Six days, Seven Nights

About a dozen dozen hours.  The duration of a pivotal Middle Eastern war.   Nearly the length of test cricket.  The Bachelorette is back, almost, and we stand at the precipice of... something.

Perhaps by Disney fiat, the show has been nearly the same from day one, but the stakes are bigger, the audience wider, and the featured player?  Well, she's kind of a dud, but that's what makes this a challenge.  For those of you who aren't yet familiar with my work in this area, you're really in for a treat.  I say that not out of self-aggrandizement, but you won't find as much mental masturbation set to type as you will in this space.  And oddly, the focus of all of this energy is a throwaway show that airs on Monday nights on ABC.  Why all of the obsession?  Because I care enough to get people through it.  I do.  I really mean that.

Maybe at some point I'll repost my analysis and commentary on The Bachelor Season 15, which, to be quite honest, probably deserves a web Pulitzer or whatever they dole out to fake writers who lack a formal journalism/English degree or any real experience entertaining anyone, but that aside... we're swabbing the decks and getting ready for The Bachelorette with what I would safely classify as the 17th best candidate for the principal role in Ashley Hebert.

Timeless beauty, and only five foot nothing

Devoted readers will recall my (ahem) fondness of dentists, inasmuch as they are uniformly psychotic and should be arrested for practicing witchcraft, but setting that aside for a moment, I think we can all agree that Ashley was arguably the second best Ashley available.  I'm sure there are a scant few of you were are super excited about Miss Hebert's foray into the carefully scripted realm of reality TV dating, but most of us couldn't be more bored by the prospect.  Not to say that Brad was some Übermensch, but he offered the purest form of self-absorbed douchiness that saw a huge number people rallying around him, for various reasons.  And best of all, Brad was a cliché generator without parallel.  As someone who is honing their craft in this space, what better place to start?  This stuff wrote itself, and I just had to sit at the keyboard for a few hours to let it flow.  So thank you, Bradley. 

But the trouble I see on the horizon with Ashley is that she seems like a perfectly nice person who blends into society in nearly every measurable way.  Well, save the talk about continuing education credits and UV cured polymer adhesives.  People don't want to tune in to watch a two hour show devoted to your boring cousin who is into philately, smooth jazz, and their cat "Mr. Furrybottom," they want to see a beautiful disaster rife with contradictions and drama.  They might even want to see some blood drawn.  You can decide how literally  you want to take that.

So maybe The Bachelorette Season 7 will be an order of magnitude more challenging to talk about, which I'm frankly expecting, but can you imagine the bountiful riches  that potentially await us?  Why did George Herbert Leigh Mallory commission a team to summit Mt. Everest in 1924?  

Because it was there.

Why did John F. Kennedy challenge the United States to go to the Moon before a joint session of Congress in 1961?

Because it was hard. 

Look, I openly acknowledge that we could end up losing our collective noses to frostbite, or careening endlessly into space, but I argue that this is a challenge that should, nay, must be undertaken. And dammit, I need you there with me.

For the kids.