Since its first season in 2002, The Bachelor has spread like the plague itself. Not only has the American original been spun off into a dizzying number of streams – The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, Bachelor Pad, The Golden Bachelor, The Bachelor Winter Games, the absurdly titled 2020 show The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart – but it has also been remade in 36 different countries.
Clearly, something about the premise (in which several women throw themselves at one single man in the hope that he will eventually propose) has enormous appeal. Key to its success is the eligibility of the bachelor himself. If a normal schmo like you or me took part, nobody would be interested. But the shows have a habit of picking extremely impressive men. The original bachelor was Alex Michel, an athletic, multilingual Harvard graduate. Others have been racecar drivers, airline pilots and professional athletes. The Australian version chose a man who split his time between professional modelling and chiropody. The Hungarian version (titled The Great One) picked Gábor Gyursánszky, the most successful Hungarian water-skier in history. The German version once hired an insurance specialist, which must be very sexy in Germany.
