‘Golden Bachelor’ has an accessibility problem

The Golden Bachelor is a landmark show, the first in the franchise’s more than 20-year history to feature a cast in their later years. The Bachelor and Bachelorette typically feature well-manicured gaggles of 20- and 30-somethings who dream about falling in love and starting families. Filming hours are long and tempers are short, thinned by all the elements that make for “good” reality television: small shared spaces, high-running emotions, and limited access to books, music, movies, and mobile phones.

The Golden Bachelor, in contrast, is a show about a 72-year-old widower from Indiana named Gerry Turner. He speaks openly about the grief of losing his wife and how much he cherishes the support of his four daughters. Like Gerry, the 22 women vying for his affection are similarly emotionally vulnerable and grounded in life experience. Many are widows themselves, and they range in age from 60 to 75.

For a franchise that has historically been slow to incorporate diversity across age, race, ethnicity, gender, and ability, Golden Bachelor is a huge step forward. But the progress stops there. Instead of evaluating how the needs of older contestants may be different from those of a younger cast, the production has failed to provide age-appropriate accommodations or concessions for its new generation of stars.

Bunking as golden bachelorettes

The franchise’s famous mansion in Agoura Hills, California, has been used in production for decades. It only has seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms, so to accommodate up to 35 contestants each season, the bedrooms are outfitted with bunk beds.

In 2018, Bachelorette contestant David Ravitz broke his nose and sustained other facial injuries after falling out of his bunk in the middle of the night. In a news segment about the accident, a fellow contestant is seen drilling wooden planks along the bunks to “David-proof the beds.”

The Golden Bachelor bunks do have safety rails, but they’re still bunk beds. The accommodations are, at the very least, insulting for 20- and 30-somethings. But for older folks, bunks are practically cruel.

When the Golden Bachelor contestants discover the bunk beds — and realize they’ll be sleeping four or more in a room — they are not shy about their shock and disdain. Sandra, 75, notes that she needs a bottom bunk because she has had her knees replaced (“That’s a lot of climbing” she says) and because it “puts me three steps closer to the bathroom.” The show then cuts to a discussion amongst her four roommates about who will be getting up in the middle of the night to use the facilities.

As we age, we tend to have to use the bathroom more often. Now imagine that urgency is exacerbated by trying to get to the nearest toilet while climbing down from a bunk bed in the dark with a bad knee. The mansion is simply too small to host this many senior women.

It’s rare, but the franchise does occasionally shoot in other locations, like at a Pennsylvania resort for the 25th season of The Bachelor in 2020. The show should have made a similar exception for this season, granting contestants the privacy they deserve and the access they need. Instead, they exploit the contestant’s discomfort for entertainment.

Roughing it through the rose ceremony

Credit: ABC/John Fleenor

Natascha, 60, who was eliminated at the end of the second episode, walked up to a camera as she left the house to convey a message. “You have people in there, 60, 70, and above,” she says, “Do the rose ceremony in chairs. They have chair yoga, chair exercise, chair aerobics… [We need a] chair rose ceremony.”

Former contestants on The Bachelor have noted that the rose ceremony can take hours to film, with shooting sometimes stretching on into the early morning. Contestants usually wear heels, and the women of the women of the Golden Bachelor are no exception. That means they stand in heels for hours, a feat for women of any age.

Natascha’s comments were broadcast at the end of the second episode, but they didn’t foreshadow the addition of chairs. In the third episode, contestants still stood throughout the rose ceremony.

Driving dangerously

In the second episode of the season, while driving to a date with contestant Theresa, Golden Bachelor Gerry finds himself in a scary situation. The headlights on his convertible go out on the freeway, leaving both him and Theresa in the dark — literally. “I live in northern Indiana. This is my first time driving on a California freeway, and they are notoriously insane,” he says in a confessional. “I don’t have any headlights in front of me, I don’t see highway markings, I don’t see all the signs because they’re dark.”

Instead of stopping production to fix the car or bring in a new one, the show continues filming as Gerry grows visually anxious, gripping the steering wheel and furrowing his brow while taking it slow in the right-most lane.

Theresa pats his back to comfort him but is herself feeling the pressure. “Right now, I am scared to death,” she says.

The situation would be dangerous and potentially disastrous for a Bachelor of any age and shows just how reckless the franchise can be in assuring the safety of its stars.

Given this general lack of care, should we have expected anything different for the show’s first Golden season? Perhaps not. But it’d make the show that much sweeter if the Golden Bachelor and his Bachelorettes were able to truly shine without putting their health at risk.

How to watch: The Golden Bachelor is streaming now on Hulu.