On Oct. 13, the new season of “The Bachelorette” featuring Clare Crawley aired on ABC.
This season is different from all of the previous seasons. During the episode, host Chris Harrison said, “A lot of people feel like they know exactly what’s happening this season. You don’t. It is an explosive season, unlike any we’ve ever had.”
Crawley is 39 years old, which is older than most contestants who are chosen to be the Bachelorette. She has been a part of “The Bachelor” franchise for a while. She was first a contestant on Juan Pablo Galavis’ season of “The Bachelor” in 2014. Then, Crawley went on to be a contestant during the first two seasons of the spinoff show “Bachelor in Paradise” in 2014 and 2015. Crawley also competed in “The Bachelor Winter Games” in 2018.
“As an avid Bachelor/Bachelorette watcher, I was very excited to see a familiar face from many seasons ago. I love Clare so much and I can’t wait to see her find her better half,” said freshman Remy Folan.
COVID-19 did not stop fans like junior Rachel Gilroy from tuning in. “I think that having this show be filmed during quarantine will make it more interesting,” said Gilroy.
“I was interested to see how the show ended up dealing with the COVID-19 situation, and how they would have to change things,” said senior Maya Isom.
The whole cast had to quarantine for two weeks at the La Quinta Resort in Southern California. Then, each cast member had to test negative for COVID-19 before filming began.
“One of the things we had to do is be really creative because we were shooting at one resort in Palm Springs, which is a little confining and restrictive–comparatively speaking, we’re in 10 different countries usually,” said Harrison. “We reimagined the show and had to be really creative.”
According to Devon Ivie, a writer for Vulture Magazine, Crawley left to be with contestant Dale Moss, because he is the man Crawley wanted to be with, and will be replaced by a new woman.
In this week’s episode, Crawley was able to meet all of the contestants. When she met Dale Moss, Harrsion said, “She’s just met her husband.”
Tayshia Adams was a contestant on Colton Underwood’s season of “The Bachelor” in 2019. According to the same Vulture article, Adams will replace Crawley in the middle of this season. Never in Bachelor or Bachelorette history has there been an instance where the show had to replace a Bachelorette mid-season.
“I have been watching ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘The Bachelorette’ for years and I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m really excited to see how this plays out,” said junior Phoebe Yuan.
Even people who don’t watch “The Bachelorette” were drawn to watch this season because of all of the new elements involved. Senior Adrianna Braid said, “I had seen a teaser on my Twitter feed and I felt like I needed to watch this season, and I really never felt the need to watch this show before.”
“I just can’t wait to find out how it ends,” said senior Sarah Birch.
“The Bachelorette” airs Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. on ABC.
