Give me the deets on Brad.
Chris: The fact that he’s a Texas boy I say, “It’s about time!” I’ve been telling my producers that we needed a Texan. I’ve been waiting 6 years for this moment. My wife says that he’s the best looking bachelor so far and the sexiest.

Other than being a Texan what else makes him so special?
Chris: He’s probably one of the most down to earth and nicest guys that I’ve ever met. He’s a self-made man who went to college for a year and quit to work in the oil fields of Texas to make some money. He saved enough to open a bar in Austin with his brothers and has opened many more since. He says that the girl that he settles down with can have the luxury to take one year off and travel the world. He says that it will be real easy to offer her that.

Okay, so in past seasons you’ve never given me any kind of clue on who The Bachelor picks. Give me a break and tell something about who he chooses.
Chris: What I can tell you is to watch the girls and focus on who he picks to spend his time with. He likes the down home, simple, no frills, no fuss kind of girl. Any drama will buy that girl a first class ticket out of there.

Do you like who he picked?
Chris: Without going into detail I’ll say that I really liked the final three girls. They were awesome. That’s rare for me. There will be times that I can’t stand some of the girls. I’ll be like, “Get her the hell off my show” even though they’re good TV. Actually, the top fifteen are really good. You’ll really see him struggle from that point on who to pick.

But you never did answer if you liked who he picked.
Chris: I’m happy with how it ended.

Okay. We’ll leave it at that.
Chris: Okay

There’s been all of these knockoffs of The Bachelor from the flat out copies to the skanky versions. Have you found that flattering?
Chris: At first it was kind of flattering going back to shows like Joe Millionaire to current ones. It’s probably the most copied network show in 6 years. It’s amazing. My producers and I were counting the knockoffs and got to 15 – 20 shows before we quit counting.

Have any copycats ticked you off?
Chris: Age of Love was such a blatant rip off. It pissed us off. Some of our old producers went to that show and we were told that it was going to be a blatant rip off of The Bachelor. The good news is that it failed miserably. What we have is a good formula for achieving success. They failed and had it coming.

But The Bachelor hasn’t had that much success when it comes to the couples. Everyone seems to breakup.
Chris: We’ve had many successful relationships. Trista and Ryan just had a baby. The fact that we spawned life with my show scares me to death. Their baby was actually born on my birthday which was also pretty ironic. Bryan and Mary are getting married. Tessa and Andy are still together in San Francisco. They all email and text me to stay in touch.

Any new twists this season?
Chris: No. We’re getting back to what has made our show great. We got away from that for a few seasons. Part of it was from the pressure of there being so many rip off shows. It gets gimmicky where you’re thinking of doing all of this wacky stuff like, “Hey, let’s throw the girl off of the top of the building to see if she lives.” We are going back to the beginning. The Bachelor is a real life soap opera – no tricks, no gimmicks. It’s back to the basics of providing a great bachelor and the environment for him to meet some amazing women.

You've experienced a lull during past seasons in ratings. Did that affect your ability to get women?
Chris: We did. We had trouble getting women to show up for casting calls. With Travis in Paris casting picked up again and with Andy Baldwin. We’ve come back stronger than we’ve been in 3 – 4 years. It’s like back to the hype to the Andrew Firestone days. The spark is back more than ever.

Does Brad propose during the final rose ceremony?
Chris: I can’t say. I don’t know how much we can reveal at this point. You'll just have to spend the next 9 weeks watching.

Stay tuned!