ABC has revealed that The Bachelorette's upcoming fifth season will include several twists, including one that will feature five additional bachelors crashing the season's initial cocktail reception after Jillian Harris has already begun meeting her initial 25 suitors.
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Harris -- who was rejected by Jason Mesnick during The Bachelor's thirteenth edition last fall -- will be the first star in the ABC reality dating franchise's history to initially have 30 suitors to choose from instead of 25.
While her first 25 bachelors will arrive in the traditional way via limousine and formal introductions before the premiere episode's cocktail party commences, five additional suitors will arrive late and crash the party -- causing the men in the original group to "quietly seethe," according to ABC.
During the cocktail party, the men will pull out all the stops to impress Harris in an attempt to land the "first impression rose" and an opportunity to remain in the competition for her heart.
At the end of the cocktail party, Harris will eliminate 10 of her initial suitors -- leaving a field of 20 to vie for her affection over the course of the show's fifth-season.
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Similar to a format twist first introduced during The Bachelorette's fourth season last summer, Harris will also select three of her suitors to live with her in the mansion while the rest of the bachelors live together in an "unspectacular bunkhouse down the hill."
In addition, the bachelors will also be given a chance to "vote for the man they'd most like to send home" during an unspecified episode. Mesnick's bachelorettes were given the same opportunity during The Bachelor's thirteenth-season premiere, but later learned that the woman they selected would automatically receive a rose instead of the boot.
In addition to the usual assortment of local California-area dates, Harris will visit Hawaii, Canada and Spain for dates with some of her bachelors during The Bachelorette's fifth season, according to ABC.
Among the more noteworthy group dates will be a seven-on-one date that will feature a pick-up basketball game with the Harlem Globetrotters and an eleven-on-one date to a Western movie set.
The season's one-on-one dates will include a private concert by country star Martina McBride and a helicopter ride to the roof of the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles -- which, unbeknownst to the bachelor, apparently, will then continue with him having to rapple 30 floors to the hotel's pool area.
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The season will also feature Jillian taking some of the bachelors north and showing them around her adopted hometown of Vancouver; taking one bachelor ziplinging on a mountain in Whistler, BC; and taking six bachelors on a cross-country trip on The Rocky Mountaineer train line.
The Bachelorette's fifth season will premiere on Monday, May 18 at 9PM ET/PT before moving to its regular timeslot of Mondays at 8PM ET/PT on May 25.
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio