Following Joey Graziadei’s historic season — what many called the show’s revival — fan expectations are high. Showrunners can only hope the new bachelor lead, 31-year-old Grant Ellis, will bring in similar numbers. As per typical Bachelor fashion, the premiere included many attention-grabbing wacky limo entrances. Several women brought “Mrs. Grant” merch and wedding motifs. Other notable entrances included pizza, a t-shirt gun, a bottle girl-type Vegas sequence, and even a show-stopping “no drama llama” — yes, a real llama entered the mansion.
The llama handler was Alexe Godin, a 27-year-old pediatric speech therapist from New Brunswick, Canada. Shoutout to Alexe, our fellow Canadian queen, for bringing all the classic goofy vibes to season 29, and she even spoke French!
We were graced with Alexe on our screens, and we’re guaranteed to see her again next week as she received the first impression rose! The show’s host, Jesse Palmer, revealed that the first impression rose is more powerful than ever before. It previously guaranteed safety in the first rose ceremony, but this year, it also awards the first one-on-one date with Grant. Go Alexe!
Grant met 25 women on night one — notably less than last season’s 32 contestants — and unfortunately sent home seven ladies at the rose ceremony. The eliminated women include Christina S., J’Nae H., Kelsey C., Kyleigh H., Neicey B., Radhika G., and Savannah Q., all of whom will not move into the mansion.
The biggest difference I saw in this premiere, as opposed to its predecessors, was the lack of drama. Maybe the “no drama llama” was the magical addition the show had been missing. Usually, there is one contestant who is portrayed as a villain, or at the very least, someone who drinks too much alcohol and stirs up conflict. This change could be due to a chill group of women, or more likely, a new approach from producers. I personally like that there wasn’t any clearly fabricated and forced drama from the jump. Conflict will naturally come up once the women move into the mansion, so it’s better that a “villain” will emerge organically, rather than trying to tailor something and keep pushing a baseless campaign.
It’s too early to say whether season 29 will match the captivating effect of season 28, but so far so good. Approximately 2.72 million viewers tuned in to watch the premiere, which is unfortunately a considerable dip from Graziadei’s 3.18 million. With that said, premieres aren’t reliable indicators of a season’s success as many people skip limo entrances, so the real meat of viewers usually trickles in around weeks three or four as the show heats up.
Episodes air weekly every Monday at 8 PM PST, and hit streaming services such as Citytv+ and Hulu the following day.