Roses at the ready! The Bachelor will premiere next month despite filming having only resumed last week after a COVID-19 shutdown
The Bachelor’s eighth season will premiere on Channel 10 next month, the network’s head of entertainment, Stephen Tate, announced on Monday.
While an exact air date hasn’t been confirmed, it’s expected the show will launch at the end of the August, after Bachelor in Paradise season three has finished its run.
Mr Tate told The Australian that the dating show had resumed filming in Oxford Falls, Sydney, after the cast and crew were put in isolation and tested for coronavirus twice.
On-site production had been suspended on March 26 due to the escalating COVID-19 pandemic.
While filming was suspended, suitor Locklan ‘Locky’ Gilbert is believed to have had ‘virtual dates’ via Zoom with the female contestants.
‘We were … three-quarters of the way through series when we went into lockdown, and basically all the cast returned home,’ Mr Tate said.
‘So we would find ways for the show to continue in the same way that dating continues in the wider world… We call it “Love in Lockdown. They continued to virtually date, both as single dates and as group dates.’
Because of the disruption to Channel 10’s schedule caused by COVID-19, it’s possible The Bachelor will still be introduction when the show premieres.
In previous seasons, the finale had been filmed well before the first episode went to air, but it’s unclear if this will be the case this year.
Interestingly, Mr Tate revealed in his interview with The Australian that each episode of The Bachelor requires about four to five weeks of editing.