Those unfortunate enough to follow me on Twitter know that I’m very fond of livetweeting the hollow trainwreck of the human experience that is ABC’s The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. While the shows themselves serve as cheap parodies of “dating”, “relationships”, and “love”, here comes a parody of the parody in the form of a webseries called Burning Love.
Season two of the series, which is produced by Ben Stiller, skewers The Bachelorette and features an extensive cast. As you’ll see from the first episode (there are two so far), the ensemble of male “competitors” draws heavily from the talent pool that brought you Party Down, including Adam Scott (who was also in season one as “bachelor” Ken Marino’s psychiatrist), Martin Starr and Ryan Hansen. You’ll see other familiar faces as well, such as Jerry O’Connell, Adam Brody and Colin Hanks.
Perhaps the funniest, and saddest, feature of this series is how accurate it is to the actual shows. Everything is exaggerated, but anyone who has sat through an episode of The Bachelor or Bachelorette knows how over the top it can be. In this episode alone, the dialogue seems pulled directly from the original shows, as are some of the ludicrous meet cute scenarios, such as the “party motivator” exiting the limo, boombox in tow, and the “luxury lifestyle consultant” with the girl’s name descending from a helicopter, which were pulled directly from the last season of The Bachelorette.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find season one online, but I will be following season two, and of course, catching the end of this season of The Bachelor, which, unlike the merciful 15 minute length of Burning Love episodes, clocks in at a whopping two hours a week.
UPDATE: I just watched episode two, and had to chime in again with how much I’m enjoying this. Regular Bachelor/Bachelorette watchers will get an extra payoff here, as writer Erica Oyama (who happens to be married to Ken Marino) definitely knows the ins and outs of seasons past. The drunk guy who gets sent home on night one, the single dad who won’t stop talking about his kid, the person who’s already developing feelings after half an hour, and, of course, the ubiquitous lack of non-white faces, all these Bachelor/Bachelorette tropes get the nod in episode two. As ridiculous as the original, Burning Love takes the hate out of hatewatching.
