Natasha Frost weighs in on this week's episodes of The Bachelor NZ.
Photo: The Bachelor NZ
I’m beginning to miss Art Green. The kettlebells, the way he laughed a bit like a labrador might (if a labrador could laugh). His extensive knowledge of high-end cereals.
Four weeks in, Jordan Mauger is beginning to feel a bit like a consolation prize. It might be the on-screen persona: somewhere in between your least favourite person in middle management at work, and “Dad”. It might be the dates - watch Jordan drive! Can’t swim? Jump off a boat! It might even be the way, volcano or no, he fobbed poor old Fleur off without dessert.
But perhaps I’m being unfair. There are many more weeks to go on The Bachelor, and #thebachelornz is still sitting pretty at the top of the ‘Trending: New Zealand #hashtags’. Maybe it suggests that we’re still all watching, if only to tweet about how poor it is, wonder aloud when the double eliminations are going to kick in, or whether they really are in Hawaii. (#wairaraparepresent.)
The fact remains: there is so much about the Bachelor we don’t yet know. The man, and the programme.
I like to imagine that it is filmed almost exactly as we watch it - that as Naz says something biting and unpleasant, a team of trained Romanian knife-sharpeners leap to the ready, just out of shot, and start honing their blades. Swish! “She doesn’t deserve to be here!” Slash! “If I were Jordan, I would pick me!” Screech! So too the string quartet, who, like silent-film-accompanying-music-makers (I feel there’s a proper word for this) before them, respond to the mood (sad and wistful; grateful for a trip to Hawaii even if there was no chemistry; hot’n’heavy) as it happens.
And the interviews: Jordan leans in for a kiss, and scarcely have his lips left Fleur’s before they’re both whisked away to separate director’s chairs and grilled. And if they don’t answer the question properly, they’re asked again, and again, before they’re allowed to go in for an extra smooch for camera three. It’s romance, Gestapo-style. “No, but how do you really feel?”
Little surprise Jordan keeps repeating how natural and relaxed it all is.
But there are many other questions about the show, which I feel its producers owe the New Zealand public an answer to, ideally in a montage form. What do the girls do when they aren’t pashing Jordan and being praised for facing their fears? I imagine Naz furiously deadlifting and squatting, Fleur eating stroopwafels and hagelslag, Shari getting on a bus (not sure why, she just seems like the kind of lady who takes public transport). Storm looks mournfully out across a window, like grey clouds approaching over the hilltop. Rebecca adjusts her footnotes.
New Zealand has other questions too. Many viewers still can’t tell most of the girls apart. (See below for a handy continuum which may help with differentiating the blonde smorgasbord, one through six.) And why is Naz still there? Are 20 pets too many, Alicia? (Yes.) Where do they get their spray tans done, and how regularly? Do I have to start a fire to get Danielle to be my friend?
Photo: Unknown
The man himself is still shrouded in mystery. He stands in the moonlight. Navy blue blazer, beige chinos. Barkers (I think). Rain bucketing down, he paces across the lawn. Back, and forth. Back, and forth.
Voiceover (script says ‘with emotion’): “I’m here to find someone. That’s why I entered into this, and that’s why I want to know everyone. But if someone takes too much of a back seat, then I’m not going to make those connections.”
Who writes this stuff? And will there be no end to the driving metaphors? Ironic, really, that the person accused of taking too much of a back seat (seeya, Lara from Rotovegas) should have won the car-riding competition.
Jordan may be here to find love, but despite ample one-on-one time, I’m yet to feel a connection with our hero. Sorry Matilda, it’s time to #bringbackart.
Going home: Nicole (sob), Lara, Danielle.
Pick to win: Rebecca - runners-up Storm and Ceri.
Single Date: Gabs, Fleur, Ceri.
In trouble: Time to ring the petsitter - twenty bucks says Alicia’s heading home.