The Bachelor 2018 promo tries hard to spin the Arie Luyendyk Jr. narrative
In the video below (via E! News), you can get your first glimpse of Arie as the new leading man for the series alongside a new slogan: “Hearts will race.” Yep, we all saw that coming. One of the reasons we feel like ABC has been so eager to get Arie on board the show in this role is mostly so that they can continue to push his occupation as something that is new and exciting. It does make him a little bit different from the standard lead, and to go along with that, it also does make him a little more similar to the leading men from the first few seasons of the show back when they all had some sort of extraordinary job and there was a reason for them to be sought-after.
The other thing that this video really pushes is this whole notion that Arie is popular and is the man who many people out there were actually seeking to be the leading man … something that is not actually the case at all. While we do think Arie has always had his fans and champions, there were two consensus picks going into the past few weeks: Peter Kraus and Wells Adams. If you look beyond those two, then maybe you’ve got some other people like a Ben Zorn or an Eric Bigger who had their fair share of fans. (Here at the CarterMatt office Wells was the pick.) We don’t think Arie was really on anyone’s radar, and this makes him the second straight choice for the lead that is somewhat of a surprise. Arie’s going to be competing for the hearts of a wide array of different women, and filming will be starting before the end of the month.
There’s one big question that ABC has to wonder about between now and then: What are the ratings going to be like? Is the gimmick of Arie driving around going to be enough to get casual fans of the show to tune in? We do think that there’s going to be some struggles convincing some of the diehards who were rooting for Peter or at the very least Wells to have the gig. Personally, we just don’t know quite what the merit of getting Arie on the show right now is going to be other than that producers and the network couldn’t collectively decide on anyone else being the right choice. Time will tell, though, as the new season of The Bachelor is going to be premiering on ABC in January.
Does this Bachelor 2018 promo have you excited … or unenthused?
Be sure to share some of your thoughts on the matter now in the comments! Meanwhile, be sure to visit this link in the event that you do want to score some additional insight now when it comes to the Bachelor in Paradise finale and the engagement that happened there. (Photo: ABC.)