Pondering love at the official Bachelor Canada engagement party
By Colin Horgan - Sunday, December 9, 2012 - 0 Comments
In the end, we’re all suckers for a good love story
The most popular question I’ve had to answer in the last few months is, at its core, very simple. It is this: Why? Why would the three of us – myself, Sonya Bell and Aaron Wherry – choose to take our Wednesday nights and write about a TV show that everyone seems to agree is sort of silly? After all, the premise of the Bachelor Canada is simplistic and a touch regressive. A man selects from a clan of women the one who he figures might be best for a potential engagement. It’s the kind of thing that some might argue sets our culture back a pace or two, assuming it’s moving forward.
I have no idea how to answer that simple question, apart from maybe saying that the idea amused us. Perhaps this is why everyone else watches the Bachelor – to amuse themselves with a bit of arms-length romance that is open to judgement and fodder for pseudo-gossip, and which has no serious bearing on our lives. This show, we have convinced ourselves, is not actually what it says it is. It is reality television, but not television about reality. We will never be put in such a ridiculous situation, we can assure ourselves. And we would never go to such lengths to find a potentially suitable partner, we remind each other.
Yet, when I looked around at the crowd attending (whether they were aware of it or not) the official Bachelor Canada Engagement Party at the sprawling Muzik nightclub in Toronto Saturday night, I began to wonder about that last part.
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Maclean’s Bachelor Panel: Week six
By Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 4:14 PM - 0 Comments
The fantasy date episode: Brad hunkers down with three finalists (on three different nights) in the Maritimes
Our Maclean’s Bachelor panel reconvenes to consider what they’ve learned from another hour and a half of The Bachelor Canada. Find all of their panels here.
From: Sonya
To: Aaron, ColinIt’s all fun and games until Canada’s Prince Charming turns into a toad.
Bachelor Brad Smith, who has espoused the virtues of commitment and communication for weeks now, handed roses to the exact two girls he has identified as being emotionally closed off and perhaps not ready for a serious relationship: Whitney and Bianka.
Kara, my mascara streams down my cheeks with yours.
It’s safe to say most viewers went into this week’s episode expecting that after Whitney’s cold and calculating side was exposed during the home visits last week, she was going to be the one sent packing Wednesday night. (Well played, you crafty reality TV producers you, well played.) Exactly no one was going to miss her. That included, it seemed, Brad: “I can’t be with someone who’s emotionally repressed and that’s what I get from her.”
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Maclean’s Bachelor Panel: Week five
By Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 1, 2012 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments
And so the truth comes out. Or part of it, maybe.
Our Maclean’s Bachelor panel reconvenes to consider what they’ve learned from another hour and a half of The Bachelor Canada. Find all of their panels here.
From: Colin
To: Sonya, AaronAnd so the truth comes out. Or part of it, maybe.
During the week of home dates, where Brad met the final four girls’ families, there was a moment. Sitting at a small dining table in Calgary, Whitney’s dad looked across and asked Brad whether he could see his feelings for Whitney growing beyond where they were at that moment. He even uttered the words: “Look me in the eye.” Which we all know is man-talk for Listen Buddy, I Am Very Serious Here Now. And Brad just straight up said Yes, either because he is an amazing liar (doubtful) or because he genuinely felt he could be with Whitney for the long haul. Either way, it was emphatic. And did Whitney maybe feel the same way? Err… <”There was awkward silence, awkward tension.” — Whitney, 2012>
Two things.
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Maclean’s Bachelor Panel: Week four
By Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 12:09 PM - 0 Comments
Only four women left–one of whom scares our panelists–in the struggle to win Brad’s heart
Our Maclean’s Bachelor panel reconvenes to consider what they’ve learned from another hour and a half of The Bachelor Canada. Find all of their panels here.
From: Aaron
To: Sonya, ColinWell that was a heavy hour and a half. After a preview of the tears to come, it took about 12 minutes for somebody (Britany) to start crying this week. Britany then confessed to Brad that her father had suffered from depression and alcoholism and that as a child she worried about him killing himself. Brad then confessed to Whitney that his best friend had killed himself in university and another friend had died in a boating accident a year later. Then Chantelle’s father called to say her grandfather had died and she decided to leave the show to attend the funeral.
There was also a trip to Paris, in which Laura B. was left behind after being lectured on her insecurity, and a rock climbing adventure that almost made Brad vomit. And then Brad bailed on the rose ceremony. And somehow, having started last week’s episode with 12 women, we ended this week’s episode with only four.
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Maclean’s Bachelor panel: Week three
By Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 3:32 PM - 0 Comments
What we learned about life and love in this week’s episode
Our Maclean’s Bachelor panel reconvenes to consider what they’ve learned from another hour and a half of The Bachelor Canada. Find all of their panels here.
From: Sonya
To: Colin, AaronIt’s week three, and Brad and his bachelorettes have settled into a nice little routine of planning dates, going on dates, or if all else fails, lying around the mansion talking about dates.
Fair enough – they’ve been pretty spectacular events. Brad took a second girl (Kara) up in a helicopter this week to go cow wrangling in Alberta, and showed off his baby daddy potential when he flew five girls to Mexico and bequeathed soccer equipment onto underprivileged kids. Brad also convinced six bachelorettes to compete in some sort of lumberjack Olympics that gave Whitney the chance to flex her bicep and drop jaws across the nation. Mitt Romney, don’t put this woman in a binder.
By the end of the episode, I’d reached the following two conclusions, which I will defend until the end of my days.*
1) Brad “The Bachelor” Smith is actually a pretty great guy, even with the v-neck t-shirts.**
2) But, there is more going on in the bachelorette mansion than meets the eye, and herein lies Canada’s great opportunity.
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Maclean’s Bachelor panel: Week Two
By Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments
So many questions. No. 1: Why?
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Week 2
Our panel of Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry reconvenes to consider what they’ve learned from another hour and a half of The Bachelor Canada. Last week’s discussion is here.
From: Colin
To: Sonya, Aaron“I’m finding it harder than ever to manage eight women.”
— Brad SmithTo be fair to Brad, handling eight people—men or women—vying for your attention in a small champagne-soaked hotel room in New Orleans, only hours after each of them has given you a private burlesque performance would probably be a bit much for anyone to manage. And to his credit, under the circumstances, he seemed to deal with it fairly well—all episode, in fact. He even managed to deal with Melissa Marie P (for ‘Playboy,’ presumably)’s unstoppable barrage of impatient attempts at getting him into a very serious and heavy conversation about how much he, the Bachelor, does or does not want to love parenthood.
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The Maclean’s Bachelor panel
By Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 12:30 PM - 0 Comments
One bachelor, three critics, countless possibilities
Sonya Bell, Colin Horgan and Aaron Wherry discuss the finer points of The Bachelor Canada — in Horgan’s words, “the Iliad and the Odyssey and Wuthering Heights and Sense and Sensibility and the Great Gatsby all rolled into one … but different.”
From: Aaron
To: Colin, Sonya
As all high school textbooks will soon be edited to reflect, there are two pivotal dates in Canadian history: 1812, when the land that would become this nation was valiantly defended against American invaders in one of humanity’s odder conflicts, and 2012, when this country valiantly rebranded as its own one of America’s greatest contributions to 21st century humanity.Not only did we get to keep the Northwest Territories, but now, with the debut of The Bachelor Canada, we can claim one of the last of a beleaguered America’s great institutions. Without even needing to invade, we have successfully conquered the continent.
For those unfamiliar with The Bachelor, the premise is perfectly logical: a contestant seeking true love is presented with a couple dozen members of the opposite sex, several of whom he will make out with and one of whom, in theory, he will marry. Over the course of several weeks impossibly elaborate dates are had and, one-by-one, the women are eliminated (the weekly elimination involves an ancient pagan ritual known as a “rose ceremony”). This whole process is regularly referred to as the “journey.”
