For Gerry Turner, the 71-year-old inaugural Golden Bachelor, true love can strike twice. We meet the dashing grandfather six years after the death of his beloved wife Toni. 43 years of marriage and hopes for a long retirement together were dashed when Toni died suddenly of a bacterial infection, Gerry recalls through tears in the Sept. 28 premiere of ABC's The Golden Bachelor.
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And yet, he stands on the same glistening brick driveway so many bachelors before him trod, ecstatic to court 22 women aged 60-74 in a gamified version of romance: "Tonight is the first night of the rest of my life." That blend of real love and loss and the same-old Bachelor antics we know, love and got sick of is what makes The Golden Bachelor must-see TV, and maybe even the burst of energy the played-out franchise so badly needed.
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Gerry is the antidote to the swaggering bachelors of old — those wannabe Adonis figures who sat back and let mostly 20-something women do the dirty work of making guilty-pleasure reality TV for them. By contrast, Gerry is a cryer who uses the phrase, "Bonne chance!" Throwback photos featured in the series show a lanky, smiling everyman donning Coke bottle glasses throughout the '70s and '80s — which is ironic because, today, he looks like one of those slick silver foxes that grace LensCrafters' AARP Discount ads.
In other words, Gerry Turner's earnest good-graces make him the perfect grand admiral of this new, golden-years regime of Bachelor Nation. His life experience and commitment to finding the second "woman of [his dreams]" inject some humanity into the long-running franchise. Now, when the show zooms into a dimly-lit sconce to set the mood, you can actually feel the warm thrill of two people getting to know each other in good faith.
But don't be mistaken: The over-60 women vying for Gerry's affections are not your typical grandmas. They're all rare beauties with active lifestyles that defy ageist conventions. Some look like Real Housewives stars who have obviously had help in aging gracefully. One of them, Patty, is the mother of former bachelor Matt James. After all, this is TV's most famous dating series. No amount of real-people, real-love hoopla can blunt the show's heavily-produced commitment to glitz.
Just look at who they chose for the first televised arrival: 60-year-old Edith (that's a full 11 years younger than Gerry, mind you) is a goddess in a flowing golden gown. Thankfully, things got messier, funnier and truer as more contestants arrived. Celebrating her 70th birthday, Theresa teasingly opens her black robe to reveal her "birthday suit": Some nude Spanx. "I couldn't do that, I got six grandsons!" she cackles.
Diminutive blonde April, 65, is the front-runner for series villain at the top of the episode. She steps out of the limo carrying a basket of eggs in honor of her upbringing on a chicken farm. "My eggs are still fresh!" she cracks, intermittently doing the chicken dance for the next few hours. She gifts Gerry a calendar in which every month is April, then declares that there will be "hell-raising in the henhouse" if she doesn't receive a rose. But by the premiere's end, April's comments about finding love late in life are enough to make her a fan-favorite. Settling into the rhythms of new romance is like remembering "who I was before [I was] a caretaker and a matriarch," she says.
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These women and their reality TV plight are endlessly compelling because of their wealth of life experience and giddy schoolgirl energy. Ellen, 71, is competing in large part because of her best friend of 60 years, Roberta — a massive Bachelor fan suffering from cancer. "Roberta, he's a hunk!" Ellen shouts with glee for her friend watching from home. After the credits roll, we learn that Roberta passed away in 2023. The first season of The Golden Bachelor is dedicated to her memory.
The best thing this show could do is maintain that irresistible dissonance between lives well-lived and the pressure-cooker environment of trash TV. And by the looks of the Season 1 preview, it may well succeed. Gerry and the gals fly off to some tropical paradise, and there's a decent amount of making out on yachts. We see our leading man sobbing and declaring, "The only time I've ever felt worse in my whole life is when my wife passed away, and this is a goddamn close second."
Sure, every bachelor has suffered a breakdown at some point during his season. But Gerry lost his high school sweetheart on the cusp of their sunset years, giving his search for happiness infinitely more resonance. Is it popcorn viewing? Sure. Will it revolutionize reality TV or depictions of mature love? Maybe. Is it right for us, the viewers, to glue ourselves to one man's search for love after loss, hungry for how his tragedy might affect his dating life? Probably not. It's a worthwhile experiment nonetheless.
New episodes of The Golden Bachelor premiere Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and stream the following day on Hulu.
