'The Bachelorette' Season 16: Has Covid-19 affected the new season? Here's what will be different on the show
Every year we see Chris Harrison, the host of 'The Bachelor' franchise declaring that the current season of the franchise will be the most dramatic one and would feature something we have never seen before. While his claims can be taken with a grain of salt, however this time around he might be onto something. Thanks to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world was turned upside down, everything has changed in the aftermath of the deadly virus's outbreak, including our favorite reality show, 'The Bachelorette'.
After getting everybody's hopes high by announcing Clare Crawley, a fan-favorite contestant from Juan Pablo's season, would be the next bachelorette and revealing the list of suitors who would be appearing on the show, back in March, the showrunners were all set to film the season amidst much fanfare. Unfortunately, on the day the filming was scheduled to begin, the entire country went into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. So, the filming was put on hold indefinitely until things got better.
While everybody was quarantining, the producers were planning on how to film the show in the face of the new reality and also pondering over how to keep the cast and crew members safe during the course of five weeks when the show would be filmed. The show's filming soon began in August with a few major changes to both the casting and the show format. The showrunners had initially announced the contestants' list in March, but due to the unavailability of some of them in August, another recasting was done. Initially, the cast was criticized heavily for their young age, so the new set of suitors were closer to Clare's age.
If you were hoping to see the familiar Bachelor mansion, then we are sorry to break it to you that the production had to abandon the usual location and filmed the entire season at the La Quinta Resort in California. This means that there will be no hometown dates or fancy dates abroad. Initially, Clare's season had Italy on its itinerary for one of its abroad dates, but due to the pandemic that was scrapped. The production reportedly booked the entire resort for five weeks to film the show. But prior to filming the season, every cast member and crew member had to get tested and be in quarantine. Only after getting all the clearances, the show began filming and even then all the protocols were followed strictly. In an interview, Chris Harrison mentioned, "We don't want it to be the pandemic Bachelorette, but obviously we need to embrace what's happening in the world [as] it would be silly to ignore it completely. So early on, you're going to see the testing and what and the steps we took, and you'll literally see people being tested and working their way into the bubble."
The fantasy suites too will be different this season. During the fantasy suite, the bachelorette gets to spend a night with the suitor of her choice. These are usually held in exotic locales, but this season, the fantasy suite will reportedly be held in Airstream trailers. While for the hometown dates, instead of the bachelorette flying into the suitor's hometowns, the suitors' family and friends will be brought in to California for them to meet the bachelorette. With all these major changes on cards, Season 16 of the 'Bachelorette' sure does look like something we have never seen before and we can't wait to watch it.
'The Bachelorette' Season 16 is all set to premiere on Tuesday, October 13, at 8/7c only on ABC.
