The Golden Bachelor stands as ABC’s No. 1 series premiere ever on Hulu’s streaming platform and as the most-watched episode for any ABC series (unscripted or scripted) in nearly two years.

It’s a bit ironic that a reality show that focuses on 60-plusers seeking love has rejuvenated the decaying Bachelor franchise, with its non-Golden editions filled with macho twenty-something shirtless dudes and their mono-kinied female matches. And for that matter, by showing elders in the love space, GB has brought fresh air to network TV in general.

Almost overnight, the show has become a legitimate cultural phenomenon.

Who knew that its handsome, highlighted star, Gerry Turner, a 72-year old grieving widower from Northern Indiana, so wholesome that he seemed almost preacherly, would be worshiped as an idol because he actually knows how to listen to and engage with women?

Critics have hailed the show as a miracle, a genuine breakthrough for aging men and women.

But is it?

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Who Are These Women?

The women, between the ages of 60-75, are attractive, a female collective burning with humanity, individual stories, and hard-earned wisdom. But by agreeing to wedge themselves into this always ridiculous format, they’ve necessarily reduced themselves to fighting each other for the attention of one man. And that means they are infantilizing themselves (or at least teenagering themselves) while sleeping in bunkbeds in the man mansion, dreaming that their prince will come. (I guess they don’t have time to lie on their beds, writing “Mrs. Gerry Turner” in sparkly purple ink.)

As the show progresses, the women get more exhausted by the compressed, sped-up schedule of fewer shooting days.

Even the first date showed Gerry picking up Theresa in a vintage roadster and taking her to a malt shop, where they shared a milkshake (with two straws) and fries, was  like a 1950s cartoon, with “Bud” in his jalopy. The whole idea was to feel like a “kid” again, which may make for fun Disneyfied television, but obviously does nothing to break down barriers and show authentic grownups interacting.

As the show progresses, the women get more exhausted by the compressed, sped-up schedule of fewer shooting days, and ground down by the basic tension of the untenable setup. As Gerry, the make-out king, continued to spread himself thin, kissing all the while, the “ladies” were increasingly depicted as moody, moony, and swoony.

Take the fate of Leslie, the 64-year old dancer and fitness instructor who dated Prince and left him to join the Ice Follies. In episode two at a talent show, she gave a Flashdance-y performance ending in a modified lap dance, which electrified Gerry. The guy who’d had trouble driving in the dark during the malt shop date turned into an aggressive speed demon when he went ATV-ing with her in the desert. She looked scared to keep up, and ended up riding with him, holding on tight. After that they found a hot tub in an open field and immediately got hot and heavy. (Some wags likened the odd scene to that old Cialis commercial, showing the couple bathing in a park in separate tubs.)

Keeping the Love Boat Afloat

Leslie and Gerry frolicking in a Cialis-ad setting.

But by the opening of the fifth episode, the cameras hone in on Leslie falling apart, swollen eyed, deeply upset about the idea of Gerry on a helicopter-yacht date (more hot tubbing) with Faith, her lookalike who got the First Impression rose.

In the hardest sell, Theresa told him she couldn’t live without him.

Later, during her group date at the amusement park at the Santa Monica Pier, where the women repeatedly remarked about “feeling like a kid again” while feigning to have group fun, Leslie was crying.

“I did have a couple hard days,” she told Gerry. “You take Faith on a date, it’s really hard because it brings up past feelings from other relationships because I have been cheated on.” The producers clearly centered on clips that would make her look unstable.

As she whimpered, Gerry hugged and comforted her, saying, “I gotcha, it’s OK.” He whispers in her ear, “You’re my girl.”

Unfortunately, he had already said this to Ellen, the Pickleball Queen, who had also told him she’s falling in love with him–that he’s reawakened a forgotten “spark” in her.

In the hardest sell, Theresa told him she couldn’t live without him.

So the golden man is now in the position of fielding this and feeding the women lines to keep the Love Boat afloat.

The Dignified Few

But I do want to give shout outs to the women who managed to keep their dignity. On the heels of her romantic date with Goldbatch, Joan told him she had to leave because her newly post-partum daughter needed her.

Why hang around in pain to wait to be cut?

After playing the Pickleball tournament, at which the women played hard, and afterward jumped around in their colorful outfits like Teletubbies, Nancy, a retired interior designer, ended up with a stress fracture in her knee.

In the premiere episode, she’d had a meltdown about wearing a wedding dress, which triggered memories of her deceased husband and a crying jag. (She’d chosen the white dress for a group-date Fabio-style photo shoot.) Producers were only too happy to depict Nancy as a crazy Miss Havisham, wandering around in the white gown. Gerry went to comfort her and told her he understood, because when he smelled cinnamon the same thing had happened to him, thinking of the Cinnamon Balls his wife had made at Christmas.

Apparently, she wasn’t fond of the story. When she got back to the Casa post-emergency room, with her leg in a brace, she very elegantly took Gerry aside and mentioned that he seemed to be less passionate about her than some of the other women. Gerry didn’t dispute that. Sans tears, she calmly got up and left the show. Why hang around in pain to wait to be cut?

Making the Cut

By the end of Episode 5, Gerry had to do the tough stuff and eliminate half of the remaining women, among them the most feisty and funny.

Because the show is fewer episodes, he had to pick three, instead of four women for hometown visits. So, the “winners” in the end were Faith, Leslie, and Theresa.

So basically he has given each of the three women the same kinds of lines and promises, which, of course, he can’t keep.

On her James Bond-ish date, Faith, the teacher/singer/motorcyclist, had ended up telling Gerry about her tough childhood, with no real parents, and even about experiencing a stretch of homelessness as a teen. She told Gerry he was unlike the men she’d previously been drawn to, who’d used her vulnerability against her. He tells her “That will never happen with me.”

So basically he has given each of the three women the same kinds of lines and promises, which, of course, he can’t keep.

I admit that in the beginning, I had bought into the Gerry-worship. But as the episodes progressed he lost some of his burnish. Although he spent much of the premiere crying over the story of the sudden death of his sainted wife, as the show proceeded, every woman with whom he confided that she reminded him of his wife, Toni, got sent home. Little cracks in the veneer are coming up and I’m sure will only grow during the home town visits in later episodes.

While the women were suffering like 8^th graders, with their protestations of love and claiming to fall “head over heels,” it turns out that Gerry is a regular guy with feet of clay, having trouble juggling his harem.

It’s a tale as old as time.

No great breakthroughs for aging here.

It’s the same old cautionary tale, this time with spray tan: Be careful what you wish for.

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