Bachelor for Nerds
Week 2
With the college football season ending this past Monday, I am now even more excited and focused on The Bachelor. I just hope Hannah B. had a safe and contactless celebration unlike her friends in Tuscaloosa.
Background Analysis
Because nobody was eliminated in this week’s episode, both the state representation and age distribution figures remain the same from Week 1.
Show Analysis
I’ll just get the Victoria stuff right out of the way. For a show where drama is a key component to its entertainment value, the drama she brings is boring and lame. We are supposed to dislike her and want her gone, but we want her gone mainly because we want better content to take its place. I am cautiously optimistic about her being eliminated soon because she doesn’t have anything going for her that would keep her on (besides Twitter action), but I then think back to Luke P. on Hannah B.’s season of The Bachelorette which makes me a little nervous considering how far he went.
Bri further cemented herself as a top-tier contestant following her 1-on-1. She shares a lot in common with Matt, and they seem to already have a strong connection. I don’t think she’s going anywhere for a while.
The group date didn’t really show us anything new. Lauren getting the rose was huge for her at this stage, but she will need to have more of an impact if she wants to be safe for weeks to come.
I am blown away by Sarah’s maturity; Sarah and I are the same age, and I still have loud unrestrained laughter at stuff like this. It was heartbreaking listening to her tell Matt about taking care of her dad with ALS. She has shown a lot of strength in her positive attitude regarding the situation, which says a lot about the quality of a person that she is. She really embodies the character and spirit of the Iron Horse; as Lou Gehrig famously said, “I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.” I am looking forward to seeing more of her throughout the season (assuming she survives the Rose Ceremony).
Finally, I wanted to talk about Marylynn. She was at the bottom of the BSR rankings last week without us knowing much about her, and her performance this week only solidified my early concerns. It’s unfortunate that she got involved with Victoria, but her timid personality and inability to defend herself is really going to hurt her chances of continuing on the show.
Looking Ahead
This is the ideal week for me: I was able to collect more data on contestants without anyone being eliminated. With that said, we are only two weeks in and there are 24 contestants remaining, so BSR variance is still high.
The table below shows the breakdown for each contestant following Week 2.
There are two numbers that really stand out in this table: Victoria’s POPULARITY and Marylynn’s BSR. Victoria repeats as the most-mentioned contestant on Twitter, and its not even close. Her second-straight week of triple-digit tweets is worrisome as she is essentially generating conversation for The Bachelor. Marylynn is nice, but she doesn’t have any qualities that make her worth keeping around over other contestants.
The figure below is a visualization of the BSR standings following Week 2.
Abigail gets some company at the top while Marylynn is stuck anchoring the group. Most of the contestants are within or very close to one standard deviation of a zero BSR; there is a lot of opportunity still for contestants to separate themselves from the pack.
I’m looking forward to next week when the BSR will be put to the test for the first time this season!