Was Peter Weber's Bachelor season hurt or helped by producer meddling?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...-manipulation/

There were so many ways The Bachelor producers manipulated this season, from bringing back Hannah Brown to having Peter go on a romantic one-on-one date with Victoria for a private concert from a country singer, who turned out to be her ex-boyfriend. "This kind of heavy-handed engineering is nothing new on The Bachelor, but this season’s parade of excessively contrived, horrifying situations (which wraps up Monday and Tuesday night) has some viewers asking: Is producer manipulation ruining the show?" says The Washington Post. "Meddling is the engine that drives reality TV, especially on a franchise like The Bachelor. Without it, the star would just date a bunch of different people, have a decent time with some and not others, then ultimately find one to marry. Just like life. How boring! Yet the show’s success depends on balancing the artifice of reality TV with the kind of emotional drama that viewers are able to recognize from their own worlds."