The citizens of Bachelor Nation are creatures of habit. Like Wayne and Garth, we fear change. But change is coming to Bachelor in Paradise, rose lovers — and it’s time to talk about it.
In addition to a new location (Costa Rica!) and a new twist (the Goldens are coming!), Bachelor in Paradise also has a new showrunner, Scott Teti (Claim to Fame), and he’s ready to give ABC’s beach-based dating show a makeover. “It’s an amazing opportunity, because this franchise has been around for so long and had so much success, and it’s exciting to be a part of that,” Teti tells Entertainment Weekly. “It’s also super exciting to be able to reboot [the show] both visually and creatively in a format sense.”
Promising an “upgraded, sexy style across the board,” Teti says the new season of Paradise will also incorporate elements from its precursor — the late, great Bachelor Pad. If that doesn’t pique your interest, rose lovers, nothing will. Read on to learn more about Teti’s plans for Paradise, from “relationship games” to “elevated comedy” to the possibility of romance between the Golden contestants and the younger singles.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s talk about the big move to Costa Rica. Why is the show moving?
SCOTT TETI: Before I came on, the location [change] was already in motion and had been approved. So, I think the drive to move was based on shaking things up stylistically with a new vibe and a new kind of Paradise. This also is very production friendly. It’s a very private beach. It’s very secluded, but it also has the ability for our production to stay on one side of the sister hotel, and the newer portion of the Azuara Beach Resort, where we will be filming, is right next door. It’s this beautiful sexy, new location.
Unlike in Mexico, where the contestants slept in open-air cabanas, everyone will get proper hotel rooms this season. Can you confirm that everyone will have air conditioning?
Everyone will have air conditioning, yes! We’re in Costa Rica this time and it’s got this very wild, beautiful vibe. The hotel where they’re going to be staying is more upscale and has a sexy chicness to it that feels a little bit elevated than the traditional kind of Paradise world we’ve been in. The cast can literally open up the doors to their rooms and swim out into the pool under bridges, and then up to a beautiful bar that is touching the beach.
Disney/Sami Drasin
Are you excited to not have to film really sweaty people all the time? They were just so sweaty in Mexico.
Between the air conditioner and the pool and the ability to swim right out into the pool, I imagine they’re not going to be sweating unless they are running up and down the beach. So yes, I’m excited to be filming people that aren’t constantly sweating, but maybe [they’ll have] a little bit of a glisten to just give it a sexy vibe.
More importantly, there is no way you could have subjected the Golden cast members to the brutality of the Playa Escondida accommodations, with the crabs and the bugs and the heat, right?
[Laughs] Yeah, I mean, look, I think they’re going to be pleasantly surprised down here. There’s no shuffleboard set up yet, but we’re going to make sure that they have their perfect Paradise to keep them rested and hydrated.
Let’s talk about the Goldens joining the group. People have a lot of questions. For example, if Leslie, 66, and Hakeem, 30, hit it off, can they date each other?
Well, I would say that this rendition of Paradise is designed to encourage those to stay within their lanes. But yes, anything can happen in Paradise.
You wouldn’t be opposed to a May-December romance if it developed?
Hey, who am I to say?
Former Bachelorette Hannah Brown is joining the hospitality staff, alongside bartender Wells Adams. Tell us about what she’ll be doing.
She’ll be handing out champagne before the rose ceremonies, checking in with people, seeing how they’re doing. She is kind of taking on the role of, if you will, like a Director of Paradise Relations. She’ll be checking in with the cast before the rose ceremonies, or even if somebody needs help with a romantic getaway to spice things up, she’ll be there. She’s going to be in the mix as this director of hospitality kind of role, checking in, giving advice, maybe even providing a little yoga experience to free the minds of some people. It’s going to be fun.
Will the Truth Box be back?
We don’t have the Truth Box, but we have so many other twists and turns and things that are new. Something that’s super exciting is to be able to reboot the franchise both visually, creatively, in a format sense. We are bringing in elements that have a little bit of competition to them that we’re calling chemistry or relationship tests, and they are really going to enlighten the cast and help them learn things about themselves, about each other. Things that might be admirable qualities might surface, things that are red flags might pop up as a result of these tests.
Some of the tests are designed to show people how compatible they are or possibly how incompatible they are. So they’re really going to shake things up and drive a lot of story in that sense. They’re really designed to organically help them in their quest for love, and they’re going to be fun and they’re going to be surprising, and I think people, including the audience, are going to be caught off guard a lot of ways.
Love Island essentially copied its format from Bachelor in Paradise, and now it sounds like Bachelor in Paradise is maybe incorporating some of the Love Island-style challenges?
We’re taking a different approach, in that I don’t like to use the word “challenge.” That’s why I think we’re really digging into relationship or chemistry tests because that’s what they are. I will say that we’re taking a lot of time to think about them and creatively how to implement them and not be so on the nose with things and keep people surprised at the results that we’re getting. Bachelor Pad definitely is a little bit of an inspiration here. Hopefully people are excited that we’re bringing elements of the Pad back.
It’s clear a lot of elements of the show are being refreshed and tweaked, but people are really attached to the theme song and the ’80s sitcom-style opening credits. Can we expect that to stay?
I’ll just say that everything about the style of the show, we’re trying to elevate. From new cameras and lenses to frame rates to the way it’s shot — we’re trying to implement an upgraded, sexy style across the board. A lot of that involves the music and the storytelling as well. When it comes to the main titles, it’s already being worked on, and we are trying to give that a 2025 spin. We are going to implement that in a way that feels stylistically upgraded, if you will.
Disney/Sami Drasin
But the same song, please?
Potentially, yeah. That’s what we’re working on.
What makes a good Bachelor in Paradise contestant?
First of all, it’s someone who’s really looking for love. If you don’t have that from the start, it’s not there. That’s been front and foremost, who is really looking for love. And really getting a sense of who is attracted to who right off the bat and who’s going to make a good match, as well as who’s going to make good story because of things that are going on in their real world. When they find out that this person is here or that person’s here, is it going to drive a different kind of story or jealousy?
Who’s going to embrace it and not kind of self-edit and pull back? And who is a hot commodity that people are putting on their checklist? We’ve got a team that is constantly researching this and that is in tune with the cast and talking to them. We have a good sense of who’s going to come into Paradise and be pleasantly surprised with who’s arriving and who’s showing up on the next day and the next day. That’s the fun of it.
Is there a literal checklist? Because the contestants are always talking about the list: “You were on my list.” “Oh, he was on my list.”
Yes. And Caitlin Stapleton, who heads up our cast team, is amazing, and so in tune with everybody. There is a list of who is attracted to who for these reasons and those reasons, and who wants to get to know this person. That’s all part of it. We want this experiment to work. To just throw a bunch of random people in there and hope that they find love [wouldn’t work]. You want to go in with a little notion of like, “Okay, this is already charged from the beginning.”
The show has a great premise, and it really works. But there’s always one part in the season where it’s too early to stop bringing in new people, and yet it’s too late for new people to form real connections with anyone already on the beach. How do you plan to navigate that tricky period?
I think that was the impetus to change the format and examine how do we start with this traditional Bachelor in Paradise model — though even that’s going to have new twists and turns as we go, and the cast is not aware of that at this point. How do we keep this going or actually shift a gear, if you will, so that now you’re driving forward with these relationships in a different way? That’s where these relationship tests really start to drive story in a way that pushes this in a little bit of a Bachelor Pad direction so that you’re driving to something and it gets more exciting. You’re finding people who are deeper in love and driving towards something special.
For people who have never seen Bachelor in Paradise, or who maybe gave up on it and are thinking about tuning back in, why is season 10 the time to jump back into the pool, so to speak?
I would say that it’s all the things that people loved about Bachelor in Paradise with elements of Bachelor Pad, along with every cast member from Bachelor Nation in an elevated, sexy new style, elevated comedy, more twists and turns than ever before, surprises, and really storytelling that keeps people on edge through every rose ceremony. You will not know what’s happening, hopefully between four to five stories, not just one or two. It’s an elevated experience overall, and we’re really pushing the limits.
We’ve done a lot of due diligence on the creative end for months now, trying to experiment with elevated devices that we can put into the show, where we’re getting into the cast’s heads. So often, everyone falls in love so quickly in Paradise and what must be going on in their head? It will hopefully look and feel like a very sexy reboot of what everybody has loved for many seasons.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Bachelor in Paradise premieres Monday, July 7, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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