Travis Stork
Paris

The format's first passport stamp. An ER doctor lands in Paris, and the city does the heavy lifting — Seine boat rides, sidewalk cafes, the kind of skyline that flatters any cocktail dress. The cast reads more cosmopolitan than the Agoura Hills run, and Chris Harrison's introductions get more elegant. Nine episodes is the longest runway the show had tried, and the producers earn it. The season that proved the format could travel, and reset every franchise ambition that followed.