‘The Bachelor’ announces first-ever senior citizen season
Where is Blanche Devereaux when you need her?
ABC has finally announced that Bachelor Nation is welcoming another spinoff and this time, its contestants will be senior citizens.
“The Golden Bachelor” — which will premiere this fall — will focus on one lucky older gentleman and age-appropriate female suitors who will compete for his love.
In a press release obtained by Variety, the new reality series is described as a “whole new kind of love story — one for the golden years.”
The network describes the — we imagine — salt and peppered hair, twinkly-eyed mature gentleman as a “hopeless romantic” who will be “given a second chance at love in the search for a partner with whom to share the sunset years of life.”
Per the release, the group of women “arriving at the mansion have a lifetime of experience, living through love, loss and laughter, hoping for a spark that ignites a future full of endless possibilities.”
Despite its premiere date being just a few months away, the lucky older gentleman and his potential love interests have yet to be announced.
The brains behind “The Bachelor” have reportedly been keen on the idea of a senior citizen season for “quite some time,” reports Variety, “but the series has been waiting on the back burner for years.”
Disney exec Rob Mills previously spoke to the entertainment trade journal about the series noting that they would be able to switch things with staples like the “hometown dates, which could feature visits homes to children instead of parents.”
For more Page Six reality TV updates…
“Some of the casting interviews we got, they were just so touching,” Mills said. “It’s such a different way of doing ‘The Bachelor’ because these people are just at a totally different place in their lives.”
He continued, “There is an interesting thing about people who have hit the other end of the spectrum, who’ve lived their lives, they’ve raised their kids, some have been widowed or divorced and maybe some have never been in love. We thought that would be an interesting dynamic through the ‘Bachelor’ prism.”
Of course, it didn’t hurt that the Writers Guild is currently on strike and there are no signs of it ending any time soon, leaving the networks scrambling for unscripted reality shows.
Lest we forget a writers’ strike many years ago led to “The Apprentice” being greenlit.
“The Bachelor” first debuted back in 2002 and has generated a host of shows including “The Bachelorette,” “Bachelor in Paradise” and “Bachelor Pad.”
