Alex Casey: The Bachelor 'a shredded hunk of Joe Jonas-Meets-Adonis man meat'

The Bachelor Arthur Green knows how to handle the ladies.

Opinion

TV3 controversies sidelined as The Bachelor hands out flowers.

Through the burning hellfire of this week's X Factor debacle, The Bachelor sat waiting nearby patiently, the grease upon his chiselled torso protecting him from the licking flames of controversy at TV3.

Arising from the ashes, MediaWorks has another controversy machine on its hands and - if last night's episode is anything to go by - possibly just as many glorious TV moments as X Factor has provided thus far.

For those who don't know, The Bachelor is a romantic reality TV tale as old as time. One man on the search for true love is introduced to 20 or so women. He takes them on group and single dates, and attends deeply stressful (yet opulent) cocktail parties at the bachelor mansion. Week by week, contestants are eliminated, whittling down the true love log till we are left with a single soulmate twig. At least that's the idea.

Last night we met our bachelor, Arthur Green. He's a catch and a half, a shredded hunk of Joe Jonas-Meets-Adonis man meat. Towering over host Mike Puru, his head is always a little too close to the low-hanging chandeliers dotted through the mansion. It's an excellent sight gag, not unlike Gandalf hitting his head in Bilbo's Hobbit House.

Arthur's towering height is matched only by his ambition - he is an entrepreneur from way back. "I started a business to learn about business," he says sincerely over a supercut of his Clean Paleo nutrition company. But it's not all kale and rump steak. Cue the slow acoustic guitar - his parents are divorced. Although a woeful tale, his parents' separation and recouplings ultimately brought him six sisters. There's no denying that the man knows how to handle multiple ladies.

The bachelorettes themselves are a mixed bag. Cake decorating! Accordions! Touch Rugby! Sniper revelations! Wait, what? During the famed limo introductions, it was our bachelor Arthur who shone the brightest. His brand is "sexy dork" - he sang a rhyme to remember the girls' names and executed an extraordinarily terrible one-handed clap.

From the limos we moved to the cocktail party, where my real fears for the first episode lay. Any Bachelor fan knows that moves played during the cocktail party are crucial to the game, sorry, the journey, of true love.

And I have to say, our bachelorettes rose to the occasion. We had girls butting in, stealing Arthur away and throwing daggers at one another. I was so relieved - I had worried it might feel a little bit more like a primary school disco where the girls keep running to the toilet together.

The outdoor scenes, laden with candles and fairy lights, tended to look a little more impressive than indoors, where the 21 girls looked like they were uncomfortably squashed in Nana's fancy lounge. And, as for the bad red plastic champagne flutes? That's a whole other column.

After draining troughs of Lindauer and Rosie's bizarre demands for Arthur to come and protect her in the Middle East, it was time for the rose ceremony. I was feeling about as overwhelmed as Mike Puru next to those huge hydrangeas. Arthur deftly handed out the roses to the bachelorettes, and they dutifully sidestepped the precarious tealights to accept. I am delighted to report that the multiple double-ups of names will lead to some wonderfully tense pauses, "Cristy ... with a C" springs to mind.

• Alex Casey is a staff writer at TheSpinoff.co.nz