Contestants with the same half-beards are vying for the attention of two hotties on The Bachelorette. Photo / TVNZ
'I fell in love," reads a coverline on the latest issue of That's Life magazine, "with A ROBOT." The likelihood is that it's also about to happen on The Bachelorette , the show about two hotties pursued by clones manufactured at not all that great an expense in a robotics
laboratory.
As clones, the contestants all have matching tattoos, the same half-beards and identically ripped bodies. One or two are blond to set them apart but most were put on the conveyor belt which dispenses dark hair. Cost-cutting means they're programmed to respond at the beginner's level of English: "All good", "Sweet", "Chur", etc.
But they're actually very nice clones. Gentle. Sweet. Vulnerable. And — okay, this might be going too far — human.
Five episodes in, we began to see a softer, more heartfelt side to the contestants. Even the show's resident satirist, commentator Jodie Rimmer, softened her mocking and sledging in last night's episode. Rimmer is always good for a few LOLs but she picked up on the mood and said a few nice things.
A shout-out, too, to editor Todd Columb. The guy isn't exactly working with gold. He's working with junk and is doomed to wander around the edges of a show where nothing ever happens but he does his best, finds the comedy, keeps things moving. Give that man a rose.
