Wanted: one cute, candid single man – and 25 single womenMere hours after appearing live on Breakfast Television to announce that America’s popular televised search for love, The Bachelor, will be receiving its own Canadian incarnation, the show’s longtime host, Chris Harrison, could be found relaxing on a plush chair at Citytv’s Toronto office.
Flanked by Sean DeVries, the Canadian show’s supervising producer, and Claire Freeland, Citytv director of original programming, who’s pulling double duty as the show’s executive producer, the impeccably dressed Harrison chatted about the program which, after 16 seasons in the U.S., will be debuting a Canadian edition on the network this fall.
“There are so many (Bachelor) fans (in Canada),” Harrison said. “That’s really the reason we would go out of our way and come up. There’s such an insatiable appetite for our show up here, maybe even more than America.”
The show’s strong Canadian following may also be due to its open casting policy. Unlike other reality-TV shows such as Survivor and The Amazing Race, The Bachelor allows Canadian residents to participate and, in the case of Jillian Harris, even star in the show’s role-reversing sister program, The Bachelorette. So, with all that true patriot love going for it, why did it take this long to bring the popular show across the border?
“I don’t know why it took so long,” Freeland says. “It feels like it’s the right time now.”
For his part, Harrison believes it’s due to the show’s reinvigorated ratings. “The franchise is really peaking again, which is hard to believe, 10 years into this. It’s really bigger than ever,” he said in a tone both boastful and bewildered.
The show has certainly expanded and evolved with the times. After launching in 2002 as a six-part series, The Bachelor franchise now boasts two spinoffs — The Bachelorette and Bachelor Pad — and longer seasons.
“When we started, Facebook, blogs, Twitter — none of that stuff existed. If you wanted to see something, you had to look it up in a magazine.” Harrison recalled. “So much has changed, and we’ve had to change with the times. With people demanding more real storytelling, we’ve definitely had to lift the curtain a little bit. I think our show is a lot more organic, and allows people to see everything, warts and all, now, because we have to; because, if something happens, you now have to embrace that, and make it part of your story.”
But even though the world has changed, Harrison believes The Bachelor’s core search for love is what attracts fans, season after season.
“The one thing that hasn’t changed is the whole purpose of the show,” he said. “That’s the one thing we’ll never get away from. The original concept works, and that is: one guy looking for love with 25 women who are looking for love, and you hope it works; that’s the show!”
As such, producers DeVries and Freeland are committed to not tinkering too much with The Bachelor’s winning formula.
“We want great stories: people who have tried all sorts of conventional ways of falling in love and now they’re ready to try a very glamorous, very unconventional way. (It’s) real individuals on a genuine search,” DeVries says of potential contestants.
The Bachelor Canada’s creators still have quite the task ahead of them. Beyond casting the potential suitors (applications are being accepted at www.citytv.com/BachelorCanada), the show, which will film across the country, has yet to find its host, its star, or even its home base — a.k.a., “The Mansion.” But despite the blank canvas in front of them, DeVries says they have a clear vision in mind.
“Chris has told us that he needs to be hotter than your husband or spouse sitting beside you,” he says of the potential bachelor. “So we’re looking for a cute guy, but also one that is seriously looking for love and willing to be candid with us and expose himself, in a way.”
While the two Canadian producers seem itching to get on with the process, Harrison sums up the show’s debut with the wisdom of a man who’s been through it multiple times: “The thing is, we didn’t say you have a couple at the end or you have a marriage; that’s never been the purpose. Bachelor Canada isn’t promising anything.
“What they promise is a great guy as a bachelor, and he’s going to be looking for love with 25 amazing women, and whatever happens, happens — and you’ll be along for the whole adventure. It may be the greatest love story in the world, or it may be the greatest train wreck in the world. Either way, you’re going to be on board.”
The Bachelor Canada will debut on Citytv this fall.
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