The Bachelorette begins

Ten have cruelly given Ali Oetjen only two blokes who are older than her.
What are the odds the 20 somethings will be ready to have babies with her?

Let’s hope our expectations of another lacklustre season are not met.
The first episode goes for 100 minutes.



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140 Comments

  1. Gee, they were promoing this heavily during “Survivor” last night.

    I think the season has an uphill battle, right from the get-go. Even if they didn’t know about the cheating story (and I personally would be tempted to dismiss it out of hand. Grant just seemed like a giant dick at the time, we all picked it), going forwrad with the season just sets up Ali up to be a season-long joke (a joke involving stairs and people being generally pantsless).

    Not to mention, they’re obviously using a clip from the finale (where Ali tells Osher, “I’m in love. I’m so in love.”), and hang on, hasn’t Ali said that exact same thing *twice* already? Not once, but twice?

    And even that wouldn’t be so bad, but coming literally days after Nick’s season (where the fundamental flaws of the franchise were laid bare, on that New Caledonian beach)? I do not see this ending particularly well for anybody.

  2. I am not going to invest too much time with her. So unlikely I will follow however I will check out the contestants tonight and if there is one decent likeable guy, I might reconsider.

  3. I’ll watch the first episode and only sporadically after that. I prefer to read recaps the next morning in 5 minutes (especially James Weir’s) rather than have to give up an hour of my time actually watching the episodes twice a week.

    She seems nice enough but rather ditzy. No depth, no substance.

  4. I think I’m gonna be as bad at this as Ali, because when Charlie walked up, I just pointed to the screen and said aloud, “Marry that one, Ali. Just marry that one and save us all months of this, and we can all go home now.”

    We thought they were scraping the bottom of the barrel with Sophie’s guys. And then this season seems to have happened.

  5. F.
    First episode in and she already lost me halfway through. She, and her potential suitors, are far too vanilla for my tastes. Meh.

  6. Half the guys on their own Instagram have photos of themselves shirtless, pulling down their undies or almost naked. You wouldn’t want to take them home to meet your parents.

    • That’s the same with the women on The Bach too! If you check out the women from this year, most have at least 100 shots of their bare bottoms in g-string bikinis and Cass makes up for those that don’t!

  7. God she is a idiot. I gave it a go, but she has no personality and the guys are fitting the usual roles –
    Charlie – another version of Sasha (sam’s season)
    Nathan and Paddy – another version of that model guy and the other guy who bickered during sam’s season
    Todd – his armour was plastic for crying out loud. My armour is even better (true story, I do have plate armour and chain mail and actual swords).
    Paddy is trying to get a catchphrase started for his “fame’ and magazine covers.

  8. I enjoyed that they we blokes were so thrilled to meet Osher. Urgh – so many crass guys. I fear the few with manners will not be her type.

      • Ali would fall in love with a cane toad if she thought it would get her more exposure.

        Mind you, a cane toad would put some of these guys to shame.

        I had visitors and they had to sit through it. The plastic armour got some laughs. Not to mention the plastic suitors.

        The dickhead poem was hilarious. Pre school standard.

  9. Is getting from bad to worse. DM must have these and published this just at the premiere of the Bachelorette.

    EXCLUSIVE: ‘I wasn’t even functioning, babe!’ Bombshell text messages surface hours before the Bachelorette premiere which appear to show Ali Oetjen desperately apologising for ‘cheating’ on her ex-boyfriend in LA

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6259601/Bombshell-text-messages-Ali-Oetjen-apologising-cheating.html

    Only if she has admitted and just moved on.

    • Oh, this is just messy and awful.

      You know, even if his version of the story is true, he still sounds like a total asshole, doesn’t he?

    • I wonder just how much spin is in that story?

      Either way, it certainly takes away her fairy floss facade. Eww. They’re both as bad as each other really.

      • And assumnig there’s any truth to the story, Ali must’ve told Channel 10 (or at the very least, gave them a hint of what had happened), but they still went ahead with her as the lead? The whole thing just makes me free gross.

      • Especially on Mondays.

        Grant might want to put in an elevator in to help him get over the staircase psychosis.

        Begs the question why Grant isn’t belting the living suitcase out of his friend for ruining his Monday and putting bad juju on the stairway to heaven.

        • So Ali, Robert is “ticking all the boxes”, it won’t be long before he’s licking all the boxes.

        • Oh gosh, this would be the best season to bring in some Burning Love inspiration. Namely the handing out of the boxes with the flame rather than a rose. Very fitting.

    • Ali thinks she is the princess and all these men will fight for her love. She just seems to fall for so many of these guys from Day 1.

      Yes, she should have more tact then to kiss at the cocktail party.

      • According to the preview of tomorrow night, she makes out with someone else at the cocktail party then, too.

        I don’t think this is gonna get any better. And honestly, something about this feels really exploitative. It’s like, the producers looked at Ali, realised what a trainwreck the poor girl is, and rubbed their hands together with glee. “Jackpot!”

        • I just saw the preview a few minutes ago. It’s not a peck on the lips either. She’s practically swallowing his face.

          Ali, sweetie, pace yourself.

          • Well, fair’s fair. Nick got to inspect the tonsils of everybody wearing a skirt who crossed his path in his season.

            But making out with someone while all the other suitors are there watching? That just screams, “this won’t cause trouble at all later on”.

            Or maybe she’s just doing it to make them all jealous, or other people’s feelings just don’t cross her mind? That’s a little cynical.

    • I did see that bit and I thought, “Woh”. I only saw the wild rose bit. The kiss was a bit much for first night, and in front of the others.

    • You can even bet on the number of kisses on Sportsbet! and the lowest odds ( not sure is the right term) is for 10 or more kisses!

    • So glad I tapped out early since James outdid himself with this snarky recap.

      None of this whitewashed cast stood out for me except for that one guy (can’t even remember his name) that she gave the curst rose to and snogged in front of everybody.

      Poor form much? Will she take out the title for most contestants sampled in a season? Guess she’ll give it a red hot go. Sorry HoneyBludger, your record will be wiped before Ali’s done here.

    • Love James. He’s the only reason I watch this drivel.
      I vote Brooke for the next Bachelorette so we can inject some interest back into this unfortunate franchise.

      • I didn’t like Brooke. Perhaps they should just go for one of the crazy ones, like that really loud girl who didn’t last long. If they must recycle, go for a loony like her, or the pathetic dog washer girl from a few years ago.

      • I’m not a big Brooke fan either. Even though I heard she’s struggled with a difficult upbringing, and she’s certainly a beautiful young thing, she didn’t come across as particularly charismatic in any other way.

        Now if the contestants in her season were of the male and female variety, that would make it interesting…

  10. Although there was one genuine moment of hilarity.

    We get to the rose ceremony, and the guy with the Honey Badger haircut gets turfed straight out of the mansion without a second thought.

    We are most certainly not going through *that*, again.

  11. I get the impression she is in love with all the attention on her all the time, rather then finding someone. She was that way during BiP, she was pretty obvious in that she basked in the fact all the guys were after her.

    Either way this is going to be a trainwreck – she isn’t interesting enough to carry the season and the guys are obviously media savvy and just want television exposure.

    • Of course she’s not there for love. She’s not my cup of tea but I am guessing at least 5 of 10 guys would snog or date her. She can get her own boyfriends.

    • I just don’t get it. Yes, she’s pretty in that blonde bombshell way and it’s quite refreshing that she seems to be smiling most of the time (at least when she’s not getting dumped on national tv) but she comes across as so one-dimensional.

      Happy US Survivor tonight will provide my reality tv fix.

  12. Interesting no guys from SA (her home state) were cast. Deliberate? Too great a chance of an awkward “I know you from Tinder” moment?

    • Charlie is showing signs of being a low-key Jarrod, but compare him to the other dregs of humanity that they’ve lumped Ali with, this season. He doesn’t come off that bad.

      Everything’s relative. All I’m saying.

  13. So, it’s the second episode. We all know what that means. The first date will be some kind of height-based adventure challenge (with one of the guys she really likes, who’ll probably go far even if he doesn’t win), and the second half of the episode is the magazine photoshoot, where all the guys get to take their shirts off and be objectified in ridiculous costumes.

    What I’m really settling in for, tonight, is Gogglebox, because by my reckoning, they’ll be watching the Honey Badger’s finale, and that will be hilarious.

    • Yes, and it was hilarious.

      Talking about Honey Badger, he is going to be on The Sunday Project. Trying to redeem himself? Too late man.

      No one is angry with him not picking someone but it is the way he rejected the 2 girls. He can’t even say sorry

    • He did look like he was on day-release from somewhere, didn’t he? Not for something serious, maybe just fencing stolen cars or something.

  14. Best Aly joke today goes to BDD’s “stairway to heaven”.

    The public needs to consider, maybe Aly was in a 3 step proramme.

  15. I just caught the last couple of minutes while waiting for gogglebox to start. I’ve got no interest in watchin g this train wreck. But I did love the various facial expressions of that guy in the RC with the ridiculous curled moustache – he was having a Winona Ryder moment.

      • I loved the blond half of the two boys, who was just staring at the screen in open-mouthed shock for what felt like an hour.

        The Goggleboxers get more invested in these shows than we do.

      • It was pretty funny – I love the goggleboxers.

        But with all the fallout following the finale. I can’t help wondering when viewers bought into the the premise that you can present a bachelor/ette with 24 random strangers and after 10 weeks in a artificial environment, he/she will have found the love of his life, Not only bought into the premise but somehow feel cheated when the fairytale ending fails to materialise.

  16. I fast forwarded through Bachette. It’s pretty much Snog. Married. Avoid but mostly Snog Snog Snog. The two guys who went home had non-average hairdos

      • I’ve been out of the dating game for a little while now. You mean people *don’t* invite others to play games of Twister with twenty storeys of nothing but air, underneath them?

        Guess I’ll have to go back to the dinner and a movie cliche.

  17. I’m not watching, I’m done with bachie series but I love reading the James Weir recaps and all your comments! Checked out the guys, what a bunch.. *rolls eyes*. Why so young and the only older guy.. haha loved Jame’s recap calling him a grandfather! I would have watched for a final time if it wasn’t Ali but I’m just not really a fan.

    I don’t know.. like even when I don’t like someone I don’t like to be super mean but she’s kinda not doing herself any favours kissing all these guys already then denying the rumours that horrible Grant guy is spreading. I might get slammed for “slut shaming” but come on.. kissing guys in front of other guys at the cocktail parties?! That’s not cool and so soooo arrogant! If there were really ANY genuine guys in there, if they saw that, they’d leave. Only the “no hopers” of bachie seasons past would go for the kiss at cocktail parties and get “humiliatingly” rejected as if to paint them as desperate but this time round the bachette is keen to go!

    Love how they are following the same height date formula from Sophie’s season and, from your descriptions, with this season’s version of Jarrod. Why make it so the same? Ugh.. anyway! Thinking about this show is helping me fall asleep 😴

  18. Wow, for somebody who tries to act a bit naive and girly, Ali really comes across as more of a …. (what we used to call moll)…..tart. Her laugh at times seems so rough.

    • It’s those you have to watch out for the most! They used to say the shy ones haha Actually, being a shy person, I’ll never forget sitting in an English class where I had no friends one term because it was a weird mixed class I ended up in. Naturally, I was very quiet and the teacher gets to talking about how it’s the “quiet ones” you know… and she glances at me!!

      • What can I say? The quiet people I know are nice, and balance my extrovert nature. I’m sure your English teacher wzs mistaken. 😊

        • As a fellow quiet student, Eliza, I found the loudest people were the biggest dickheads (not counting you, Daisy, of course)

    • I hope this is an okay observation to make … but I don’t think Ali’s working her way through the group in a malicious or exploitative way (like Nick, when one of my biggest criticisms of the finale is that it retroactively makes the whole season seem like one extended booty call, when Nick never had any intention of settling down with any of the girls he was fondling).

      I think that, she’s a very pretty (albeit slightly vacuous) girl who’s never really needed to worry about other people’s feelings because she’s used to people accommodating her. She hasn’t quite figured out that it might be inappropriate, or that other people have feelings that are going to get hurt. And I imagine that, as the season rolls on, she’s going to figure this out, and it’s going to be a painful realisation.

      • It’s not fb, we accept all observations and opinions. At least I hope we do.

        And it’s an interesting prediction, Windsong.

      • I agree, I don’t think it’s malicious either, just very thoughtless. It might be the way she’s lived most of her life so far and what’s brought her to thinking she can actually find meaningful connections on reality tv.

        Whoever she ends up with in this season, I highly doubt it’ll stick.

      • I find it interesting to think through all thoughts and possibilities so of course! I hate when people jump down others’ throats for thoughts.

        I’m not too sure. I totally get what you’re saying but I don’t like to excuse ignorance. Like “oh she’s pretty so she doesn’t realise”. Again, I get what you’re saying but I don’t see it as an excuse. No matter what you look like, if you want to be a well rounded person then you should know what’s going to hurt other people or not. No one’s perfect and and I hope, if this is the case, she does realise. But to be honest, even though I haven’t watched, only read, how many of this season’s guys do people think are serious???

        • Eliza, I don’t think anyone in the Bach shows goes in to find love. Either side of the rose, it’s all about the chance of fame. Especially in the last few seasons where the Bach/ette is a mini celeb. You were a kid when Bach first aired. I think in those days it was more real.

  19. Next week promo have Ali addressing the Grant scandal. Saying something like he is a party animal and not what he said he is.

    This is going to backfire as the text messages are now out and confirmed what she has done.

    Most people on SM are saying not very nice things about Ali. For someone who want to take things slow is now kissing guys at the cocktail party. No respect for the other contestants.

    Some parts of last night episode is almost like a soft porn!

      • I have to confess, the first (and I’m almost sure only) porn I’ve ever watched is Jailhouse Cock, courtesy of my beloved gay BFF.
        I was goggling at the screen the entire time, not to mention contorting my neck trying to figure out some of the moves.

        • I guess I can confess this, amongst friends ;).

          I’ve never minded a bit of adult entertainment. I own quite a bit of the stuff, all very boring and vanilla. I actually wrote some of my own. I entered a national short story competition a few years ago (for erotic short stories), and came second. I won a bit of money for that, too. The anthology got published, it’s sitting on my bookshelf.

          My grandfather passed away, a few years ago now, and when we were cleaning out his study, we found a bookshelf with floor-to-ceiling erotic novels (all naughty nuns and governesses and things like that). All hetero, and some of the titles looked quite intriguing, but the family is very conservative and religious, so I say most of them were just thrown out. But once they’d finished that shelf, they turned to the bookshelf behind the door, and yeah, once again, the same thing. I guess I get it from him, some things are more than just genetic, heh.

          • What a great story, WS.

            When you’re growing up, you only see one side of your grandparents and it’s only as you grow into an adult that you get to see them as real people.

            My family’s pretty religious too so I’m the black sheep. If I had a grandfather like yours and came across his collection, I probably would have laughed my ass off and then asked if I could borrow some of the tapes.

          • My grandfather let me smoke his pipe and taught me the f~ bomb. Problem was, I was eight.

            Then I got belted for using the f~bomb, not knowing what the fuck it meant.

  20. The Courier Mail, today, mentioned that the ratings for Ali’s first episode were really, really bad. It was the lowest ratings for any of the “Bachelorette” premiers.

    Between Nick’s season, the staircase scandal, and the fact that people just don’t like Ali all that much, I figure it was the perfect storm of bad ratings … but again, channel 10 are morons if they didn’t suspect that would happen.

      • Ouch.

        It’s almost as if, when an audience says, “We’ve got no interest in watching this,” they actually mean it. Who knew?

        If the ratings keep free-falling, I wonder what 10 will do? This could be interesting for reasons they didn’t intend.

      • Suspect everyone else is doing what we’re doing – which is getting James Weir to watch and reading his recaps instead.

        • That’s what I’m doing! If they can get me to not watch, then they can get lots of people to not watch. I think this is literally the first time I’ve ever missed an episode, let alone two!!

          • I wasn’t planning on watching. I only watched a bit so I could join the chats here. I find Aly boring.

  21. I wasn’t going to watch empty headed, boring Ali, but I might enjoy strumpet Ali. Evil me.
    Next year, bring back that crazy girl who was briefly in Honey Badger. The one who was loud and making horse movements. No more Georgia Love’s who are sedately moving into their media career. Shake it up a little.

  22. FB comments glanced at suggest no one wanted to see boring, fame seeking Ali back. They might start watching now. IMO ch10 knew what they were roing. Surely they would have spoken to Grant. Or are they totally stupid and don’t research?

  23. Only way to get people to watch is to start milking the ‘bad’ Ali. She said there is no limits with alcohol consumption. When Ali is slightly tipsy, you are going to get some juicy behavior from her.

    • She must be consuming more than her fair share, going by the latest articles, in that case. Didn’t she use this excuse for the staircase incident too?

    • The rumour is that she and Grant (the American guy she hooked up with on “Bachelor in Paradise”) broke up because he found her cheating on him, with one of his friends, on his staircase.

      According to the story, the other guy got down on her, as it was.

      She’s mentioned repeatedly that Grant’s a dick (which I’d believe in a heart-beat), but she hasn’t really denied the story. I feel it’s a little unbelievable that she’d fly halfway around a planet just to cheat on her boyfriend, but ultimately, that’s the point, it’s he said/she said, and none of us know the truth. But channel 10 must’ve had some idea, and it’s baffling that they chose her to be the Bachelorette (because the season is going to become one long joke about stairs).

    • Ali literally “opened up” on a staircase. It wasn’t a rose she was accepting. How delicately can it be put?

      Perhaps the producers should have called this season The Snatchelorette.

  24. The reason why all this became news was Ali claimed that Grant wanted a threesome and she was shock and broke up with him.

    Later it was Keira who claimed she started the rumour. Then Grant went onto Kyle and Jackie O show to deny that rumour and said what actually happened.

  25. Workin’ like a dog fo de boss man (oh)
    Workin’ for de company (oh yeah)
    I’m bettin’ on the dice I’m tossin’ (oh)
    I’m gonna have a fantasy (oh yeah)
    But where am I gonna look?
    They tell me that love is blind
    I really need a girl like an open book
    To read between the lines

    Love in an elevator
    Livin’ it up when I’m goin’ down
    Love in an elevator
    Lovin’ it up ’til I hit the ground

    Jacki’s in the elevator (oh)
    Lingerie second floor (oh yeah)
    She said can I see you later (oh)
    And love you just a little more? (9oh yeah)
    I kinda hope we get stuck
    Nobody gets out alive
    She said I’ll show ya how to fax in the mail room
    Honey and have you home by five

    Love in an elevator
    Livin’ it up when I’m goin’ down
    Love in an elevator
    Lovin’ it up ’til I hit the ground

    In the air, in the air, honey one more time not, it ain’t fair
    Love in an elevator
    Lovin’ it up when I’m goin’ down

    Love in an
    Elevator
    Goin’ down

    Love in an elevator
    Livin’ it up when I’m goin’ down
    Love in an elevator
    Livin’ it up ’til I hit the ground

    Gonna be a penthouse pauper (oh)
    Gonna be a millionaire (oh yeah)
    I’m gonna be a real fast talker (oh)
    And have me a love affair (oh yeah)
    Gotta get my timin’ right (oh)
    It’s a test that I gotta pass (oh yeah)
    I’ll chase you all the way to the stairway honey (oh)
    Kiss your sassafras

    Love in an elevator
    Lovin’ it up when I’m goin’ down
    Love in an elevator

    ~ Aerosmith or if yaz prefer Stairosmith.

  26. I think the reasons that the ratings keep falling is that we are over The Bachelor(ette). First Sophie who had so little interest in the chosen few that they had to ship in an old flame, 10 weeks of the inane, inarticulate Honeybadger with no result, and now a bleached blonde who will pick someone but is unlikely to last the distance. We want at least the possibility of “true-love”.
    And I will give Ali the benefit of the doubt over the rumour that Grant is spreading. I am not really into slut-shaming. I’ve been accused of sleeping with my bosses because it’s such an impossible stretch of the imagination to think that my promotions were due to either my qualifications and/or work experience.
    Grant always was a low-life sleezebag. No decent guy would even mention the subject (over and over and over again). I think she is trying not to give him oxygen.

    • Sorry Bobi. I’m terrible. I actually find Ali more interesting now she has another side. But I don’t want to offend you. You know me, I’m always wanting a laugh, even when I don’t mean anything by it.

    • I didn’t take offence.
      I am more giving voice to why interest in the Bachelorette is prossibly down, whilst at the same time hoping it wasn’t because of any private activities being assigned to her.
      I am not feeling as happy as normal so I may have come across a bit sharpish. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression. You may have to forgive me a couple more times over the next while.

      • If it’s any consolation, I think it’s more that she (allegedly) cheated on a partner with his friend (which, to me at least, isn’t a great thing to do at the best of times), as opposed to just criticising her for her sex-life.

        Making out with the guys at the cocktail parties is a bit of a grey area, I guess, but I personally think it’s a bit insensitive to the other guys she’s dating by making out with one of them within eye-sight of everybody else.

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