HAVE I OFFENDED THE GODS? Why? Why on earth are they filming a reunion show already? Please tell me that they aren’t planning on resurrecting one of the contestants that got ditched. How low would your self-esteem have to be to allow yourself to get publicly ditched not once, but twice? How much more public humiliation can one show deliver? If you aren’t following what I’m raving on about then perhaps you have missed the ‘hold the press, news flash, breaking right now’ announcement that there is some kind of reunion special. #IwillDie. I’m so excited by this news that I might just go put my head in the oven. Bugger. It’s electric. May as well spray it with toxic chemicals so I can chip off the feijoa, pear and ginger crumble. It boiled over. It was delicious but far too sweet. Now it’s just a hot, sticky mess.
There are only three lady girls left to choose from for him now. I was assuming only two more blogs. You know what they say about assuming, right? That’s The Batchelor; making an ass of u and me! Only three contestants left but it’s true he has a connection/boner for all of them. Whoever will he choose? Alysha will get sent home tonight foreshore. Let’s be honest she is from Invercargill and she has done well to be kept on the show this long but it isn’t like she was ever going to win. I mean Invercargill. It’s more expensive to get there than a hundred warmer and more exotic locations. What can Invercargill offer our Paleo Prince apart from Tim Shadbolt and Marcus Lush? After the series Arty is going to want to be mixing with the elite. Your Hosking’s and your Henry’s and other likeminded males.
I read in the Sunday Herald this weekend that there is a man drought in NZ. We have a shortage of blokes with brains. Initially I discounted the article because it was in the Herald but then I thought about The Batchelor and figured maybe there was something to it if Arty is the best we could drum up. He hasn’t said a single interesting or informed thing throughout the whole series. Maybe I’m wrong and the editing suite floor is littered with words of wisdom and inspiration. Yeah nah. There is a man drought with an attached brain drain. There is no other feasible reason for the selection of Arty.
Tonight they are off on fantasy dates. These lady girls have made it down to the final three. It is time for the show to pull out all the stops and send them to the most romantic location on the planet. Will it be Paris, Venice or maybe Niagara Falls…nope …it’s the Gold Coast. They are off to Surfers. Good grief. Surfers makes Invercargill look exotic. Nothing says romance like thousands of families on a package deal and a theme park pass like the home of that other kiwi classic, The GC.
Here’s what happened on the fantasy dates. Danni went surfing, ran around in a bikini, got in a bath, pashed heaps and stayed the night but without sex. At least on camera. Arty said he wasn’t keen on getting more physical because of the other women but I tend to think it has more to do with the BSA. Danni also pointed out to Arty that she is a Cancer and he is a Taurus and they are compatible. Well stop right there. Why even continue? If the stars are aligned like that I think you will find we have a winner!
Then Arty went on a date with Matilda, the one with the gammy arm who keeps changing casts to match her frock. They realise that Surfers isn’t Venice but go punting in a gondola anyway. So stylish and sophisticated! Matilda doesn’t stay the night because she doesn’t want to look slutty.
The last date is with the super intense and increasingly desperate Alysha. I couldn’t tell you what they did on the date because I actually fell asleep. The Paleo Prince is swilling paleo friendly beer this episode and I think he tries to sound scientific, while sitting in a tub and talking about absorbing antioxidants and free radicals. The show is making me hungry so I eat another serve of crumble which is best served with a classic vanilla ice-cream. Technically I’m allergic to ice cream (it makes my arse swell) but I’m an emotional eater and this show makes me emo. I keep imagining Arty having accidents.
As dates on the Gold Coast go they couldn’t have been any classier unless they hired a stretch hummer, spent a night at Draculas and then got hitched at Movie World. The Batchelor NZ has really pushed the boat out tonight and done us proud on the world stage.
Then Arty dumped Alysha and banished her back to southland. She didn’t cry. She gathered what was left of her dignity, squared her tiny lady girl shoulders and didn’t end up like my feijoa crumble on camera. A hot, sticky mess, desperately trying to cling on where it isn’t wanted.
Good for her, but you know what they say, the show must go on. Only two left and I hope they manage to keep it classy. Tomorrow night they might even go to a casino!
I’m not sure guys with brains watch that show. In fact, I could barely stomach skim reading the first couple of paragraphs of your commentary. Not that it’s a poor commentary, just the subject matter is so trivial to the lives of people who have more important things to do/worry about.
Ditto, Schwen.
Even the promos on TV3 are stomach turning. The terms distasteful, exploitative, and superficial come to mind.
well done Kate you survived another week of this rubbish AND still managed a coherent and amusing review!your courage is inspiring.
Nice one K.D-D, perked up my day.
My daughter actually watched an episode to see how rock bottom TV can actually get. It sounds dire. Exposing weaknesses in society can be a good thing. From your point of view, Kate D., I hope its been worth it. I understand TV goes by ratings (money talks -the rest walks)… so I would think the most dismaying thing about all this is the amount of followers the program has. It would seem that feminism – and good taste -ism has a way to go yet. For the short term, I’m not optimistic. But … one day …
Surfers , unlike Invercargill is the warmer of the two . Therefore it gives F’Art and his ‘wench of choice’ an opportunity to get their gear off to show us the money makers . That is after all the only thing this show’s about.
I think ‘The Bachelor’s’ hilarious . It’s so weird and off colour it reminds me of those deliberately bad taste shows like ‘The Young Ones’ . Today ? Show ‘The Young Ones’ and there are many too stupid to understand the parody and think that’s how some students behave . Having said that, I live near Dunedin and some of the students there are a bit like ‘The Young Ones’ and good on them too. But I digress . ‘The Bachelor’ is so brilliantly distasteful, it is in fact brilliant. Have a joint , sit back , relax, and laugh your tits off .
Honestly, it’d be a grave mistake to take the show seriously . That’d only give you haemorrhoids .
Ha ha I totally agree with CB it is hilarious in its ‘DISTASTEFULNESS’ …Apart from everything else I don’t think our Arty has shown any form of wit throughout the show ..my god , his conversations are sooo cringe!@#
Thank you Kate Davis for perservering to entertain us further with your well written hilarity!! Hey you could wipe the floor of ‘Comedy Gala” as a stand up comic based on “The Batchelor”… pleeasse
I don’t watch the show myself, but I did have a good laugh at your age old comment that there is a man drought or blokes with no brains or whatever the latest bandwagon to junp on is. What you really mean is there are no nice single genuine guys that are rich and come from an important rich family. You only have to spend a little while on tinder or find someone before you see the pattern of all women wanting a rich man and nothing less will do. There are plenty of good honest men with a kind heart out there, just they are not millionaires. So I’m very sorry to say that your comment that there are no good blokes with brains is very incorrect.
Incorrect. I think the Herald article was rubbish as is the show. I’m dating & money doesn’t enter the equation. We didn’t meet on Tinder.
My life doesn’t revolve around money. You know your on a left wing blog, right? This isn’t kiwiblog.
Thank you Kate, it’s nice to know that there is at least one woman out there that wont let money get in the way..
Oh for goodness sake. Surely rather than completely dissing the show in its entirety, assuming Arthur is unintelligent and the women are women / girls, you could critique it?
I think you may have fallen into a very popular “reality TV is rubbish, nothing to see here” meme.
TV isn’t exactly a medium which encourages a display of in depth analysis. Sure, some documentaries can be somewhat well done, but if you want in-depth analysis of something read a book.
Let TV do what it does best, and don’t expect more. It reduces information to sound bytes. It’s not a good source of information (with few exceptions) but it can be reasonably entertaining.
The Bachelor franchise has seen a few marriages and children. It does appear to be a system which allows people to meet and fall in love. So it’s a reasonable conclusion to make that at least some of the people who go on this show are really hoping to find someone to love and live with for the rest of their lives. And some of us like to watch people fall in love. It makes us feel all nice and happy. Nothing wrong with that.
So instead of the snark how about a real critical analysis of this show?
It’s less racist than the American version. I’ve not calculated the ratio of non white women in the first group for NZ, but pretty sure it was more than 3 or 4. The American version normally has one token black, and maybe one or two token Latino people.
Clearly our culture is different from the USA. So far not one girl has left in tears. Why is that? It took them until I think episode 5 for the first kiss in NZ, in the USA version they kiss on night one or two. Why is that?
You don’t have to just offer a shallow bunch of snark. There’s actually some interesting cultural observations to be made here.
But this is snark! It isn’t a journal article. Go search a database if that’s what you are after. There’s no shortage of thesis written on this topic. Maybe try some feminst theory at the same time?
Frankly I don’t think my snark is that shallow. It’s all I the subtext.
🙂
It was sarcastic, acerbic, witty, self-deprecating, chock full of bon mots, and affirmed my deepest prejudices.
Top notch deep snark on a stick.
That’s an interesting assumption that I haven’t read and don’t understand feminist theory.
Your assumption is incorrect.
I think its rather ironic that your snark is so shallow, when you complain about the shallowness of the show you’re writing about.
This is completely my own opinion of course. Others may enjoy this style of writing and commentary. It’s my opinion that it simply adds nothing to the topic.
I disagree. TV is NOT a medium that restricts in-depth analysis. Nor does it necessarily reduce information to sound-bytes.
I think the problem is that you have accepted the status quo, the system run and debauched by the marketing industry. You have not known good, ad-free public TV. Now that we have big-screen HD TV, the medium could be brilliant, as good cinema in the theater used to be.
But we will not get it from current providers. TV has to be prised away from the grip of commercialism.
I will continue to disagree with your assessment of how TV is shallow. It alters our public discourse. It must be delivered within shorter time frames than that allowed by written commentary, particularly books and journals.
I refer you to Neil Postman’s excellent book Amusing Ourselves to Death for a full fleshing out of this idea, and a history of how public discourse has changed since the widespread advent of TV.
The format of the media we engage in can shape our culture. Television has done that since the 1950’s. The internet is doing it again.
Rose and I were watching it, I thought it had almost finished but only 15 minutes had gone by, like being trapped in some time warp hell, so congrats on watching almost all of every episode. I took the dog down stairs and threw the ball for him in the dark, he was confused but happy.
My question is; were there only blonde ladies in the show or did only the blondes survive. To be honest I couldn’t tell them apart except one seemed a lot shorter than the others and I think she got sent home
Mwahahaha! Excellent. My dogs haven’t enjoyed it either. The show is on at gym time so the dogs have had less walks.
There are only petite blonde lady girls. Anyone oversized or not white was ditched.
I missed a few episodes and was gutted to find out that Poppy had gone. She was the only redeeming thing about the show. I turned off in disgust – but before doing so, like Sleepy above, I couldn’t tell the ‘lady girls’ apart.
It’s like they’ve cloned the North Shore – look forward to a follow-up series like the GC called NS.
Anyway, it’s comforting to know that you and I have similar reaction to ice-cream – my arse swells so much that when I have armfuls of recycling to do, I can put two empty 2 litre milk containers on the arse-shelf when I’m going out to the re-cycling bin.
In fact, I have to be wary where I sit after a binge because one night I had to ring the Fire Brigade to bring out the jaws of life and extricate me from a swanky Eames chair at my sister-in-law’s house.
Thanks for sharing – we should start a support group.
OMG Poppy!!! If you weren’t,t put off her in the get go…although I happened to fall upon this hilarity 1/2 way through…well, I can,t help it if it programes straight after Campbell Live! and still eating my tea!
Anyway Poppy … Put any bloke off surely,on hearing her greet her mother with ” mumeeeeeee”…….please!
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