We just need ABC and Netflix to join forces.
This season of The Golden Bachelor has been an absolute dud. Not because of the women, who were all fun, serious, beautiful, open, and different from one another. But because of the bachelor, 66-year-old former NFL player Mel Owens, whose vocabulary seems to be limited to the following words, even when talking about Peg Munson and Cindy Cullers, the final two 60-plus ladies vying for his heart: special, energetic, caring, spiritual. This man cannot show and not tell. It’s deadly. How can a series about finding love basically never feature the word love?
I understand why Owens was cast. He may well have been the kind of guy ABC had envisioned the first time around, before ultimately casting sweetie-pie pickleball normie Gerry Turner in Season 1: hunky and jacked, a little buzzworthy, big and manly. (Well, except when asked to swim with stingrays or ride a horse—two things that seemed to scare the bejeezus out of Big Mel.) But my God, the man is boring. And he seems to think the point of the show is to see if he can find someone to … date. Buddy, this is supposed to end in a proposal. Why are you here?
As I plodded through, I started to wonder if Owens would have been more open and interesting if he hadn’t been confronted with the actual women, with their over-60 bodies and sparkling, pleading eyes. Instead, what if he had a wall to insulate him from witnessing their crepey skin and legible vulnerability? Over one mind-numbing episode after another, I realized: I know how to fix The Golden Bachelor. Let’s get these golden singles on Love Is Blind.
The Netflix show’s premise is simple: Couples get to know one another by talking (and talking), separated by a wall, unable to see each other. They get to lay eyes on each other only once they’ve decided they’re so into each other that they’ll get engaged. As I watched the most recent season (No. 9, my first), I was relieved to find that these engagements can be broken at any point on their journey. After the ring is presented and accepted, the couples go on vacation (to have sex, obviously), then live together (and witness at least some of their respective flaws, obviously), before hastily attacking wedding planning. In this recent season, six couples got engaged, two couples made it to their wedding day, and both couples broke up at the altar. Couples from other seasons, though, have gotten married and are even still together. It can work!
So why should ABC and/or Netflix greenlight Golden Love Is Blind? Here’s why. In the penultimate episode of The Golden Bachelor, Munson and Cullers each probed Owens about their relationship as it stood, as well as about their futures. With Munson, he deflected and instead asked about their dune buggy ride earlier that day. With Cullers, Owens withdrew and noted, repeatedly, that the situation he was in was “hard.” Now, based on some morning-after chitchat with Munson after the couple’s time in the fantasy suite, it appears that Owens opened up to her off-camera, but we’ll never know the specifics. And also, that’s cheating. I don’t care about Munson outspeeding him in the dune buggy or Cullers being braver than him with wildlife. I care about how he talks to these women, who are each falling for him. And despite the season being nearly over, we have no clue about that.
If Owens had been in a Love Is Blind scenario, the only thing he could have done with his time is talk, share, open up. I wanted to hear about his childhood in Detroit, growing up near Diana Ross and in a mixed-race household. I wanted to know who his friends were, how he got into football, what happened in his marriage, and why it fell apart. These are all the things he could have free-associated about on Love Is Blind, because there are no activities to distract cast members other than eating copious amounts of takeout.
Love Is Blind would be better suited to older people anyway. The 20- and 30-year-olds who try to find life partners on that show hit so many obstacles that just don’t exist when you are over 60—notably, when to quit partying and if and when to have kids. Older folks also know better who they are, what they will tolerate, and what’s most important to them. It’s not that there are no issues once you pass middle age. Owens, for example, plans to never retire from lawyering, a goal that sounds terrible to me (and a number of the women on The Golden Bachelor). Of course, there is always the “where to live” issue. But “golden” daters can afford to do long distance while they sort out their dream later-years location(s). The only thing to rush is maximizing fun during one’s latter decades and to find joy even as health issues, inconvenient challenges, and losses pop up and threaten to derail the freedom that comes with age.
Turner, the first Golden Bachelor, got a bad rap for having led on Leslie Fhima, the runner-up of his season. Lots of us loved Fhima and thought Turner too much of a dweeb for her. But contrasting him with Owens, I see the error in my judgment. Turner’s willingness to actually fall in love, while hurtful for Fhima and others who wanted to be with him, is what made the show work. He asked so many questions (unlike Owens), listened intently, and answered with his own feelings and dreams (also unlike Owens). He made “his” women feel seen, and the viewers could see that. Turner would have been great on Love Is Blind too—he loves to talk!—but he didn’t need the format. Owens does.
There may be something else at play here. Before this season even aired, Owens went on a podcast and said he’d be cutting all women over 60. (This would have left one contestant, who was actually voted out in the first rose ceremony.) Part of me is still wondering about that Mel Owens. Sure, he apologized. But, like, that’s also him. (FWIW, his wife was 19 years younger than him when he got married at 43.) As he has resisted articulating any feeling beyond “I really like you” to any woman, including Munson and Cullers, and as he reiterates over and over, on a time-bound show, that relationships “take time” to build, I wonder if part of the issue is that he actually just wants to be dating younger women and having fun. Let me be clear: That is totally fine! But then he shouldn’t have signed on to The Golden Bachelor. If he had been on Love Is Blind, I am convinced the incessant talking would have raised this red flag if it needed to be hoisted. These older women are smart and accomplished, and they know what they want and are ready for. And that’s a new husband, now.
