We’re back in paradise, friends!
Except this is a new and improved paradise.
For its 10th season, and after taking a hiatus, “Bachelor in Paradise” returns with the sloppy seconds singles (and I say that endearingly!) from “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” seasons past — but things are looking fresh.
We have a new location — instead of the open-air Playa Escondida Resort in Sayulita, Mexico, we have a plushy venue: Azura Beach Resort in Costa Rica (hello, air conditioning!). We’ve got some new faces, like Hannah Brown as “Head of Paradise Relations” and the Goldens, aka cast-offs from the inaugural seasons of “The Golden Bachelor” and “The Golden Bachelorette” (though we’ll have to wait for more episodes to see them hit the beach). Plus, we have new elements like “compatibility exercises” and a mysterious “life-changing opportunity" that remains to be seen.
It seems like production has heard the chatter about their show and run with the feedback. The result is more cleaned up — even the quality and lighting of the edited film looks different, more luxe, with B-roll and silly slow-mo scenes accompanied by vibe-y music. I’m not a “Love Island” watcher, but they may have taken some notes!
There’s also a little bit of fourth-wall breaking, which BN tends to shy away from, like when Spencer made a funny comment and declared that he had to say it because it was “in his contract,” and when they panned to a cameraman doing his best Jim Halpert following Brian’s entrance.
But some things never change — we may have swapped crabs for iguanas, but the cast still came armed with their “lists” of love interests they were hoping to find on the beach; they threw in the random early send-off that no one recognizes, this time in Kyle from Katie Thurston’s season back in 2021; and Wells Adams returned as the resident bartender-slash-couples’ counselor.
We open with a shot of a messy resort — trash, bikini tops and pool floats askew — and a sunburnt Jesse Palmer rousing from a nap; from there, typical “Paradise” ensues. The singles file in with a quick blurb about where we might know them from, har-har, and some quick early connections are made. There are still some production oddities, like not having a back-up plan for a date that gets rained out, and some fun appearances — Dale Moss, for example, who makes his triumphant (well, that remains to be seen) return to Bachelor Nation after Clare Crawley ended her season of “The Bachelorette” early to run away into the sunset with him.
In the second hour of the premiere, we get our first taste of the compatibility challenges, an addition that I personally loved. Especially because it caused more drama between the men than between any of the couples! Based on the season preview at the end of the episode, these exercises are only going to get messier, and one thing about reality TV fans? We love mess.
Overall, props to the producers for staying true to the “Paradise” format while finding ways to keep it fresh. As long as their casting choices turn out well, we should be in for a good time.
Adams, as always, put it best: “I feel like America needs this. It’s inflation, it’s tariffs – there’s a lot of crazy things happening. We need to watch idiots make out on the beach.”
Happy summer, folks.