Bachelor Ben: The unloveable hunk

Happy New Year! It's been a while. I wonder if I remember how to do this. Let's give it a shot.

This is season 20 of the Bachelor. Or so they say. There's no way this show started in 1996. In fact, the always reliable Wikipedia tells us The Bachelor debuted in 2002. In my world, that's 14 seasons. My rules: one season per calendar year.

Handsome Unloveable Ben is the sucker this season. Glad to see he likes his hoops. Hope to see lots of it, although the teaser showed us what has become a cliché on the show: the couple on a private baseball diamond. Boring. They need a new location scout.

Sean Lowe and Jason Mesnick are desperate, aren't they? Do they ever say no to a request to be on TV? I'll give the farm boy Chris a pass for now. I can't remember any other Bachelor, but I tip my hat to them for not endlessly identifying themselves as that.

Chris, the expert single guy, tells Ben to remember that the women are there for him. No, they're not. They're there to be on TV. They may also be there to "find love" but they'd be there no matter who the producers chose.

"Everybody knows Becca; everybody knows Amber," the teasers tell us... Um, not so much. Although the names ring a bell.

Before Ben meets the ladies, we get to know a choice few:

• Lauren B., flight attendant from Portland. Front runner and I haven't seen anyone else!
• Caila is 24 and lives in Boston. Wait a second. Maybe she's the front runner. Hmm, this is tough. Where are the crazies? Oh, wait, she said she broke up with her boyfriend after seeing Ben on TV. Is that what she said?
• Jubilee, a military woman, is pretty hot, too, although Ben might be intimidated by her brute strength. I know I would be.
• Mandi embraces the weird... and is a dentist. Not only does she embrace the weird, she is the weird. Ben seems like he flosses, she says, but she'll need to do an oral exam.
• Twins. Okay, this is getting weird. Double trouble.
• Amanda is a mom of two kids and sounds like she huffed on some party balloons. She's dating for her kids. That's so giving of her.
• Tiara is a chicken enthusiast. I mean a Chicken Enthusiast. That's her job. I kid you not. Otherwise she seems pretty normal, I mean apart from the framed photos of her chickens.
• Sam from Florida is a law school grad. She's got the tragic family story. Every season needs one. Her dad died when she was 13. She's 26 now.

Okay, I gotta type fast here. Here comes the first limo:

• Lauren B., the first front runner. Still a front runner. She gives him his wings. Thumbs up.
• Caila is next. Same order as the teases. She jumps into his arms. Cute but a little too much. 
• Jennifer, from Florida. Ben and Jen is too cute to forget, she says.
• Jami, from St. Albert (aka Edmonton). Drops fellow Canadian Kaitlyn's name, hints about Ben's penis size.
• Samantha, an attorney. I thought she was just a law school grad. Maybe that's the same thing. She asks, "Boxers or legal briefs?" Lame.
• Jubilee. She's wearing a dress cut down to here. She goes meta, telling Ben what her pickup line would have been.
• Amanda, the baby-voiced mother of two babies. She plays it classy.
• Lace, a real estate agent. She gets the first kiss, at her own doing. Didn't hear a word she said, though.
• Lauren R. is a math teacher. She tells him she's been stalking him over social media the past two months. Bad move. He thinks she's gorgeous.
• Shushanna, a mathematician. She starts speaking a foreign language. I can't figure out which one. Something Slavic? She doesn't speak a word of English.
• Leah, from Denver brings him a football and hikes it through her legs. She obviously didn't stalk him. He's a Hoosier. He loves basketball!
• A unicorn. Joelle "JoJo". What was the point of the mask? Not sure.
• Lauren H. Good Lord, how many Laurens is that? This one's a kindergarten teacher. She tosses him a corsage.
• Laura is a ginger. He tells a lot of them they look gorgeous. Her friends call her Red Velvet. Not sure what to think about her but tentative thumbs up.
• The wacky dentist comes wearing a huge red fake rose on her head. Mandi tells him if things go well maybe he can pollinate it for her.
• The Twins. "No way," says Ben. "Group hug." One is Emily, the other is Haley. They walk inside and one of them says, "Yes, we're twins."
• Now comes the circus. Maegan is a cowgirl who walks a Shetland pony up the driveway. Or rather it's a mini horse. She brings the horse into the house.
• Breanne brings a basket with bread. She's a nutritional therapist who doesn't eat any gluten, because gluten's "Satan." She smashes the bread.
• Isabel "Izzy" arrives wearing jammies. All just so she could say she needed find out if he was the "onesie" for her. She's 24.
• Rachel arrives on a hoverboard. She's on "cloud 9." It just gets worse and worse. She's unemployed. They couldn't even think up a fake career for her. Where's the chicken lady?
• Jessica gives him a big hug. She seems normal.
• Here's Chicken Lady! Tiara is the chicken enthusiast. He tells her she looks beautiful but I can't help wondering how she smells.
• Lauren "LB". By my count, that's four Laurens. Good thing this one comes with a nickname. She also seems relatively normal.
• Jackie is a gerontologist. She gives him a card. What was it? A wedding announcement? I don't know.
• Olivia is a news anchor from Texas. She talks about dimples. This can't be good for her career. 

So it's 26 women, not 25, thanks to the Twins, aka Ditz Sisters. I know the twin fantasy, but no one ever mentions it's basically incest.

Dad calls his parents on speaker phone. What happened to being shut out from the outside world?

And when is the horse going to take a dump on the floor?

Ben is in the middle of talking to the group for his first time and the Wacky Dentist steals him away. The first question she asks him if he flosses. She lies him on his lap and gives him an oral exam and says he's kissable.

The news anchor reveals she walked away from her job just because he's "totally worth it." She left something really good for something that's really great. Ben thinks she makes an incredible first impression.

Caila is terminally cute. I just worry about her stability.

Make that 28. Another limo pulls up. Out comes Becca and Amber, whose names I remember but that's all. Ah, Becca's the virgin. Apparently she still is one. Amber is still beautiful. And now we get to pretend that these two will stop the 25 others from advancing. Cue the false drama.

Lace is the season drunk. There's one every season. Good thing she got the first kiss in before the white wine hit her. But now she's asking for a better kiss. Ben tells her his goal is to get to know everybody first. That'd be a shut-down.

Then the Wacky Dentist interrupts. Cue the drunk tears. But Ben the gentleman goes looking for Lace. He tells her she's absolutely gorgeous but the kiss ain't happening. He had her at gorgeous. Maybe she should take this opportunity to hydrate. For about the fifth time, she says she feels like she's getting a rose tonight. Which usually means she isn't.

Who's the oldest in this group? Seems like they range from 22 to 24. Ah, crazy dentist is 28. Maybe she's leading. How old is Ben?

I think "absolutely gorgeous" is Ben's catch phrase. It's too late to start a count in this episode. Maybe next week.

The first impression rose goes to the one he said made a great first impression: the former news anchor. It's Olivia. It should be noted that she's 23. And she quit her job as a news anchor! In what market is a 23-year-old your news anchor? It also means a lot less that she quit the job.

Lace is pissed that Ben didn't make eye contact with her when he was talking to the group. Lace is also just pissed, period. In all its meanings.

Rose ceremony time. Olivia has immunity. Is that what it's called? He should pick one twin and not the other

1. Lauren B., flight attendant front runner
2. LB, a Lauren by another name
3. Cutesy Caila
4. Amber, the vet
5. Jami, the Canuck
6. Jennifer, the Ben-Jen show
7. Jubilee, the real vet
8. Amanda, baby mama
9. JoJo, the unicorn
10. Leah, the jock who likes football
11. Rachel, the unemployed hoverboarder
12. Samantha, the newbie lawyer
13. Jackie the gerontologist
14. Haley, Ditz Sister #1
15. Emily, Ditz Sister #2 (fantasy intact)
16. Shushanna, the Russian, still refusing to speak English. This can't last.
17. Lauren H, kindergarten teacher
18. Becca, the other virgin vet
19. Mandi (producers' pick)
20. Lace (producers' pick)

Too bad the producers insist on the wacky picks because some decent women got sent home. Seven of them: Red Velvet (Laura) was a beaut, Breanne the enemy of gluten (who is 30!), Lauren R. the stalker, Maegan the horse lady, Tiara the chicken lady, Izzie wasn't the onesie, and Jessica the normal one.

In the celebration, Lace takes Ben aside to air her grievances about him not looking at her. She says she just hopes it's the right thing for her. Hopefully once she sobers up she'll be normal, but I wouldn't bet on it. Ben isn't taking it well. He says he has a feeling the drama is just getting started. But it's not his doing. He didn't choose her.

Then we saw the upcoming highlights. Looks like Becca makes it to another country. Same with Jubilee. That's about all I could tell.

And that's about all I got. Until next week.