Let me be the first to say that this season of The Bachelor could have been amazing. Instead, we got a show that forgot what it was. I have never produced reality TV before, but something tells me that production under certain pandemic restrictions was hard. Today, I kind of want to talk about the four major pillars of any Bachelor/Bachelorette season: The lead, the cast, the production, and the romance. With that in mind, these are the metrics I will use to rate the show overall.

Last year, shortly after The Bachelorette was announced, we were finally graced with the announcement that Matt James would be the new Bachelor. I kind of looked at my phone, and thought: "Hm ok this is new". Most people were excited for someone new to be the lead. That is to say: He had never been in The Bachelorette. After Peter's season, production probably had to take a step back, and change things up. As the viewer, we are hungry to know Matt James' story. What has he lost? What is he looking for? What makes Matt James' clock tick? With all of that in mind, production is also burdened with assembling a great cast of women to complement our lead. The big question is: Did production give Matt his moment to shine?

No, they did not. One of the major driving factors of any new season is that the contestant from the previous season has something called: experience. In any season of the Bachelor, the lead is the centre of everything. For at least the first five episodes, Queen Victoria has more footage and story than the lead. Matt James, the lead, had less screen time than Victoria P. In fact, for the first five episodes, Queen Victoria, and the Mean Girls Crew were the stars of the show. After each of those women were eventually sent home, we were left with nothing. Matt's journey was just not that exciting. Production decided to cut a lot of character development scenes with most of the group dates. Production decided to show a version of Matt that was probably too boring and perfect. Also, Matt kisses with his eyes open, and that's weird. Matt was about as boring and basic as any Bachelor can be. Matt was too perfect. Matt faded into the background a bit too well, and for a lead, that's not a good thing.

That brings us to our cast for season 25 of The Bachelor. If the lead is horrible, at least the cast is good, right? Well, not really. The original cast from the first 5 or so episodes was not terrible. In fact, you can look at this in two ways. If the cast dynamic is entertaining, then we have a good cast. If the cast is relatable, then we also feel more invested. In the end, the production team decided to make Queen Victoria the star of the show. She got the best edits. She got the most screen time. She was the most entertaining part of the show. Her friends also happened to be some of the most interesting women on the show. After episode 5 or 6 when Victoria was eventually sent home, the show died. New women that had barely any screen time were the frontrunners. We didn't know the women, and we didn't really care who would win.

So the lead was a bust, and the cast was a bust, what about romance? Did we get any romance? Randy Jackson, I'll let you take this one:

There is really not much else to say besides the fact that there was little to no chemistry with our lead. Group dates were edited out of the show. One-on-ones were stiff. Most people gave up watching the show because there was nothing to see. That brings me to the reason this season was a mess: production.

ABC needs to shake things up in their production team. A lot of the problems with the show came down to editing and casting. Don't edit the show in a way that makes the lead look stiff and boring. Oh, and when you are casting the women, for the love of God check their social media to make sure they didn't take part in anything racist. I mean seriously. Rachel Kirkonell got cast and these idiots did not do basic (basic) research into her Instagram to see that she took part in an antebellum dance party. For those who don't know, Antebellum refers back to a dark time in American history before slavery was abolished.

Anyways, I think I'm done with the Bachelor franchise for a while. Congratulations to Mike Fleiss for creating the worst season of the Bachelor ever. ✌️