There’s plenty to hate about Nick Viall.
The latest star of The Bachelor — ABC’s 21-seasons-and-counting (not including spinoffs) competitive dating show — has the smile of a smug startup founder, the unsettlingly intimate murmur of a close-talker, and the wardrobe of a J.Crew outlet that only stocks V-neck tees. There’s the heavier stuff, too: compared to the women who will compete for Viall’s love on network television, he has the discomfiting advantage of sheer experience. The contestants are all appearing on The Bachelor for the first time, but this is Viall’s fourth go-round. Yes, four is a record.
This latest season, and the previous two, are part of a long, ongoing redemption narrative for Viall, who self-destructed in his first run on The Bachelorette. In 2014, a then passive-aggressive and emotionally immature Viall competed for the love of attorney (and now author) Andi Dorfman, and lost. On the season finale special, Viall and Dorfman shared a couch one last time on live television. He puckered his mouth, fiddled with his hands, and sighed, “If you weren’t in love with me, I’m not sure why you made love with me.”
Sex is a thing you do, but don’t say on The Bachelor — especially not as a slimy, whiny dig at your almost-spouse. And so in the 2015 season of The Bachelorette and the 2016 season of Bachelor Pad, we witness Viall transition from skeevy, needy boyfriend to smarmy, desperate-to-please supplicant. Or in reality TV parlance: Viall aspired to shift roles from villain to hero. Like I said, it’s a redemption narrative. To be fair (and maybe too generous) Viall has remade himself, undoubtedly with the help of the show’s producers, who have given him two years of likable edits. Nearly three years into his Bachelor-franchise tenure, and on the eve of his big moment, a case can be made that Nick Viall is still unlikeable as ever, but that he’s molted his snake-skin.
And so we have Viall 2.0.
HERE. IT. IS. Your first look at this season of #TheBachelor! pic.twitter.com/jKNmXWvWy7
— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) November 15, 2016
Like Viall, reality television has evolved in the shadows of its own notoriety. After 15 years and change, the form has achieved some self-awareness, and on occasion it produces unscripted moments not merely comparable to the best of scripted television, but transcendent in the way art is — the kind of art film-crit professors present in dark rooms to hungover BFA students. This season of The Bachelor — this tastefully dubious season — should warrant your interest, whether you’re a fan of the show, a reality-TV addict, or simply someone wondering how you’ve made it to the sixth paragraph of this piece.