Yes, that Bachelor fence jump was crazy, the rest of the season not so much

It’s the sort of plot twist you might be more likely to see on reality TV satire UnREAL than on an actual episode of The Bachelor.

The leading man has a meltdown, runs away from his handlers, jumps a tall fence and disappears into the night, vowing that he wants to quit the show.

I can’t recall a piece of footage dominating a season of the long-running dating show the way Colton Underwood’s jump did, but from the moment it was shown in a season preview video last November the fans known as Bachelor Nation were obsessed.

Come January, as each new episode aired with no sign of the jump, they took to social media with variations of the question, “When is Colton going to jump the fence?” There was even a Twitter account named “Did Colton Jump Over the Fence?” the sole purpose of which was to track whether he’d taken the leap and to react when he finally did: “YES. YES. OH MY GOODNESS. IT HAPPENED. AND IT WAS INCREDIBLE.”

And for those of us immersed in Bachelor world, it was. We had never seen a franchise star break the unspoken rules to this extent: declaring repeatedly that he was “done,” throwing away his microphone, physically shoving crew members out of his way and eluding them with what looked like an effortless leap over a barrier estimated to be eight feet high.

The only ones more thrilled than the viewers to see that feat of athleticism were the people who make the show.

The season ratings went up. Monday’s episode, which showed the aftermath of the jump, even beat NBC powerhouse The Voice in viewership. And the episodes that featured the jump drove #TheBachelor to the top of Twitter’s trending list worldwide.

For once, host Chris Harrison’s yearly claims of “the most dramatic season ever” rang true.

But here’s the thing, all that drama was part of what overall was a very ordinary season.

Yes, other things were different apart from Underwood’s disappearing act: he broke with the usual pretence of pretending to be torn between women and told contestant Cassie Randolph that he loved her and wanted to end up with her. After she failed to reciprocate his love and left (which is what propelled him over that fence), he sent both of the runner-ups home early so that, at least for a portion of Tuesday’s finale, he was a Bachelor without any bachelorettes.