Mystery surrounds production of The Bachelor Australia starring Locky Gilbert

The Bachelor resumed filming in Sydney’s Oxford Falls last week, more than three months after on-site production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But longtime viewers of the dating show fear that Channel 10’s proposed premiere date for next month may be a little too ambitious. 

Eagle-eyed fans on The Bachelor and Bachelorette Spoiler Forum have pointed that a network executive has made conflicting statements about the progress of filming.

As spotted by forum user ‘Bobette’, Channel 10’s head of entertainment, Stephen Tate, seemingly contradicted himself this week when talking about how far into production the eighth season of The Bachelor was when filming was suspended in March.

Mr Tate told The Australian on Monday: ‘We were three-quarters of the way through [the] series when we went into lockdown, and basically all the cast returned home.’

But he’d told The Kyle and Jackie O Show on March 26, shortly after the production shutdown, that they were only ‘a third of the way in’.

He explained to hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson: ‘We’ve got a good amount of the series in the can, we’re about a third of the way in which buys us a lot of time and we’re going to embrace what’s happening to all of us here in Australia.’ 

It’s unclear whether The Bachelor was one third or three-quarters into production when production went into lockdown. It’s possible Mr Tate was just mistaken when he said in March they were just a ‘third of the way in’.

The cast and crew, including suitor Locklan ‘Locky’ Gilbert and host Osher Günsberg, had been on set for about three weeks when production was abandoned.

If they had only filmed a third of the total season by March 26, producers may struggle to finish before the premiere next month.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel 10 for comment. 

If The Bachelor doesn’t wrap filming in the coming weeks, this could lead to the unprecedented scenario in which Locky is still on his journey to find love as the season starts airing.

If that were to happen, he would be doing media interviews about the show and watching the episodes go to air before he has even made his final decision.

It’s possible that watching the women interact with each other on show when he’s not around could even influence his decision.

As longtime franchise fans will remember, 2012 American Bachelor Ben Flajnik famously said he was turned off by watching his winner, Courtney Robertson, on the show and how she treated the other women.

He said that if he had known how she was behaving in the mansion behind his back, he wouldn’t have picked her in the finale.