Millions of Americans will tune in Monday to watch the premiere episode of the 13th season of ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” where 31-year-old attorney Rachel Lindsay will cross-examine a new crop of suitors.
More importantly, Lindsay is the first African-American lead in all 21 seasons of “The Bachelor” and 12 seasons of “The Bachelorette.” Plenty of the show’s fans think the casting is long overdue. And Ken Fuchs, who has directed every season of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” agrees.
“It’s really about time,” he told TheWrap. “We’re really pleased, we’re really happy — and it’s going to be controversial. We’re trying to do it as openly and honestly as we can.”
And regardless of the historic nature of the season, Fuchs said Lindsay has quickly become one of his favorite bachelorettes.
“I really, really love Rachel,” he said. “She’s an unbelievably cool person. A wonderful person. She’s doing a great job on the show.”
When “The Bachelor” debuted in 2002, plenty of people wondered whether two people who meet on TV in such a contrived setting could actually establish a deep connection and fall in love. But when Trista Rehn married Ryan Sutter in a televised 2003 wedding after meeting on the first season of “The Bachelorette,” “all bets were off,” Fuchs said. Fourteen years later, the couple is still married with two children.
“That was sort of a watershed moment for the series, very, very early,” he said. “[After that,] you could never say that will never work. If it was conjured up or fake or phony or manipulated, it wouldn’t still be on the air.”
Fuchs said the often-dramatic rose ceremonies, in which the bachelor or bachelorette choose the suitors that make it to the next round, are fully authentic. Yes, Corinne Olympios really did sleep through one this past season, which threw the show’s contestants — and crew — for a loop.
“That was one of those cases where we were like, ‘What are we going to do?’” said Fuchs, who also directs ABC’s “Shark Tank” and syndicated game show “Family Feud” (for which he was recently nominated for his fourth Emmy).
Although “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” are edited entertainment series, contestants are cooped up in a mansion for long periods of time where emotions and hormones can combine to produce TV gold at any point, which makes directing the shows more like overseeing a live event, Fuchs said.
“There’s no audience, no time structure,” Fuchs said. “No time constraint like in some shows. We try to treat it like a live event — whatever happens in the moment we want to capture. We don’t want to conjure up too many scenarios. Anything can happen along the way.”
But being in place when magic like Olympios’ untimely nap happens requires plenty of behind-the-scenes planning and anticipation.
“You have to get all your crew moving in the right direction,” he said. “The best stuff is the spontaneous stuff. We have to be completely ready for everyone and everything.”