Why we should applaud ABC's handling of a Bachelorette contestant's death

Sometimes, reality gets in the way of reality television

The Bachlorette
(Image credit: (Screenshot/The Bachelorette))

The warped version of reality that airs on shows like The Bachelorette is not, in fact, anything close to actual reality. Sure, many of us would enjoy romantic helicopter rides and dates in exotic locales — but when it comes to re-creating what it's truly like to date someone in the real world, The Bachelor franchise's pitiful success rate for couples who met on the show pretty much proves that attempting to find one true love while dating dozens of people at once is an unnatural and frequently unsuccessful pursuit.

Monday night's episode of The Bachelorette, however, presented viewers with a dose of actual reality that lasted far longer than a one-off look directly into the camera or a meta remark about how inorganic it is to actually believe you could find true love on a dating show. Eric Hill, a kind and handsome professional "explorer" and early front-runner for Bachelorette Andi's heart this season, died in a paragliding accident after he was eliminated from the show, but before this season began airing. The show dedicated the season to him, and briefly addressed his passing at the end of the episode in which he was eliminated. But since Hill died while the show was still in production, the crew faced the unusual and unfortunate problem of figuring out how to tell the Bachelorette and the remaining four contestants about the death of one of their own.

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Samantha Rollins

Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.