The Bachelor Now Casting! (Ben Flajniks of the World Need Not Apply)

Funny post from my homies at Reality Nation.

Here’s my two cents: from a Casting Director’s POV, simply casting the second place winner from the previous season is an easy breezy way to get the job done – and have a built in fan base. I think in the past it worked for a while. But how many second place winners can you keep choosing before you get to the bottom of the wine barrel?

Keep reading to see if you’re ripe and ready to be the next Bachelor or Bachelorette.. and find out how to apply!

In recent years, both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have stuck close to home when it came to casting the stars of their seasons. The leading lady on The Bachelorette has always been a former Bachelor wannabe, and The Bachelor hasn’t cast an unknown protagonist since the ill-fated Matt Grant/Shayne Lamas season.

But the problem with a formula is that it can lead you to do crazy, counterproductive things, such as building your entire season around Ben Flajnik simply because he was a known quantity. So ABC is now opening up the process for the first time in a while, posting an online application whereby someone can nominate themselves to be the next Bachelor. Or, if you happen to know just the right single guy, you can take the initiative and nominate someone else without their knowledge (just make sure  they have a decent sense of humor first).

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the producers are committing to going with a newbie when it comes time to selecting a new Bachelor star (a final decision won’t have to be made till late summer). It’s possible they are just leaving themselves an out should the season of The Bachelorette currently filming not provide anyone acceptable. Shooting for Emily Maynard’s season is now in its latter stages, so by now the brass ought to have a good idea of what they will potentially have to work with.

Chris Harrison has gone on record as saying that the franchise ought to be open to casting newcomers again – that it’s the format that’s the real star, not any one person. The producers had been resisting that on the grounds that casting the likes of Ben and Ashley Hebert gives fans someone to root for from the beginning, but the storylines for these repeaters have begun to sound very similar – it’s always a variation on “I took a chance and got my heart broken, but I’ve learned that I’m finally for true love, yadda yadda” – and the recent ratings show that familiarity may be equaling contempt.

Thumbs up for this decision by the Bachelor producers. Because seriously: looking back on it, wouldn’t anyone have been better than Ben?