The Bachelor franchise has kept fans hanging for what feels like forever regarding who will be the next leading man of The Bachelor. Rather than making the announcement at the end of Hannah Brown's season of The Bachelorette or partway through the new season of Bachelor in Paradise, which is what happened with the announcement of Colton Underwood last year, the news was not officially broken until the end of the last episode of Paradise Season 6.
Now, however, the news is confirmed! Peter Weber, better known as Pilot Peter and probably best known as Dude With Hannah In The Windmill, is the new Bachelor! And it's... fine. I'm not overjoyed or annoyed. I'm just underwhelmed. That could be worse, right?
Peter was one of Hannah's final three guys, and he was neither the best nor the worst in my book. Thanks to reports about Jed Wyatt's pre-Bachelorette personal life (and girlfriend), few people who were up on the news probably weren't rooting for Jed, even as it became clear that he'd be the one winning Hannah's heart. Both Peter and Tyler Cameron looked better in comparison, with Tyler getting the edge and making it to the final two.
Hannah didn't give Peter the boot because she didn't love him, and he's been immortalized for hooking up multiple times with Hannah in a windmill, as she first revealed when trying to finally get rid of Luke Parker.
There were rumors that, like Jed, Peter had a girlfriend that he dumped for the express purpose of joining The Bachelorette, although his wrong reasons for being there didn't seem quite as wrong as Jed since Peter wasn't trying to launch a music career. He didn't get kicked off of Hannah's season for doing anything wrong, and he hasn't been around town with Gigi Hadid, so he'll do as the next Bachelor.
I just wish I was more invested one way or the other. When Colton was announced as the next Bachelor, I wasn't thrilled because he had some bizarre moments trying to woo Becca Kufrin on her season of The Bachelorette, and all of his drama with Tia Booth on Bachelor in Paradise meant that I wasn't on the Colton train. But I cared!
At this point, I'm expecting Peter to get windmill comments almost as often as Colton got virginity comments, and those got old pretty quickly. Hey, maybe "underwhelmed" is what the franchise needs after the Jed scandal!
None of this is to say that I don't want Peter or any of the ladies looking to win his heart to have a happily-ever-after, but the Bachelor franchise isn't really all about the happily-ever-after, right? It's all the craziness that comes before somebody goes down on one knee.
Maybe by the time The Bachelor premieres (and there has been no Bachelor franchise action for a while), I'll have changed my tune. At this point, I just hope there's something on par with Colton's fence jump or Hannah's windmill confession in the promotion to hook me. I'm not wishing Colton's difficulties or courtship by a Luke Parker on anybody, but hopefully there's more to Peter than I'm seeing so far as the next leading man.
The Bachelor won't premiere its new season until January 6, 2020, so it'll be a while before we see Peter distributing the roses. There are plenty of viewing options now and in the not-too-distant future, and you can find them on our 2019 fall TV premiere schedule.
