ABC's, The Bachelor can be many things; surprising, however, is not one of them. Finally ending what everyone has known for an eon, Bachelor Matt Grant and his ersatz-fiancee, Shayne Dalai Lamas, have apparently grown tired of having to explain to reporters why they are always in someone other than each others company and announced that they are indeed Splitsville!
Thank you. As you were told here by your humble pirate when this travesty ended, this sucker was faked from the get go. The Dalai Lamas, looking more and more like the potted-palm plant-job that she was, apparently got what she wanted out of the deal: the chance to pose scantily-clad on numerous, crappy Men's Magazine covers and the delectable attention she so obviously craves. What does British dweeb Matt Grant get out of the deal? Well, since he obviously spilled to the reporter first: he gets to blame her. The story says she dumped him via cell phone and he is reported to be "devastated." Sure. He's probably devastated he has to take his skinhead-looking ass back to merry Olde England and get a real job.
Anybody feeling "devastated" by their break up needs some medication and a nice, safe rubber room to sleep in. (They also need to contact me so I can sell them some swampland.) The only thing remarkable about any of this is that this version of the Bachelor signaled the moment when Producer Mike Fleiss moved from trying to stage the show to actually staging it. The early years of the Bachelor, when Satan Fleiss was but a lad in the land of reality TV manipulation, actually had some sense of realism. True, this now makes 10 of 11 Bachelors who have dumped their sweeties, but those earlier ones actually made some pretense of giving it a go. Well that all stopped when Brad Womack made his heroic stand and dumped everyone. ABC had just come off a banner year when Lt. Andy Baldwin, (now revealed as a world class douche) dated and picked Tessa Horst. That romance was still supposedly on-going when the Womack debacle occurred. One supposes ABC was less than thrilled and Fleiss panicked. "No more Reality!"
You see, Fleiss is actually a kind-hearted person with sound judgment. Remember that on the night Brad Womack dumped Jenni Croft and DeAnna Pappas, leaving both women in tears and at least one them(Pappas) psychologically scarred, Fleiss' idea of "funny" was to the end the show with Womack sitting on his couch eating a Subway and watching TV. While Bachelor America gnashed its teeth and damned Brad Womack to hell; Fleiss thought it would be a riot to show Womack eatin' a sammitch and watching the boob tube. (Thankfully, mercifully, ABC stepped in and stopped him). How can we doubt the priceless judgment of such a man?
Well Fleiss learned his lesson: No More Reality! Rumors in the bloggersphere hint ABC is considering shelving the show. Others counter than since the Bachelor still gets good ratings that that will never happen. But it's happened before. Most of you are probably too young to remember 1969 so I shall provide a lesson: At that time CBS had a load of top-rated shows--many of them in the top 10 but they were all hick-coms; in other words, shows about Hillbilly's. You may have heard of several of them: The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction. All of these shows were in the top 15 at the time of their cancellations. CBS axed them because they were embarrassed. Do you think ABC execs are embarrassed that their flagship dating program has become a joke? Maybe, maybe not but one thing is certain: This show needs to be desperately re-tooled. It needs to actually try and fulfill the premise it was supposed to meet in the first place. If you had a show that actually showed interested people falling in love and committing to each other instead of Hollywood wanna-be's and desperate fame-whores trying to pimp careers, this show could run until 2100. Ever heard of Romeo and Juliet? Love is a universal theme just like Shakespeare knew.
ABC has an easy answer too: FIRE FLEISS! Give Lisa Levenson a shot or hire someone else who will recruit people off Match.com instead of MySpace and give us back some "reality."
I'm for it.
Argh!
Who's Down with B.I.P.?
8 years ago
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