Should Bachelor in Paradise season 4 address its biggest flaw?
While this show is tremendously entertaining, it’s also at the same time deeply flawed with its premise. The whole idea of the show is to help people find love in a real and long-lasting way. Yet, you punish people who don’t find it or force it by sending them home at the first rose ceremony. You’re also counting on several fame-hungry people to dictate the sort of people that they want to date in the house, and obviously as a result of that, they are likely going to pick the people with the most Instagram followers or the biggest presence in Bachelor Nation.
Let’s look at the situation like this — if you are Robby Hayes, Corinne Olympios, or Raven Gates, you are guaranteed ultimately three or four episodes at least because it’s more worthwhile to contestants and the show to have you around. Meanwhile, if you’re one of the other contestants like Lacey (famous mostly because of The Women Tell All earlier this year) or Nick (best known for wearing a Santa suit during the first night of JoJo Fletcher’s season), you don’t have a great chance of being the sort of person who lasts a long time.
There are ways for the show to get around all of this and present a show more about love — some of them are rather ironic.
1. Introduce money – In theory, adding money to a show about love seems stupid. Yet, it may separate the people who are there for the wrong reasons from those who are. Give people financial incentives to leave rather than rose ceremonies, given that you may have some situations where someone actually does take the money over someone who is interested in them. It creates drama, and it wouldn’t up the show’s budget by THAT much.
2. Have equal men and women – If you scrap the current way in which the show is done, then you do create a situation where there is more of a level playing field and there are fewer contestants fighting with each other for a single man or woman’s time. It doesn’t hurt to have more of the same people around for much of the season.
3. Fewer midseason entrants – One of the big problems around episode 4 or 5 of a season is that there are some people who you effectively don’t get to know at all who have no shot of an engagement. Maybe only introduce one group of new people (think in the 4-6 range) at around episode 3, and let the people trickle out naturally or via money after that.
Bachelor in Paradise is a fun, silly show. It’s also a broken show that could be so much more than it is structurally. Let’s see if the producers change anything about it for this season, but it’s doubtful. (Photo: ABC.)