A decade ago today, the nation sat transfixed by a tray of red roses and a chiselled man named Arthur.
I still remember where I was when I found out that The Bachelor NZ was coming. Duncan Greive was at the Three season launch and texting me live updates. As I searched for my car in Auckland’s St Lukes carpark, my phone pinged and there were three words, all caps: THE BACHELOR NZ. It felt like the world had shifted on its axis: reality television’s most glamorous search for love, coming to little old Aotearoa? How would we talk about our feelings? Which bloody Fred Dagg farmer could they squeeze into a Barkers suit? How could it ever work?
Bringing a giant dating franchise like The Bachelor to our shores also meant a diversifying of our reality television portfolio. In the years prior we had mostly been glued to cooking and singing competitions, or brief forays into Kardashian and Jersey Shore-style observational formats with The Ridges and The GC (both of which, I’m sure we can all agree, went really well). The Bachelor NZ was a format which inherently required a new level of vulnerability on arrival: single people hopeful for love, willing to lay it all on the line, beach farts and all.
Another crazy factoid for you is that The Bachelor NZ premiered just TWO DAYS after Natalia Kills and Willy Moon blew up X Factor NZ with their incomprehensible suit-based tirade against poor old Joe Irvine. Imagine both those universes existing not just at the same, but airing on the same channel?! No wonder we all had so much fun on Twitter back then. Desperate to return to that time when we still all watched TV and the reality TV → influencer pipeline was just laying its foundations, I dug up episode one of The Bachelor NZ to relive the glory days.
We first meet Arthur Green (what in the Knights of Camelot) jogging down the beach, his feet laid as bare as his 26-year-old heart. “I do believe there is one right person there for anyone, and I’m hoping to find that person,” he broods from a nearby log. Next seen pacing around an office in a tight navy shirt, we learn that Arthur has set up his own paleo food business – get this – because he wanted to learn more about business. “We’re doing preorders at the moment, great for school lunches,” he says over the phone. David Seymour, that you?
But when he’s not biffing paleo snacks at children, lifting kettle bells or getting out of pools in slow motion, Arthur admits there’s something missing in his life. He has a big loving family and a very muscular torso (which we see no less than three times in the opening sequence) but he’s still waiting for The One. “I do believe that there is one right person out there for everyone, so I’m hoping that I am about to find that person,” he beams. I’m not too proud to admit that I had full body chills knowing what was about to come for this wide-eyed biltong baron.
Matilda is the very first bachelorette we meet, engaging in that classic 2015 activity of gently placing rose petals on a cake. She’s a hardworking sales executive for a media company, but has become that girl that everybody has tried to set up on dates. Spontaneity and a sense of humour are important in her future partner, as is a love of food. “A lot of girls don’t really like to eat on the first date, but I’m all about it,” she laughs. “I often order the ribs and a lot of guys are put off by that – so that’s something he would need to be OK with.”
It’s amazing in hindsight that we didn’t all tune out right then and there – a paleo peddler and a meat loving maiden? In the words of Dr Lavigne, can I make it any more obvious? Alas, there are many more fascinating women to meet, including accordion solo champion Danielle, worldly yoga instructor Chrystal (“I have had many international exotic boyfriends”) and thrillseeker Rosie. “If he doesn’t want to go on adventures in the Middle East, then I’ve got no time for it,” Rosie says of The Bachelor. “I would like to go out with a sniper, possibly.”
Of course, the first woman out of the car and onto The Bachelor red carpet is the winner, Matilda. Arthur sighs a huge sigh of relief as she grins and toddles towards him in two-tone strappy heels. “My heart is just like brrrrr-” she says, beating her hand in front of her chest. “Likewise” smiles Arthur. I am welling up. She points at the red handkerchief tucked in his pocket and says “I like this thing.” Arthur quips back: “thanks, I picked it out myself.” The pair laugh really, really loudly, before hugging and promising a catch up inside. I am, truly, sobbing.
“He seems really funny and nice and easy to talk to,” Matilda reflects in her interview. “That’s definitely someone I can see myself with in the future.” Arthur also seems smitten. ““My first impression of Matilda? I really like her. She seems really natural and relaxed and just completely open.” I have now become The Shape of Water.
While Art and Matilda have a charming if not slightly awkward first meeting, there’s plenty more red carpet goofiness to come. “Your hair is so long,” Art says to Shivani. “Really? I just got it cut,” she responds. Danielle tells him about her dog Elmo who goes kayaking. “Go Elmo,” says Art. Bridget hands him a Little Creatures Pale Ale (2015!) and then does that classic “you’ve got something there” gag followed by a little boop on the nose (Art takes it slightly better than Christopher Luxon would nine years later).
We must also, in the interests of anthropological analysis, discuss the 2015 fashion. Category is: pre-Trump, pre-pandemic, pre cost-of-living maximalism. I’m talking bleach blonde hair, sometimes with a pastel pink or lilac rinse, styled poker straight or in tight poodle curls. I’m talking deep side partings, smoky eyes from coast to coast, lashings of fake tan and the kind of chunky metal statement necklaces and earrings that, these days, most women would much rather melt down and sell in exchange for a block of tasty cheese.
It all feels so novel and cute, light years away from the festering state of romance reality television within just a few short years. In 2015, there was no F-Boy Island, there were no conflict-filled Married at First Sight dinner parties, no cast members so evil that their presence would have to be exorcised in post-production. In 2015, there was just good old Mike Puru from The Edge, standing in front of 21 single women, explaining the significance and symbolism of the rose with the same level of detail and gravity as someone unravelling an ancient spell.
There’s a politeness to proceedings that also feels alien today. The women fret endlessly all night about interrupting Art’s conversations, and comment endlessly on how awkward the whole thing is. “Arthur is like the gorgeous luscious honey and we are the bees all swarming to him,” says Hayley, briefly spreading misinformation about the relationship between honey and bees. The only person who doesn’t play ball is Chrystal, who says “give me that puppy”, takes a sip of Art’s espresso martini (2015!), and then ignores him all night. An instant legend born.
Someone who is quite quick to interrupt Art is our Matilda, who plays 4D chess by bringing along champion chess player Natasha as her wingwoman. It pays off, and Art soon takes her for a gorgeous romantic walk across the… lawn. “What’s your main thing you look for in someone?” asks Matilda. “Someone who is completely themselves and can laugh at themselves: a dork,” says Art. “A dork,” she smiles, “awesome”. Matilda receives the very first rose (see Puru explanation as above) and, within moments, the dork is in the room with us.
As they walk back towards the cocktail party together, Art clocks a hidden set of stairs all too late. “Watch your ste-UUEEEGH” he utters, tripping over himself dramatically. “Watch your step more like!” Matilda cackles. My eyes roll back in my head and I see a supercut of everything that is to come in the future for both them – the final rose, the wedding, the many babies – and for The Bachelor franchise – the coin flip, Zac and Erin, the double Bachelorette season, the guy from SOL3 MIO having a random hoon – in an instant.
But back on the steps of the mansion, these two don’t know any of that yet. Art collapses into giggles. Matilda is giggling too, but I am giggling the most. He’s fallen for her, she’s fallen for him, and I’ve fallen for all of it, all over again.
