What [The Bachelor] is, at its core, is an extremely effective cautionary tale about the meaningless of all the romantic trappings in which it specializes. … This is what’s so great about the fact that these relationships almost never last and often implode spectacularly. The Bachelor sets up phony love stories, implies they are real love stories, and is then foiled by the fact that none of this ritualistic, overblown horsepucky has anything to do with love.

—Linda Holmes

(Horsepucky. Now there’s a word that should get more use.)