Bachelor Jake: Bring Back that Lovin’ Feeling

It’s that time of year again! Someone who got rejected by a reject of a reject of a rejected bachelorette is the new Bachelor!

I cannot wait for how ridiculously cheesy and ticky-tacky this season is going to be with the overkill of the “On the Wings of Love” theme (Jake is a pilot, get it???). ABC has really outdone themselves with the shots of Jake in a plane, Jake looking out over a sunset, Jake riding a motorcycle, Jake sitting by his motorcycle during a sunset as a plane flies overhead, and a lot of Jake without his shirt on. It’s like Top Gun times ten minus twenty cool points with a lot a lot a lot of desperate women. There is a lot of aviation overkill ranging from “I want to be your co-pilot” to “you can land on my landing strip anytime,” to any other cliché about flying that I wouldn’t be surprised if they fashioned the roses into tiny planes and had descendants of the Wright brothers remind Jake and the ladies that this is the final rose of the evening rather than Chris Harrison during rose ceremonies.

Let’s start with the women who I like because it’s such a short list. I’ll preface this by saying that I was very under whelmed by the selection of bachelorettes. I don’t know if this is an ABC thing or a preference of the bachelors, but where is diversity on this show? The girls had a blond vs. brunette football game (to show that they are just one of the guys too!!!!!) but that was about the only difference you could spot among this group of chicks. I don’t know, moving on. Other than all being pretty blah at first sighting, the girls all seem to be in their early- to mid-twenties and all have jobs relating to modeling or dancing.

All that being said, Ali is my favorite (wore yellow dress, gave him a peacock feather, afraid of flying). She seems down to earth, and I like that she is goofy enough/ enough of a lush to trip up the stairs and rip her dress on the first night. So far so normal and I am willing to look past the fact that she is six years Jake’s junior. Seriously where are the women in their mid-twenties? My other fave is Tenley (points for a cute name, non-skank dress, got first impression rose, kissed Jake). She seems super sweet and I like that she didn’t air all her dirty laundry on the first night (was a virgin until she got married, husband cheated, now divorced, has some issues). I hope Jake keeps these two for a while.

Ok, now for the rest of the train wrecks. First of all, I hate how in the first 30 seconds of meeting the bachelor the girls try to hook Jake with some stupid fact about herself or a trivia question and the only way he will find out more is if he finds them inside. A) He is going inside, he is going to have to speak to you b) he isn’t going to remember your name let alone your dumb conversation bait c) he is too distracted by your fake boobs and side poofs (what stylist said this was ok?) to know what you are saying. The best of the worst is a three-way tie between Michelle, Rozlyn and Christina (who I am going to call Xtina from here on out since she is a self confessed bitch and I think she would prefer it). Oh Michelle, you crazy crazy lady. She started crying after not getting alone time with Jake and when Jillian and Ed interviewed her they were blatantly laughing in her face. She has crazy eyes and the fact that her hair was a hot mess after the football romp wasn’t helping matters. Rozlyn looks like Jenna Jameson, which is reason enough not to like her, but if you need more look no further than her skankity model shoots from the opening sequence. She already seems to not really be feeling Jake so I don’t know why he picked her. Finally, Xtina, who brought bags of jellybeans for the other girls as parting gifts since she is going to win Jake. I know this is a reality show and there is one woman standing at the end, but she can at least pretend to not be an attention whore just trying to get on TV by lying and saying she is in it for love rather than to pull the other contestants’ hair for ratings.

I thought this season was going to be pretty vanilla since Jake was branded too nice for Jillian to keep around, but scandal is brewing! In the “coming up on this season of The Bachelor,” the sneaky editors show some screaming, crying, blah blah usual, but also Jake losing it and storming out of an interview, and some kind of outrage over a relationship that has crossed a line that has never happened in Bachelor history. They are trying to make us think that two of the girls become involved with one another, but my money is on that a girl starts getting frisky with a cameraman slash producer.

Who knows if it is my inner mean girl (probably), but I am willing to withstand the cheesy Jake stuff just to rip on these girls week after week, while of course rooting for Ali and Tenley. Until next time, (insert cliché flying pun here)!

Season 14, Episode 1 (originally aired January 4, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of ABC and Craig Sjodin.