Clare Crawley will still get her shot to find love as ABC’s The Bachelorette and network executive Rob Mills is breaking down how they expect it to happen. Mills called into On Air with Ryan Seacrest on Wednesday and shared what they have in place at this point.
ABC just released details about their fall programming plans, and fans immediately noticed that The Bachelorette was on there. That raised some eyebrows, given that the filming of Clare’s season had to be suspended the day before it was due to begin because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Even though Los Angeles County has implemented guidelines and opened up the opportunity for shows to begin filming again, many production teams are still working through how to approach it safely. Based on what Mills said to Seacrest, they’ve been working on this for a while.
Mills said that they hope to begin filming Clare’s season in about a month. However, It won’t be at the usual mansion in California.
One key component of the plan they’re pursuing is that everybody would be tested about a week before filming begins. It sounds as if they’d keep everybody sequestered from that point on, and start shooting once testing is completed and everybody’s been isolated for a bit. If anybody’s tests came back positive for COVID-19, they wouldn’t be filming.
Once they pulled everybody together to do testing, they’d remain inside of this isolated bubble until they are done filming The Bachelorette . Mills said that they plan to film at a resort somewhere, seemingly doing this so they can keep things quite contained and controlled.
Mills didn’t say where this resort would be, and it sounded as if a final decision has not necessarily been made yet. The production team has looked at several places, though, and all of them had some good date possibilities as well.
The ABC executive added that they had some fabulous travel plans put together for Clare’s season. He mentioned one destination as Italy, but all of that has been scrapped. However, he said they would utilize a number of different date locations and keep as close to the usual feel of the show as possible.
Scripted shows are facing limitations in filming both romantic and fight scenes, but Mills doesn’t think that’ll be necessary for The Bachelorette . He believes that by testing before filming and quarantining, they’ll be fine to let things get intensely dramatic and romantic.
As E! Online notes, ABC plans to air Clare’s season on Tuesday nights this fall. Dancing with the Stars is slated to return for a fall season, and they’ll be holding onto their usual timeslot. The Bachelorette , then, will shift to Tuesday’s just for this season.
Fans have been anxiously waiting to see how, when, and if Clare’s season of The Bachelorette would happen. Now it seems production is almost ready to move forward, and spoilers should start to emerge soon. A premiere date has yet to be revealed, but everybody will have a better sense of timing once filming begins.
