Gerry Turner is on the point of meet the households, as The Golden Bachelor has already reached the Hometown date portion of its inaugural season. In the event you have been a longtime fan watching the most recent episode — which featured the most heartbreaking elimination but — and questioning why solely the closing three ladies have been attending to introduce Turner to their kids and grandchildren, you weren’t alone. The contestants appeared blindsided as nicely, when host Jesse Palmer made the announcement that the six remaining ladies have been being lower by half, and ABC govt Robert Mills has defined the rationale behind the change.
Usually, it’s the ultimate 4 contestants who obtain Hometown dates on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, with three advancing to Fantasy Suites earlier than giving their closing rose to one in every of two remaining contestants. How that may be accomplished on The Golden Bachelor — significantly the Fantasy Suites — has been a query we’ve had since Gerry Turner was launched. Now that solely three ladies stay going into Hometowns, Robert Mills, ABC’s senior vice chairman of other collection, addressed the contestants’ reactions and why it needed to be accomplished. He posted on X:
The worst a part of this was the women thought there have been 4 hometowns and as a result of 1 hour format we may solely do 3.
We’ve already seen some modifications to the standard format of the present as a result of it being an hour shorter than its predecessors. For example, every episode has contained only a single one-on-one date moderately than the standard two, which means that fewer ladies have been capable of expertise that alone time with Gerry Turner. There could be no option to match 4 Hometowns into one hour and nonetheless do them justice, and I’d think about it’s going to really feel fairly rushed, even with three.
However Robert Mills is appropriate in calling it the “worst half,” as a result of it did appear to catch the ladies off-guard, and it contributed to the shocking sendoff of Ellen Goltzer. The 71-year-old was visibly shaken by the general public breakup, saying that she thought Gerry Turner was “the one.” Now we’ll need to see if Goltzer will get an opportunity to really discover “the one” as the primary Golden Bachelorette, which many followers are asking for.
ABC hasn’t but introduced any plans to increase The Bachelor’s model additional with The Golden Bachelorette, however hope stays alive after Gerry Turner and his contestants breathed new life into the community’s actuality relationship franchise. The 60- and 70-year-olds have introduced a wholesomeness to the present that we’re not used to seeing with the 20-somethings of the flagship collection, and now that we’re invested in these ladies, it could be virtually merciless to not enable us to observe a minimum of one in every of their tales after Turner rides off into the sundown together with his new love.
Time will inform what number of extra Golden seasons ABC permits us to have, however within the meantime, there’s nonetheless a lot left of Gerry Turner’s journey to witness. For example, does this imply there are solely two Fantasy Suite dates, with no elimination earlier than the presumed proposal? Tune in to seek out out, as The Golden Bachelor continues at 8 p.m. ET Thursday, November 2, on ABC and could be streamed the subsequent day with a Hulu subscription.
