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The Bachelor 13th Edition

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RealityFreakWill:
Bachelor Host Thinks Jason Should Have Picked Melissa



People are still buzzing about The Bachelor’s shocking twist—including host Chris Harrison.

On today’s Ellen DeGeneres Show, the reality show host shares his perspective on Bachelor Jason Mesnick’s shocking change of heart, which was revealed on the After the Final Rose special Monday night.

When asked if Mesnick, 32, should have chosen Melissa Rycroft, 25, over Molly Malaney, 24, in the finale, Harrison replies, “Oh, yeah, she was terrific. When we left New Zealand [where the finale was filmed in November] we could not [have] been happier because it was a great ending. He is a great guy. This is best ending. She’s going to be a mom [to his son, Ty, 4].”

In January, Harrison tells DeGeneres, he found out that Mesnick wasn’t happy.

“I learned that not only did he want to break-up with Melissa but he wanted a shot with Molly,” says Harrison. “The show was just starting to air so now we’re left with this dilemma [because] we have this proposal.”

The producers then had to decide what to do next. “So we choose six weeks ago to shoot this special that you saw on Monday night,” he explains. “And, what you saw last night [on part two of the ATFR show] is what obviously what’s happened in the six weeks since.” Mesnick and Malaney are still together, and she plans to move to Seattle to be closer to him, she tells PEOPLE.

Harrison also addresses rumors that the dramatic switch was planned. “That was the one thing that did upset me about all of this,” says Harrison. “When the rumors went from how this ends to this is completely contrived and scripted, questioning not only the show’s integrity but my integrity and honesty that’s where I got a little upset.”

http://tvwatch.people.com/2009/03/04/bachelor-host-thinks-jason-should-have-picked-melissa/

RealityFreakWill:
'Bachelor' exec producer Mike Fleiss speaks out on controversial finale

Sure, single papa Jason Mesnick's Bachelor finale showdown -- and subsequent After The Final Rose specials part 1 and part 2 -- brought record ratings, but will the fan backlash end up hurting ABC's hit reality series? Pick up a copy of Entertainment Weekly this Friday for our full report, including what advice season 2 Bachelor Aaron Buerge -- who knows a thing or two about, you know, being despised for making a girl cry on TV -- has for the ever-fickle Mesnick. Meanwhile, we checked in with the man who's really behind the roses, exec producer Mike Fleiss, to find out what the hell went down over the course of what will now be known as The Best Season Of Reality TV Ever (well, at least to me it will)!

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There are rumors that the outcome was manipulated and that you guys knew all along how it was going to turn out. What do you have to say about those accusations?
MIKE FLEISS: It's completely untrue! Don't you think if we were into that and playing those kind of games that somebody who it happened to would be saying that and not some "unnamed source?" We’ve had 500 people on the show, find one that says we told them who to pick -- you won’t because we’ve never done that. The rumor stuff is just appalling because we all work so hard on this show. We really make every attempt possible to keep this pure and let people make their own decisions. You can’t have people staging this, they’re not good enough actors. If they were all actors, that would be the best acting on any network. [Laughs] If he was acting, then Jason is the nation’s finest actor, better than Javier Bardem, better than Brad Pitt, and Molly is the new Meryl Streep!

Another question irking many fans: Why did he have to break it off with Melissa on camera?
It's a simple answer: It's a TV show. He would have done it on the radio if this were a radio show.

But you could argue that in the past not all Bachelors have felt compelled to break up on camera.
In the past it didn’t involve our other girl. I understand that people are a little ticked off that we put it [the breakup] on TV, but I think a lot more people would have been ticked off if we didn’t put it on TV. They watch the show, they invested in this whole season, they care about the characters, they’re looking forward to the finale, and then we don’t show them the defining moment of the season? I think that would piss some people off.

After the jump: "Once you’ve made the commitment to be on one of these shows you have to assume a certain level of emotional risk."

Did he have a choice in the matter?
There was never a discussion like, "Oh, this is going to have to be part of the show."

So he could have chosen to break up with Melissa off-camera and then talk about it after the fact on the After The Final Rose special?
[Melissa] had certainly been given a heads-up. I don’t think she realized it was going to go as far as it went with her giving back the ring and him taking it back. But she knew there was trouble in paradise. Don’t you think if your husband or boyfriend is about to break up with you and you spend every day with him for six weeks and you spend time talking on the phone with him every night that you’d have a little bit of a clue? Melissa is a wonderful girl and we were really happy she was the one chosen, but there’s no way we could make a show like this and not include the most important moment of the season.

Still, so many people think that because it was such a personal moment, she must be humiliated.
It’s a reality TV show about people falling in love. If you’re going to go on a reality dating show I think it’s a safe assumption that some of this is going to be possible. These people that are saying, “God, I would never want to go through something like that.” I agree. I could never do it, but once you’ve made the commitment to be on one of these shows you have to assume a certain level of emotional risk.

People just think Jason made the wrong decision in doing that so publicly.
He did everything else publicly, so what’s the difference?

Everyone had thought he'd chosen Melissa, that it was set in stone, and then it was just a surprise that he'd changed his mind in that amount of time.
Believe me, that heartache that Molly experienced the first time was probably not that much different than the heartache that Melissa experienced in the ATFR. He was dumping the both of them on camera.

It was a little surprising that Molly wasn’t more hesitant to take him back.
She’s in love with him. If you’re in love with somebody, you’ll put up with that. You put up with s--- that you wouldn’t put up with from anyone else in the world because you do love them and you want them back. You want to spend your life with them because you’re dreaming of them every night, that’s the place where Molly is.

Are you worried now that some fans are going to walk away from the show because their disappointed or angry by Jason's decision?If that were true, we wouldn’t have held our numbers in that second half hour during Monday night's ATFR. If there was going to be this mass exodus from the show, it would have [already] happened. If we make a great show, people will watch a great show and that’s the bottom line.

Why do you think it is that Jason's season did see such a ratings spike for the show?
I think by keeping the ongoing soap opera alive it allows viewers to come back and reinvest more easily. By going from Brad’s season to Deanna's season to Jason’s is what’s allowed the audience to stick around. You try to do new things to keep the show fresh, but by keeping the thread of the characters through, the audience is watching a continuing soap opera and it’s easier for them to reinvest. Had we tried to launch Jason cold, not from The Bachelorette, and say, “He’s our new Bachelor!”, I don’t think we would have even gotten him approved, necessarily, by the network. He’s not a doctor, he’s not a captain in the Navy, he’s not Mr. Hunkalicious of the Century. I mean he’s a good looking guy, but we had better looking physical specimens for that role. But the audience came to like him and care about him so much from the previous season that watching him as the new Bachelor was really easy.

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/03/bachelor-jaso-1.html

RealityFreakWill:
Chris Harrison on The Ellen Degeneres Show 3/4/09



Credit with thanks to EllenShowFan

catzoid:
These people keep contradicting each other and themselves. I think they're all lying. The only person I believe right now is Reality Steve, who may not have the story 100% correct but has come closer than any of these revisionists associated with the show.

RealityFreakWill:
Ryan Sutter posted a blog on his website concerning the Bachelor fiasco:

Because I actually watched the last hour of the Bachelor last night I thought I would jump into the popular conversation and offer my two cents. Prior to last night I had not watched a Bachelor series since the Bachelorette that I was on seven years ago. Why? I don’t believe the show holds a very high moral standard and quite frankly I don’t enjoy reliving a very stressful and exhausting time in my life. That said, I would not change my experience and find my personal hardships a very small price to pay for the resulting life they afforded me. You see love is not easy to come by. Sometimes it embarrasses you. Sometimes it humbles you. And sometimes, as in Jason’s case, it makes you look like a complete jackass. Jason took part in a show that preys on those of weak spine and spirit. He fell victim to a program of intense emotional overload intended to create a narrow tunnel of vision from which only rash and irresponsible decisions could possibly be made. I have no doubt he made the decision he felt was right when he chose Melissa. I’ll buy his explanation that when the real world with all of its real world influences and realities came back into play he had second thoughts. At some point, however, Jason needed to realize that the re-entry of the real world meant that he needed to resume his role as a real man. If his feeling for Melissa had changed he should have told her. There is absolutely no excuse for the savage treatment Jason laid on Mellisa’s heart. If he truly cared he would have disregarded the request of the show to hold a public break-up. Jason crumbled under the pressure of the production and in the process walked down a path cast with shadows of shame for which he will always be remembered. Jason had to know the consequences of his choices. His cliche laden explanations, though weak and uninspiring, are his attempt to justify a decision he is convinced he made for love. If that is truly the case, can we really blame him? I get emails all the time from people desperate to find love. It seems some people are willing to do most anything for a chance at the queasy stomached emotion. Still, I would like to believe that when it came right down to it, the majority of the broken-hearted would stop short of blatantly and quite publicly torching the feelings of someone they laid claim to caring for simply to further their own desperate quest for love. Love is a powerful force, capable of providing us with both the cause for stupid decisions and the strength to overcome them. For Jason’s sake I hope he found it.

http://ryansutter.com/blog/?p=436 

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