If America's intelligence is still capable of being insulted, ABC's 'The Bachelor' succeeds

Our excuse for watching the show was that Ariel, a high school classmate of my daughter's, is a contestant

Aris Dervis

[Since I wrote this column a few weeks back Ariel has vanquished most of her opponents and made it to the final four]

So the first question, you might ask, is what was a late middle-aged man doing watching ABC’s “The Bachelor?”

Apart from that being ageist, and making you a mean person, it’s an excellent question. Before I answer, perhaps I ought to describe what “The Bachelor” is for people like myself whose network TV diet these days is largely limited to things like NFL playoff games, “Jeopardy!” and the “PBS NewsHour.”

It’s a TV show that’s marking its 27th season — who knew — and it’s two hours long. Can we linger for a moment on a network program that doesn’t involve breaking news such as the storming of the Capitol whose producers believe is so important that a national audience will sacrifice most of its Monday night.

The only way to explain it is that the average American doesn’t have much of a life and/or the network execs that debuted the program during the George W. Bush presidency were confident they’d never go broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

In essence, and in fact, “The Bachelor” is a “reality” TV dating show where two dozen exfoliated young women vie for the attention of a handsome hunk — please forgive the alliterative redundancy — who is eager to find a wife. I was under the impression that we’d moved beyond such sexist tropes but this show is a throwback to the days of the harem bath.

Now back to the beginning. Just to recap, that involved what I was doing watching “The Bachelor” in the first place rather than lounging on my living room couch, as I typically am during the 9 o’clock hour, raiding a box of Crunch ‘n Munch, while embarking on my third repetitive hour of liberal outrage on MSNBC?

The answer is that one of my daughter Gracie’s school friends, Ariel, is a contestant on this season’s show. I don’t have strong memories of Ariel except that she seemed a sweet girl and that her parents are Ukrainian. But considering that I have no memories whatsoever of some of my daughter’s other classmates, the fact that I do of Ariel perhaps suggests she was meant for stardom.

I don’t get the impression the girls have been in touch that much since they graduated, but that didn’t prohibit us from getting abnormally excited that Ariel, whom the show describes as a marketing executive, was competing to be bachelor Zach Shallcross’s soul mate.

Frankly, our family hasn’t had overly elaborate discussions about Ariel’s motivations for wanting to be on the show, though younger family members that are better versed in contemporary culture than I am posit that it had less to do with finding a life partner on national television than exponentially growing her number of Instagram followers. Apparently, one doesn’t need to further deconstruct a person’s motivations these days. Attracting thousands of followers and becoming an Internet influencer is an end in itself.

Unfortunately, Ariel didn’t get much airtime during episodes two and three — turns out I missed episode one — beyond a couple of make-out sessions with Zach. Wait, I can hear you say! Making out with The Bachelor sounds like serious stuff. I don’t want to disillusion readers but every woman makes out with Zach on a regular basis.

The way it works is that the contestant joins The Bachelor against some scenic backdrop and the couple makes meaningful eye contact. She tells him she feels a spark — perhaps from the previous time they made out — and looks for verbal affirmation that Zach is experiencing the same electricity.

Zach solemnly reiterates, in not so many words but sometimes in exactly so many words, that he’s more interested in finding a friend and a soul mate than a one-night stand — as if that exonerates the show’s creepy voyeurism — and then they smooch expertly for 10 seconds or so, though it feels a lot longer than that.

In real life, such episodes often escalate quickly. That doesn’t seem to happen on “The Bachelor.” Not even during episode three when Zach and Kaity, an ER nurse, spend the night glamping in a museum surrounded by dinosaur bones and elephant dioramas; though Kaity returns to her envious housemates in leopard print pajamas and with a look of dreamy exhaustion.

Nobody except me, apparently, finds it sleazy that Zach, or the stage crew, had already set up a pup tent before getting Kaity’s say so. So what if it contained twin beds and lots of candles.

I guess I can understand why the show must remain chaste, at least by Gomorrah-like 21st century standards. If the exercise generated something like actual electricity, and where that often leads, the season would be over. Kissing on “The Bachelor,” as well as a sleepover, seem no more consequential, let alone carnal, than a job audition conducted over a business lunch.

To the extent it’s possible to glean anything from these exchanges — Zach manages simultaneously to be all-in and politely noncommittal — Ariel’s sessions with him are nothing short of triumphant. I say that only because she does something that would seem virtually impossible given the show’s cattle call format: she manages to maintain her dignity.

At the end of episode three Zach presents Ariel, among many others, with a long-stemmed red rose. This is less a romantic gesture than a sign that she’s not being kicked off the show just yet. “Ariel,” Zach asks gently, “will you accept this rose?”

Ariel’s response? “I’ll think about it.”

That line of dialogue qualifies as subversive, bomb-throwing stuff. Will Zach ultimately be seduced by Ariel’s snarky sophistication or go for one of her more supine adversaries?

I’m rooting for Ariel, though I’ll have to learn her fate from Gracie because there’s no way that I’m watching the rest of the season.