Steve Braunias: The Bachelorette - Pretty men and all their pretty lies

Lesina Nakhid-Schuster, left, and Lily McManus, New Zealand's Bachelorettes. Photo / Matt Klitscher

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What will finish first – civilisation as we know it, or The Bachelorette? Both seem to be hurtling towards the end line. Both are concerned with the threat of loneliness and oblivion. Only one of them is watchable.

The quite entertaining and certainly vastly diverting dating show has resumed and promptly, abruptly, took the six remaining contestants away from the soft, golden light of Argentina back home to the bright, harsh light of New Zealand.

The time has come for the Bachelorettes, hospital doctor Hottie Lesina and snowboard instructor Hottie Lily, to meet the families of their suitors. Only then can they decide who is right for them because as the old jungle saying that goes, "To truly know the son, thou must banter with his mum and dad."

Hottie Lily has four suitors. Hottie Lesina is down to two suitors after Bachelor Michael and Bachelor Mike got sick to death of her, and left the show. Being sick to death of someone is the virus that has become a community outbreak on The Bachelorette, because Lesina's feelings about Bachelor Logan and Bachelor Aaron appear to be that she's sick to death of them.

These signs could be subtly detected when she said to camera that it was wrong for anyone to think of her choosing between Bachelor Logan and Bachelor Aaron, because she wouldn't pick either of them if she felt they weren't right for her, and so rather than viewing them as "top two", it might be better to view the situation as a potential "zero". Hello, oblivion.

It's all very strange. This isn't the way a dating show is supposed to go. It's supposed to be about silly love songs. It's supposed to be about you are the wind beneath my wings, it's supposed to be about they say our love won't pay the rent but I got you babe, it's supposed to be about I-I-Yi will always love you. But The Bachelorette is turning into the bitter dialogue on Joni Mitchell's great song "The Last Time I Saw Richard", where an ex-lover tells her, "You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies. When you gonna realise they're only pretty lies?"

Bachelor Logan and Bachelor Aaron, those pretty men with their smooth talk, are on thin ice. She's mocked Logan for his kissing, and further mocked his claims that he was open to kinky sex. "Vanilla!", she hooted, mockingly.

As for Aaron, she came right out and told him she doubted he was there for the right reasons, and that he needed to try harder. He didn't take it well. Cut this guy, and he bleeds like a stuck pig; always sensitive to criticism, he spent most of the show, and his last remaining hours in Argentina, bleating on and on about how Lesina was out of line for challenging him, that he'd really put himself out there for her, and didn't appreciate her attempt to give him some sort of wake-up call.

In short, he got the virus: he was sick to death of her.

And then he came out with a line that no one wants to hear right now. He touched a deep, sore nerve. "Doctors," he said. "What do they know?"