It’s the night of nights for Australian reality TV. For all of us in lockdown it’s the sugary break we all deserve and for those of us who write about The Bachelor Australia it’s about squeezing as many aviation puns as possible into one piece. So please fasten your seatbelts, because there’s sure to be some turbulence ahead.
It’s night one, the red carpet and cocktail party. The night where all the ladies wear dresses I would find almost grossly uncomfortable and speed date one man who has been deemed Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor. And who is he this year? The man who is meant to make all our hearts (among other things) flutter comes in the form of a human Ken doll, Jimmy Nicholson.
So, where do I begin? How do I sum up Jimmy?
He’s the sort of guy I wouldn’t waste a like on on dating apps because you need to know when someone is way out of your league. He’s got a cheeky smile, a rippin’ bod and somehow I’m hairier than him. Jimmy looks like he smells like Ralph Lauren Blue and yet I still want to clumsily ask him for his number. I have standards, ya know?
With this, we begin. The music has started. Osher’s voice is heard and it’s time to feel insignificant – let’s go!
The show opens with Jimmy cleaning some sort of vehicle. A motorbike? A moped? A goddamn segway? Who knows? It’s irrelevant — because he’s in a white singlet and it’s in slow motion. Warner Bros. sure knows their audience…
Jimmy talks about being a pilot and there are so many puns I can’t keep up. He says something about there being “no manual when it comes to love”, however says literally nothing about needing a co-pilot in life — such a missed opportunity TBH.
We then are introduced to Jimmy’s dad, and the pair casually hang out on the balcony of their $10 million waterfront mansion in Sydney’s Palm Beach A.K.A the home of Home and Away and rich people. The Pacific Ocean glistens as does their teeth. Doctor Dee has clearly been involved and they don’t even have a blue tick yet!
We then meet the whole family — who appear to have fallen straight out of a Country Road catalogue — and honestly, I’ve seen uglier people on the Victoria’s Secret runway. Some people are born blessed, others are born Nicholsons.
Jimmy’s sassy sister becomes my new hero after she calls out Jimmy for spewing some absolute psychobabble of finding “The One” saying “everyone wants to find ‘The One’”. Like, duh, Jimmy! It’s brutal but I would personally like to hire Jimmy’s sister to pep me up for every date I go on now. I need to be more realistic.
Jimmy then flies somewhere mysterious in a tuxedo. I’m here (in Melbourne) stuck within my 5 kilometre radius which has two Coles AND an Aldi and this man is out here flying a goddamn plane in a tuxedo. (PS. Who flies a plane wearing a tux?! Although, I must say, I’m not mad about it!)
Australia’s Ryan Seacrest, Osher Günsberg, greets Jimmy on the tarmac and they talk about true love, adventure, hot women, how to vaccinate all of Australia — I don’t know, I stopped listening. I’m only here for catfights and crazies, so bring it on!
And now… the real show begins. They’ve laid out a red carpet on the tarmac, and 23 women are about to do some truly demented sh*t to try and capture the attention of one currently unemployed pilot on JobSeeker. It gives me an idea for my next Hinge date… Roll out a red carpet at the local RSL and demand he do pole vault or cartwheels for me or something. Translating this show into the real world gives me a migraine.
We kick things off. It’s Brooke. She’s baked a cake. We have no evidence she baked it whilst also getting ready for a two day cocktail party (it’s all smoke and mirrors people!) but beggars’ belief, the woman can multitask. She looks stunning in her dress, and she gets the massage at a day spa music. She explains it’s a Sri Lankan love cake. I tell her the set to MasterChef is slightly to her left. But, Jimmy believes that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” They fall in love, have babies and fly off into the sunset… blah blah blah. Who needs 22 other women? This woman bakes and is an 11 out of 10. Is there even any point to keep watching?
Then we meet Carlie. I have nothing cynical to say about her until she brings out a love contract. On TV it’s cute as hell, but in real life, if I bought a love contract to the pub for a first date, I’m pretty sure they’d excuse themselves from the table and never return or call 000. But sure, on TV it’s romantic, and I like Carlie. She’s not top three material but she’s a safe top ten.
Jacinta, A.K.A Jay, is up next. Jacinta is wearing a dress fit for Vegas, and she’s also got a game up her sleeve. It’s Chess! Babe, The Queen’s Gambit was so 2020! She plays him, she loses. It’s cute. I’m bored. Not even the sparkly number and perspex heels can keep me interested, sorry Jay. You seem like a woman I’d love to have as my colleague but not as someone who is going to act unhinged on TV.
Laura comes down the red carpet. She’s 28. She’s a speech pathologist. Her dress gives me Little Mermaid vibes but her innuendos give me the opposite of that. She makes Jimmy stick out his tongue. Uhhhhh if that’s how we are vetting men now I’ve been doing this all wrong, I’ve been hoping they split the bill rather than letting me pay for it! Can’t believe all this time it’s totally cool and not at all insane to make them prove their tongue works.
Then, it happens! The music we were all here for, the crazy music! Enter stage left: Sierah. Sierah claims she’s psychic. She makes our Bachie imagine the perfect woman he’s looking for and then turns over some tarot cards, and it’s her dressed as a Hooters’ esque cowgirl! He turns over another one, another horny cowgirl! She says that the whole time she wanted to fart. We love a girl who embraces normal bodily functions! Sierah is what I want to be when I grow up. She’s a walking meme. She’s a comedian. She’s a mermaid (just look at her dress!). She’s the chaos we all deserve! I love Sierah, giddyup cowgirl!
Sierah is my new best friend. Network Ten
From a distance an engine revs. I’m back on the Gold Coast, I faintly hear the sounds of four tradies drinking a Big M wolf-whistling me, “Hey sweetheart” says some guy called Macca. No, wait. It’s just Belinda, a lawyer from the Sunshine Coast. She says things like: “Life without love is just a lot of eating and shitting,” and “I wanna lock him up and throw away the key.” I’m scared but Belinda gives off huge mob boss wife vibes and she’s wearing a power suit. She has no filter and are we meant to believe she’s a criminal lawyer? Fu*k. Yes.
Now it’s the “you’re not going to win montage” — a trail of anonymous women who have worked for months on their entrance only to be blanked by Warner Bros and Network Ten.
Who even are they? I’m sure you’re lovely but you’re not wifey nor demented enough for commercial television, we simply cannot waste our budget on you. Next time, maybe just walk in totally naked.
Then, as though time has stopped, the music slows, the lights dim and an expertly fake tanned leg swings out of a limo. We have a finalist, ladies and gentleman — Holly. She’s 27, she’s blonde, she works as a marketing manager which is influencer speak for “I do it for the gram.” I’m nicknaming her ‘Holly from marketing.’ Her parents get along and she’s still friends with all the girls from high school…. Holly gets her own intro and it’s longer than Jimmy’s which is a spoiler if I ever saw one! She takes him to a wine bar in the bushes where they drink goon from a silver pillow. Jimmy falls in love, I fall in love. We all fall in love. Pack it up, boys! It’s done.
Bookies’ — and let’s be honest, Jimmy’s — favourite, Holly. Network Ten.
After the winner Holly, Chanel enters. She’s an air hostess. She’s cool, calm and everything I wish I was. She’s now the only picture on my vision board. I’m manifesting a life as Chanel. She completely misses Jimmy’s aviation joke about working in “aluminium tubing” i.e. he’s a pilot and she gets embarrassed. Don’t be embarrassed, girl! The joke was sh*t and you’re totally above it!
Then we hit The Bachelor Australia diversity quota – it’s a gamer girl! Steph is a “cool” girl, she plays games (the computer kind, not the manipulative kind) and live streams them. . She loves gaming. Most girls don’t like gaming, but Steph likes gaming. Hey guys, I think Steph likes gaming!? But that doesn’t matter, because then we find out what Steph doesn’t like… pilots. I won’t assume that Steph got cheated on by a pilot but a plane did fly overhead and she flipped it off whilst saying, “f*cking pilots…” Oooof did someone just feed me Sriracha? This season is about to get spicy!
It’s now time for the Hunger Games to begin. Jimmy enters the cocktail party while 23 women scream at him like dogs in heat. And then it’s feeding time at the zoo. Everyone wants a bite of Jimmy.
Sierah (the fake psychic) claims she has “Big Dig Energy” and Belinda Soprano (tell me I’m wrong) says so many iconic things that I actually struggle to keep track.
After realising that Jimmy lost his job during COVID, she actually asks him if he qualified for JobSeeker… I think she’s my guardian angel and I want to commit a crime just so that I can seek her services.
One girl whose name is… irrelevant, locks a love lock to a fake branch and they toss it at the producers. Real love, for me, always starts like this so finally this is a language I speak. Toss something at some passersby and hope that your date finds it sincere or charming…
Wait, there’s more chaos. In a very cool and casual way, like the way I ask dates for their blood types, Lily enters into the cocktail party on a crane… because she operates them for a living. Her dress is hot, Jimmy’s blood circulates. The rest of the girls hate a late entrance and look on in utter disdain. Who the hell is this hot crane operator? Ladies and gentlemen, our villain has arrived.
After all that excitement, it’s time for Osher to do rose maths. It’s Rose Ceremony time! Time to get rid of two women who barely even had airtime or who producers know won’t give us any good soundbites or meme-able moments. Sorry, who are you? I’m sure you all work in real estate, but you are now just the girls who came last in The Bachelor. Life comes at you hard, but remember kids, don’t use your press shots on dating apps!
Sierah is the narrator of the season (meaning she ain’t going home anytime soon). She vehemently hates Jimmy, for literally no reason. Not like Steph who once dated a pilot and now hates all pilots (but oddly exhaled in relief when she was given a rose). Sierah hates him because as she says, she’d “rather talk to a wooden spoon”.
Jimmy reads out 1,000 names and it feels like the longest rose ceremony in history. The names all sound like “Emily”. I nod at each woman like I held the door open for her in a lift and remember no one except Belinda. Belinda is either going to get me out of prison or smother me with a pillow, both I will enjoy.
Jimmy gets rid of “woman A” and “woman B”… but wait! Woman A is a red head. Infamously Zoe-Clare (from Locky’s season) said that red-headed women were a “marginalised community” and although I once thought that to be a drunken rant, MAYBE Zoe-Clare was onto something after all!
The two girls whose names and faces I have already forgotten leave the mansion. And just like that, episode one crash lands.
Assume the brace position, fasten your seatbelts, this season is ready for take off, and I am so here for it!
Until tomorrow…
