"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."
"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."
"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."
Season of The Golden Bachelor falters because the lead, 66-year-old Mel Owens, uses a narrow set of descriptors—special, energetic, caring, spiritual—without showing emotional depth. Owens' repetitive vocabulary and inability to express or demonstrate love make him appear boring and ill-suited for a series meant to conclude with a proposal. The cast of women is praised as diverse, genuine, and engaging, which only highlights Owens' flatness. An alternative format proposes placing older singles in Love Is Blind's wall-based environment to encourage deeper conversation and emotional connection before physical appearance influences decisions.
Read at Slate Magazine
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