Gerry Turner is getting ready to meet the families, as The Golden Bachelor has already reached the Hometown date portion of its inaugural season. If you were a longtime fan watching the latest episode — which featured the most heartbreaking elimination yet — and wondering why only the final three women were getting to introduce Turner to their children and grandchildren, you weren’t alone. The contestants seemed blindsided as well, when host Jesse Palmer made the announcement that the six remaining women were being cut by half, and ABC executive Robert Mills has explained the reason behind the change.
Typically, it’s the final four contestants who receive Hometown dates on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, with three advancing to Fantasy Suites before giving their final rose to one of two remaining contestants. How that would be done on The Golden Bachelor — particularly the Fantasy Suites — has been a question we’ve had since Gerry Turner was introduced. Now that only three women remain going into Hometowns, Robert Mills, ABC’s senior vice president of alternative series, addressed the contestants’ reactions and why it had to be done. He posted on X:
The worst part of this was the ladies thought there were 4 hometowns and due to the 1 hour format we could only do 3.
We’ve already seen some changes to the typical format of the show due to it being an hour shorter than its predecessors. For instance, each episode has contained just a single one-on-one date rather than the typical two, meaning that fewer women were able to experience that alone time with Gerry Turner. There would be no way to fit four Hometowns into one hour and still do them justice, and I’d imagine it’s going to feel pretty rushed, even with three.
But Robert Mills is correct in calling it the “worst part,” because it did seem to catch the women off-guard, and it contributed to the surprising sendoff of Ellen Goltzer. The 71-year-old was visibly shaken by the public breakup, saying that she thought Gerry Turner was “the one.” Now we’ll have to see if Goltzer gets a chance to actually find “the one” as the first Golden Bachelorette, which many fans are asking for.
ABC hasn’t yet announced any plans to expand The Bachelor’s brand further with The Golden Bachelorette, but hope remains alive after Gerry Turner and his contestants breathed new life into the network’s reality dating franchise. The 60- and 70-year-olds have brought a wholesomeness to the show that we’re not used to seeing with the 20-somethings of the flagship series, and now that we’re invested in these women, it would be almost cruel to not allow us to follow at least one of their stories after Turner rides off into the sunset with his new love.
Time will tell how many more Golden seasons ABC allows us to have, but in the meantime, there’s still plenty left of Gerry Turner’s journey to witness. For instance, does this mean there are only two Fantasy Suite dates, with no elimination before the presumed proposal? Tune in to find out, as The Golden Bachelor continues at 8 p.m. ET Thursday, November 2, on ABC and can be streamed the next day with a Hulu subscription.
