With most film and television schedules still up in the air these days, fans of the Bachelor franchise are already wondering how the planned series will actually be able to make their return to our screens. Believe it not, the producers have ideas for how The Bachelor films in quarantine—and they involve everything from isolated resorts to socially distanced road trips.
Plans are underway for all Bachelor shows, but especially for The Bachelorette. Clare Crawley’s season hasn’t been canceled, and ABC is eager to get the ball rolling ASAP. “Clare season is happening 100 percent,” Rob Mills, ABC’s head of alternative programming, told Variety in May. According to Mills, the network is planning for The Bachelorette’s return by September. But in order for that to happen, the producers will have to get a little creative.
“We’ve looked at everything—are travel restrictions going to ease up? And it just doesn’t look like anything is changing anytime soon, and what we would rather do is start getting the season underway, sooner rather than later,” Mills explained to Variety. “As of right now, the plan is to get a great location that has a ton of space where everybody could safely be together and we can still have great dates that still feel big and romantic, and we would shoot the entire season there.”
Image: ABC.
As per Reality Steve, that “great location” could be a resort. “Now, I don’t know the location, because what I’m told is they are out scouting right now for a resort to accept them for a five-week filming in July and into August, and it would air in September,” he explained on his podcast in early May. A source broke the rumor to Us Weekly a month earlier, explaining to the outlet that the crew was already “scoping out” locations.
“They’re scoping out multiple different resorts to see if it’s possible to film the entire season in one location,” the source said. “Though a resort has not been decided on, if one is found, the show has discussed filming the season without the usual travel.”
Even if things go according to plan, however, there are still plenty of questions to address. Bachelor host Chris Harrison knows that the “logistics” could be messy: “Getting 20 cast members is one thing, getting 100 to 180 crew members and putting a director in a truck next to the producers, where you’ve got 30 people in a trailer next to each other is another thing,” he explained on the Bill Simmons Podcast in April.
But we don’t doubt that if anyone could figure this one out, it would be Bachelor nation. “We are on it,” Harrison confirmed.