Fans of Network 10’s The Bachelor won’t forget the 2018 series in a hurry. After an extensive search for a potential partner that eliminated all but two women from that season’s Bachelorettes, Nick “The Honey Badger” Cummins then went and dumped both of them in the final, admitting he wasn’t in love with either.
10 is now about to take the audience another romance ride as The Bachelor 2019 launches on Wednesday. The choice of Matt Agnew as the man looking for love seems a safer bet this year. Although 10 has indicated Agnew is aware of the challenges:
Not only is he an astrophysicist searching for Earth 2.0, he can also speak many different languages. Including the language of love.
As Matt says, “they’re not afraid to speak the language of love. If that’s the sign of things to come, I’ve got a really tough decision ahead.”
Network 10’s executive producer on The Bachelor, Hilary Innes, told Mediaweek that last year’s drama surrounding the climax revealed the show is very real.
“It reinforces for me that you will always find an honest love story on The Bachelor. We do want people to fall in love, but we are not going to force them to make it happen.
“The Honey Badger was very honest about who he would take to the finale and then very honest about not being able to make a decision. While I thought that was great, I wouldn’t be overly keen for it to happen in a second consecutive year!”
Hilary Innes
Innes has worked on four series of The Bachelor and three of The Bachelorette.
In answer to a question about if it gets any easier the more seasons you make, Innes explained: “It’s different each time and there are always fresh challenges. We always have to be on our toes and looking for ways to evolve the show. You are always looking to improve on what we have done. You don’t want to continue to deliver the same things to the audience, but you want to keep intact the elements they love about the format. We try to strike a balance on both those counts.”
Innes was in agreement with what 10’s Stephen Tate told Mediaweek this week about the importance of stepping away at times as a producer and letting the stories dictate where the program goes.
10 conducts a casting tour for The Bachelor every year and Innes goes on the road and also flies likely candidates into Sydney. There is a fresh bunch of Bachelorettes every year and no woman ever appears twice on the series.
“There is never any lack of willing participants, but it is much harder to cast The Bachelorette where men are much more reluctant to take part in a TV show.”
Not every choice is a great one, she admitted. “Some people in a casting immediately grab your attention and you think they will be good. Then on occasion when we are filming in the mansion they just don’t deliver like we thought they would. Similarly the opposite can happen whereby somebody else can organically evolve into their character and be great on TV.
“We are very even-handed with everyone who we audition and we give them plenty of time to get comfortable.”
When it comes to casting the actual Bachelor, Innes said it can be a very tricky thing. “In the US they always operate by bringing someone through the franchise who has either been a Bachelor or Bachelorette previously. We have done that twice and it worked. But then we have had people like The Honey Badger, who was very different to the others.
“We have tried various approaches. This year we wanted to go back to basics and we found a classic, unknown person who could help refresh the brand. He ticks a lot of boxes for a broad audience demo. We talk to lots of candidates, and we are always really looking for someone who has that elusive X factor. They also need to be relatable to the audience and the Bachelorettes. We really need someone who is just the most wonderful person.
“I am always very mindful that our female audience is very broad. The viewers range from being quite young to very old.”
As we spoke to Innes this week all the shooting had finished and The Bachelor was in post-production. 10 is now part way through shooting The Bachelorette. “It’s going to be a great year for both those series,” she said.