Chris Harrison's almost entirely lifelike animatronic doppelganger is on loan from The Carousel Of Regress (which is, for those of you with the four-day Disney Fun Pass, The Carousel Of Progress when confronted with the culture-killing ineptitude of whatever this is), programmed to smile, walk, instruct Carousel visitors as to how to operate a newfangled, wood-burning stove, sing that "now is the best time of your life" song, and send us merrily off to the teacup ride. But before he gets to that, he's being fine-tuned and debugged on the island of Bachelorinia, where we nine or so remaining souls brave enough to answer the question "Wait, that show is really still on?" and "On what network? C-SPAN?" and "Wait, is it still that Bob guy, or...?" dwell like mutant mole people of the reality-television-viewing public. Up on a high fjord of the cliffs of Malibu, Chris Harrison stands stock still on a lanai that is doubtlessly the seventh lanai of the seventh patch of acreage of the seventh painstakingly location-scouted Bachelor/ette pad, the fact that each house isn't the same as the season's but is merely made to look exactly like the one before it is an irony big enough to build season's Bachelor's house on. Wearing a black suit and staid shades of blue in his shirt and tie like he's going to jet straight from here to the funeral of some dead Smurf brethren, Chris launches right in, using every ounce of physical dexterity that his DuPont-built mainframe can possibly pivot. "Welcome to The Bachelor!" he exalts, raising both arms slightly upwards, perhaps in hopes that a torch-bearing crowd will conveniently appear, nail him to a cross-shaped Date Box, and at least cease the spiritual portion of the poor man's agony. Ah, The Passion Of The Chris. And he proselytizes onward: "This time around, everything is different!" That's right, America and the privileged speck of Canada lucky enough to watch this show by staring through a pinhole-sized hole in a shoebox while wearing tinfoil bunny ears and tilting said box in the southwesterly direction of a passing DirecTV satellite, god bless their frozen souls: Different! Way different! For one, this Bachelor is generically good-looking to a wide swatch of women! For another, the women are blonde and in pharmaceutical sales! And, finally -- if you can believe it -- casual drinking and subsequent, distressingly premature pronouncements of true love will be rampant! Hold on tight to your fear of change, people! Because change told me it feels a connection with you.
Chris is almost up to the part where he introduces us to space travel and then sings, "Now is the best time of your life," but instead he continues on about change. Yeah, man. Change is the only thing that stays the same. When did Chris get so Zen? Was it when they removed his soul and replaced the gaping chasm with bags of cash? Because I have a sneaking suspicion that might chill my shit out too, for a while, if someone would do that for me. He continues on: "We've seen engagements, a marriage, and of course those breakups." Hey, hey, hey. Don't be whitewashing this shit, Chris. Don't gloss over the one-for-seven match-to-marriage rate this show has perpetrated us so far. That's a .143 batting average, and that ain't good enough to play in any league I never heard of, even if that one hit was a big, pink home run that won this show The World Series Of Tackiness and ensconced ABC evermore in The Hall Of In Touch Covers. ["I'd also point out that we saw a wedding, which is not the same as a marriage." -- Wing Chun]
“ Even though he plays an offensive position in a spectator sport, that won't stop him from finding momentous the experience of being pawed by strangers on TV? Am I close? Can I try one of my own? 'Though Hitler marauded the European countryside unchecked for the better part of six years, everyone seems to love pizza.' ”
Chris ambles woodenly toward the camera, threatening the very concept of the fourth wall with his concentrated march to my living room, maintaining the "must eat brains" lurch the public requires of its most debonair hosting personality. All the while, he vents, "This season, we saw things we've never seen before." So this part is being recorded after the season is over? That makes for a disconcerting opening speech. "We chose NFL quarterback Jesse Palmer to be our Bachelor. He is definitely one of the most eligible men in America." So this is being recorded before the season starts? Or did we just learn that he's still single? I'm inconveniently lost in time and space. I know they'll be cooking up some real surprises this season. If I may, can I pre-order the shrimp temporal? Thanks.
I think the ChrisBot is skipping. "You won't believe what you're about to see," he predicts, throwing the action to a not-unsubstantially-sized "This Eon On The Bachelor clip package that will make what we're about to see substantially less of a surprise when we actually get around to seeing it. Is this the show yet? Have I just been conned into recapping "Previously"s for a season that hasn't even begun? What the hell kind of Entermercial was that, anyway? Daaaaaaaamn yoooooo, Fleeeeeeeeiss!
Chris, near death from exposure from wandering around unsupervised on the lanai for the entirety of a commercial break, rounds the swimming pool and makes like TV's most talkative reality-show host, Phil E. Buster, arguing, "Our Bachelor may be an NFL quarterback, but this is going to be one of the biggest nights of his life." Cause-and-effect police, arrest that syntax! That sentence reads like the text-only version of one of those flip books for kids that's cut into halves or thirds, where the top of the person is wearing a business suit and the bottom of the person is wearing a tutu. Where's the correlation? Even though he plays an offensive position in a spectator sport, that won't stop him from finding momentous the experience of being pawed by strangers on TV? Am I close? Can I try one of my own? It seems kind of fun. "Though Hitler marauded the European countryside unchecked for the better part of six years, everyone seems to love pizza."
"Jesse Palmer really is the perfect Bachelor," Chris voices over a shot of Jesse throwing rose petals at the camera. Remember when Meredith did that in her promo and we reality-television scholars interpreted it as Meredith using her flowery, feminine wiles in order to snag herself a man? Why, then, is Jesse doing it? Is this his subtle way of trying to tell his teammates in the gentlest way possible that he is, in fact, a promosexual? Har har har. "He's handsome, smart, rich, and successful!" What he's saying is that he admires Jesse's commitment to community service. Just kidding. Actually, Chris is in loooooooooooove. With the sound of his own droning voice. But who is Jesse Palmer, really? According to Chris's not-too-fine a point, Jesse is "everything that every woman is looking for!" He actually says that in all of its damning totality. So, like...not to speak for 51% of the planet's population or anything? But Jesse Palmer is everything. That every woman. Is looking for. Ever. This means you, Golda Meir. ["Even Melissa Etheridge?" -- Wing Chun] This means all of you. ["Oh." -- Wing Chun]
“ In every photograph over what is probably a thirty-year span of time the man sports the same killer moustache. It's so garish as to be almost a thing of wonder. Split in the middle and then cascading down each lip like it's trying to run off his face and join a Village People revival band. ”
A shot of the exterior of Giants Stadium inspires in me the same strong emotions that it does in all tri-state area dwellers: the pissed-off feeling of not being able to get to your cousin's house for the family barbecue because that damned stadium was built literally in the middle of the base of a main highway. We cut inside the stadium to find Jesse completely alone, running around the perimeter of the field while the real team is off in Green Bay actually playing in a game. But Jesse runs and runs. Holy crap! That thing must be as long as, like, ten football fields! Nah. Maybe just a little bit shorter. Jesse is twenty-five years old, we learn now, which means he's younger than I am, which I find almost impossible considering my youthful good looks and lack of similar income. Maybe what they meant is that he was stitched together and brought to god-defying, mutant life by the deranged Dr. Frankenstein twenty-five years ago. Come on. His brow is kind of monster-y. Admit it so we can marry.
We go on to learn that Jesse grew up on Ontario, which I'm told is in the "Canada" section of America. He's the oldest of three sons, from a mother who worked as a model (though the first nine times through I thought her name was "Susan Amodel" rather than "Susan, a model") and a football-playing, gay-porn-star -- people, gaze upon the wonder this is Mr. Palmer's stache -- father. Who played in "the Canadian Football League." Oh, that is adorable! Almost just like real football! A photojournal of Jesse's father shows photographs of him in uniform, taking his son to practice, on a boat, young and old. And in every photograph over what is probably a thirty-year span of time -- every photograph -- the man sports the same killer moustache. It's so garish as to be almost a thing of wonder. Split in the middle and then cascading down each lip like it's trying to run off his face and join a Village People revival band. Like it could be pulled off in a clean swipe with a single tug. Like it hasn't ever been in a '70s gay porno but "has a lot of friends in that community." It's a stache in search of a personality big enough to carry it. Truly, it can use its own reality show. Jesse, in a football uniform from his youngest days, is driven to practice by the stache. Jesse wins a scholarship to the University of Florida and becomes the starting quarterback. The Stache has its own mistakes in life vicariously corrected through the generation. And The Stache said, "This is good. This is very good."
"I think there's a lot more to Jesse than playing football," The Stache tells us in a surprise confessional. "He's an accomplished academic with two degrees, one in political science and one in business." Okay, maybe he's smart (and he's not), but "an academic"? Isn't that, like, actually a job? For people a bit more tweedy? The Stache fills in some more blanks, telling us that "he's wordly" as we find Jesse in France. Our insta-backstory continues via the matrilineal side, his mother Mrs. Stache telling us that, when it was announced at Jesse's college graduation that he had been drafted (in sports that's a good thing) by the Giants, "the entire arena erupted" in applause. And sure enough, we see some serious b-roll (people, this here is some c-roll, if you want the truth) of Jesse graduating from college on May 5, 2001. What were you doing on May 5, 2001? To the collective surprise of no one here, I think I was actually recapping. And it's true that the arena did erupt. But not the entire arena felt the joy, as the girl standing to Jesse, who was probably accepting a certificate for curing typhus, gets no props at all. She looks horrified. She must be a huge Redskins fan.
“ The bachelorettes prepare for their huge night of institutionalized meeting primarily by hugging loved ones goodbye and learning that said loved ones have not offered to drive them to the airport. ”
Shots of a toning, oiled, muscular Jesse are accompanied by the segue voice-over, "What more could this successful, handsome NFL quarterback need?" Besides a shirt? How about we start with one of those.
No. I was wrong. It's "love." The password is actually "love." That's what Jesse wants. And a visit from Mark Wahlberg! We're in Jesse's tastefully undecorated New York City apartment, where we pop in on Jesse answering the door and letting in a guy I really, really thought was Marky-Mark himself. But I guess he couldn't be showing up at Jesse Palmer's house, because he actually spends most of his nights here at my house. Instead, we meet Nick, Jesse's college roommate, who is identified somewhat prematurely as "The Spy's Husband." He's married to Valerie Plame? Can we PLEASE stop telegraphing this all around town? The woman is in enough danger as it is, for crying out loud. Nick goes on to explain to us that he "would say that Jesse is probably her best guy friend" -- which I'm sure isn't threatening to Nick at all -- and that his wife is going to be "the spy on the show." Because there's going to be a spy on the show, in case you've never of television.
It's a somewhat different time period now, because two of Jesse's football-playing friends -- let's call them "Brandon Short" and some other football gentleman who is not immediately identified -- show up at the place. This seems like it's going to be some sort of a party! The two gentlemen speak of how Jesse will be ribbed in the locker room, with the towel-snapping and what-have-you. Back in the kitchen, we revisit with Mr. Spy, who asks Jesse if he's going to get married on television. Jesse spits back the witty rejoinder, "I'm, I'm, I'm w-w-worried about not falling over l-l-l-l-l-during the first Rose Ceremony!" and I wonder if he wasn't considering a triple major in Hilarity, if his father's dreams of his son's success hadn't gotten all up in it. He was also a quick study in linguistics, remembering fondly a time when the word "during" began with an "l."
For lack of anything better to do, Chris suggests that we "take a look at earlier today, as Jesse and the women prepare for one of the biggest nights of their lives!" And, lady montage. They prepare for their huge night of institutionalized meeting (I know...HUGE!) primarily by hugging loved ones goodbye and learning that said loved ones have not offered to drive them to the airport.
“ The Spy speaks, and her voice is all obscured with some kind of altering technology, sounding like she's about to threaten my children's welfare over the phone in an '80s TV movie. ”
We're under the cover of darkness now, which is where all the covert ops occur, at a wooded location nowhere near Jesse's apartment titled "The Spy's House." Low, bass-heavy spy music ensues. The Spy speaks, and her voice is all obscured with some kind of altering technology, sounding like she's about to threaten my children's welfare over the phone in an '80s TV movie. I hate it. And the amount of Facial Fuzzy-ator they're forced to use every time she's on screen obscures more total surface area of my TV than a million combined Fox News replays of the Super Bowl halftime show. Combined, people. She's with husband Nick, working out their own reality-show pitch, The Adventures Of Nick And The Blobface, coming this fall to Fox. The twist at the end is that everyone gets a million dollars. Blobface reminds us, "When Jesse decided that he was going to be the Bachelor, he asked me if I would help him find his bride." Heh. I love the self-determination that Jesse "decided" to be the Bachelor. Then again, that level of wish-fulfillment clearly worked for Nick when he decided he wanted to be in The Italian Job. Blobface tells us that it's her role to play the role of one of the girls and then fill Jesse in during their one-on-one time. Almost exactly like a -- what's that word again, where your job is spying? -- oh yes, a "spy." Nick sits with Blobface on the couch, asking her if she's ready to go. "I'm nervous," she says with such cheap alteration of her voice it sounds like the recording technology on this Casio keyboard I used to have where you could record your voice and then play it on every note (all, like, twelve of them) at all different pitches. From now on, whenever Blobface dares an utterance, I shall imagine a repeated bossa nova beat jamming behind her. And...drum fill!
And, see, hi. This is so dumb. Why hide from us who the spy is? We don't care, and we're going to find out anyway. Show her off in advance, have her hanging out with Jesse and plotting away how they're going to relay information, make it a groovy partnership, not an exercise in me licking my thumb and trying to wipe clean miles of my television screen because I keep thinking it's all smudged. Then when she gets out of the limo, she could have this totally funny little confessional where she's all, "Y'all, I'm the spy!" Anyway, right. Nervous. Nick asks her why she feels nervous, and she tells him that she doesn't know if she'll be able to pull it off. But they don't even know that there is going to be a spy in the house, so why would they even guess at it? If anything, they'll just be like, "I don't think ol' Blobface there has much chance of getting a rose, do you?" Because they can also see her...oh, never mind. She takes off her wedding ring and tells us in a confessional how hard that was for her, but I'm too busy reading the show's subtitled description of her, which reads like a busy, three-tiered wedding cake of excess information. She is "The Spy," below which is written, "Jesse's Friend," below which is written, "Posing as a Bachelorette." Generated by Entertainment's famed Department Of Redundancy Department.
“ 'Tonight, we're on the field. Lights go on. Put the eye black on. Let's go play.' Erm. It's just dawned on me that he might actually think that he's on his way to a football game. ”
Back at Jesse's place, our Bachelor packs his extra-large man clothing and voices over, "I have so many feelings running through my body right now." He's nervous. He's excited. He has what I think is a photograph of himself on his bureau.
Tiki Barber! I've heard of him. Jim Finn! I've heard of Tiki Barber! Two large men round a corner and enter the house of one Amani Toomer, who is another football player. Tiki (may I call you Tiki?) carries a black book filled with absolute, unrelenting proof that this first episode could have been nailed in an hour. Or less. Maybe it could have run as a commercial to some other series. I thought this country was getting rid of the Super Size. Inside the binder is a photograph of each of the twenty-five women Jesse is about to meet. Jessica is said to have "potential," while a "Celeste" inspires the comment that Jesse enjoys some "variety." Francine is deemed too "innocent." Let the women of the world understand: this is what men talk about when you're not around. Jessica is noted as looking like "a guy on our team." Which, really. Well done, Tiki. Or whoever.
Back in lovely, sunny stock footage L.A., we find ourselves in a hotel, where the girls are all being woken up by thankless production assistants who roll their eyes, roll up their sleeves, think, "could be worse, could be logging," and knock knock knock, it's time to wake up, ladies! One blonde says she didn't sleep very well. Another girl worries about being shy. Meanwhile, across town, Jesse wakes up, does a cursory look around his hotel room to see if he can discover what the hell the producers did with his shirt again, and confessionalizes, "I feel like I'm going on a blind date with twenty-five women." He's also happy that he has a spy. Because he has a spy.
And, as the final injury, the only thing I really loved from the premieres of the last couple of seasons: Meet The Producers. Well, it's been cancelled. Brilliant but cancelled. Instead of the second season of The Sally Ann Salsano Story, we are treated to yet another confessional with Blobface, who tells us how nervous she was when she was meeting the other girls. I mean seriously. What if the slot of the girl of Jesse's dreams were inadvertently occupied by The Spy? The other girls, meanwhile, listen as an unnamed producer (where art thou, Sally Ann Salsano?) welcomes them to The Bachelor, and a hair-and-makeup montage ensues. A girl named Karen drops the first "connection" bomb, celebrating the fact that she looked Jesse up online: "I wonder what he's doing right now!" What he's doing right now is sitting in a confessional room making exceedingly strained football metaphors for dating: "Today's game day. All the practices end." That's right! Get revved up and show those other footballers who's the boss of the footballing world! "Tonight, we're on the field. Lights go on. Put the eye black on. Let's go play." Erm. It's just dawned on me that he might actually think that he's on his way to a football game.
“ Jesse: 'There's so much more to me than just football.' Uh-oh. You don't also make wine, do you? ”
Trish hopes to "capitalize" on her long legs, indicating that said legs could be "wrapped around [Jesse] at some point in time." Mandy Jaye, meanwhile, tells us that the best thing that could happen is that Jesse see her "and [tell] all of the other girls to take a hike," following that immediately up with one of those breathy, whispered "No" that is meant to indicate all she's said until now is a hilarious farce and is the sad linguistic equal to saying, "I do not usually get the laughs." Dolores is Shiri Appleby trying desperately to get herself back on television. Don't remember who that is? Yeah. Me neither.
"The moment has finally arrived! Let's meet our Bachelor, Jesse Palmer!" Well, that's an anticlimax on the scale of "...and the best picture goes to...." Jesse's limo pulls up to the house and we meet him. Again. He shakes wee Chris Harrison's tiny boy hand, and the two of them banter like men. Chris asks, "You ready?" Jesse volleys, "Born ready." America counters, "Dick."
Inside the house they go, where they sit down on two chairs in the living room and generally chill. Y'know, like dudes would. Man, the whole place must smell of Funyons. Chris gets right to the tangentially-linked talking point I still don't grasp: "What do you think is gonna be tougher? Starting in an NFL football game or meeting twenty-five women here tonight?" Is it because football is supposed to be so hard? Or is it because it's a difficult task drinking champagne near pretty ladies and also one spy? Because this comparison has already been stretched way thin. Maybe I would understand it better if people started phrasing my own love life in terms of the job function that I perform. Here, let's try now: "Hey, Dan. What's harder: writing approximately 6000 words a week about some crazy bitches who start to look exactly the same season after excruciating season, or getting laid when you tell people what you do for a living?" The answer is: Dick.
Chris tells Jesse, "I gotta ask you the first question." What was the question? A scrimmage? Intramural confessionalizing? What's going on? The first question, then, is, "Why are you doing this?" Jesse responds that it's been difficult meeting genuine people who don't judge him based on his job description. The fact that he now has a chance to meet twenty-five women who didn't know who he was when they signed up is, according to Jesse, "comforting." It must be nice to align yourself with a group of women who don't care if you're rich and famous, as long as they know you're going to be rich and telegenic. Jesse: "There's so much more to me than just football." Uh-oh. You don't also make wine, do you?
Chris is grilling -- GRILLING -- Jesse. And I'll bet poor, unsuspecting Jesse had no idea these hardball questions were even coming! The Bachelor? Richard Clarke. Tell me it's not the best idea ever. Is he married? If he's not, it's because the Bush administration told him he wasn't adequately prepared for marriage in the days and months leading up to his wedding. Chris asks Jesse what he's looking for in a woman, and Jesse responds that he wants someone with her own life. Not someone clingy. Chris laments that it's difficult being married to a professional athlete. And he'd clearly know, due to the famed Harrison/Joyner-Kersee nuptials that were all over the tabloids a few months back. At least they didn't air it on ABC. What a circus that would have been. Chris reminds us that there will be a spy in the house. Because there will be. A spy. In the house. Oh, and Jesse thinks he would be ready to propose to someone at the end, "if someone moved" him. Also? Spy in the house.