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Premiered August 2021 · Delayed a year by COVID-19

Season 7

Originally slated for summer 2020, the season is pushed a full year by the pandemic and returns without Chris Harrison, who exits the franchise. A rotation of guest hosts fills in, with bartender Wells Adams taking on expanded hosting duties.

Filmed
Sayulita, Mexico
Sayulita · cast briefly relocated after a tropical storm
Premiered
Aug 16, 2021
ABC · August 2021
Episodes
11
Format
Guest-host rotation · COVID delay
David Spade, Lance Bass, Tituss Burgess, and Lil Jon rotate as hosts
Host
Guest hosts (David Spade, Lance Bass, Tituss Burgess, Lil Jon); Wells Adams
Rotating guest hosts, with Wells Adams's duties expanded
On this page6 sections
  1. 01The take
  2. 02The shape of the season
  3. 03Where it sits in the canon
  4. 04What to watch for
  5. 05Adjacent in the canon
  6. 06In this canon
01The take

Season 7.

No permanent host, a storm that forces a relocation, and a finale that trades the reunion for a montage — paradise's most disrupted year.
02The shape of the season

A rhythm worth tracking.

Season seven runs without a single host for the first time, splitting duties across a rotation of guest hosts after Chris Harrison exits the franchise. Originally slated for summer 2020, the season airs a full year late because of the pandemic, and a tropical storm mid-shoot forces the cast to relocate to a hotel. The usual in-person reunion gets replaced with a post-show montage instead.

03Where it sits in the canon

The #09 slot.

Slot #09 of 10 in the Bachelor in Paradise Editor's Canon. Season seven ranks near the bottom because so much of its runtime is spent adapting to disruption rather than developing the format on its own terms. Originally slated for summer 2020, it airs a full year late because of the pandemic, and it does so without a dedicated host for the first time — a rotation of guest hosts fills in after Chris Harrison exits the franchise. A tropical storm forces the cast to relocate mid-shoot, and the finale trades the usual in-person reunion for a post-show montage. Every one of those is a reasonable response to a genuinely hard year, but stacked together they leave the season feeling more survived than shaped.

No spoilers. Every page is reviewed before it goes live.
04What to watch for

5 moments, no spoilers.

  • Premiere · no single host

    For the first time, the show runs without one dedicated host. A rotation of guest hosts — David Spade, Lance Bass, Tituss Burgess, and Lil Jon — split hosting duties across the season.

  • Early run · a delayed comeback

    Originally scheduled for summer 2020, the season finally airs a full year late after the pandemic pushed production back, making this the longest calendar gap between seasons in the show's run.

  • Midseason · a storm hits

    A tropical storm forces the cast to relocate to a hotel for part of the shoot, an unplanned production wrinkle layered on top of an already disrupted year.

  • Later run · a VIP twist

    A Week 4 'VIP party' twist splits select contestants off from the main group, a format wrinkle that shakes up who's spending time with whom.

  • Finale · a different kind of send-off

    Instead of the usual in-person reunion, the season closes with a post-show check-in montage — a COVID-era adjustment to how the format usually wraps up.

06In this canon

Its Editor's Canon entry.

Bachelor in Paradise — Season 7 — tiered.tv