booty calls and a resulting network scandal.

Of course everyone is familiar with American Idol. That show features genuinely talented young people performing song and dance routines, with the television audience paring down the numbers on a weekly basis until finally there is only one person left. That person is then crowned the new American Idol.

But now back to The Bachelor.

The premise of the show seems to be that a bachelor dates a throng of different women, but each week must eliminate some until only one is left. I learned this morning that the show is supposed to culminate with an actual marriage proposal.

But frankly, I found the show to be offensive. First romantic relationships are important and should not be forced or trivialized. Second, the show was demeaning to women. I mean here is a guy who has his choice from among many attractive partners and I don’t even know how he remembers all of their names. On the other hand, the women have to vie for the attention of just this one man. And vie they do.

These women then go out on little dates with the bachelor and they are followed around with cameras and sound equipment. These dates typically culminate with some predictable dialogue about whether there has been “a connection.” The dates also end with some of the women looking weepy and desperate.

But the show itself culminates with something called “the rose ceremony.” The women are all brought together in one room and the bachelor is given some roses to hand out to them. The problem is that there are fewer roses than women. So one by one the bachelor will hand a rose to a woman, the significance being that the woman will return for another round of dangling. Finally there are only three women left but just one rose. The host of the show passes the rose to the bachelor and makes an announcement that “this is the final rose of the night.” The bachelor then gives the final rose to one of the three remaining women, which means that two are about to be tossed off the ship. But the bachelor, forever the gentleman, says his fond goodbyes to the non-rose women. He is very polite and proper, tells them about how they are good people, how difficult it was to choose and blah, blah, blah. The losers then go off crying. I would have preferred to have one of them slap the bachelor in the face and tell him that he can keep his freaking rose. But nobody seems to have a thick skin on this show.

It also occurred to me that these twenty-somethings just didn’t seem to have much practical knowledge about relationships. They are not old enough. They have not been around the block.

Perhaps the producers should develop a spinoff of The Bachelor called "The Ex" in which all of the people are older, divorced and have returned from the front lines of failed relationships. Now that is a show that I would watch at least once.