Peter Weber's Bachelor season has become too toxic to be fun

The A.V. Club

"Why is this season so much worse than previous ones?" asks Gwen Ihnat. "One is the well-meaning yet giant gaping black hole of personality at its center. But also, it’s just not fun seeing women at each other’s throats all the time. Now that we’re down to only four contestants, the drama should be lessened—but are we really supposed to forget the fact that Kelsey screeched at Hannah Ann over mistakenly stealing her champagne bottle in the first few weeks of the show, and now they’re hugging? It’s definitely possible, faced with a potentially bland lead, that the producers vetted on the side of strong-personality women for this season’s contestants. And they did bring the drama. But what this season lacks is instances of women actually supporting each other, even in this outlandish, televised quest. Only a small portion of Bachelors are still with the women they picked in the finale, after all, so what were Tammy, Mykenna, et al. being so cutthroat about? The prize is a potential future with a cute airline pilot, not $1 million cash money. Knowing that your odds are about 5% going in, wouldn’t a better option be to hang in there and and have fun in these fabulous, glamorous countries rather than tearing everyone and everything down with you?"

ALSO:

• ABC reality boss Robert Mills responds to rumor Peter Weber ends up with a Bachelor producer: "Well, I hate to get in the way of a good rumor, so I’m not going to confirm or deny about whether he ends up with a producer! I don’t know how we’d ever top that though! But, it is crazy.”
• Why Bachelor spoilers have been especially hard to nail down this season