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If "UnREAL" were as "totally fictional" as its co-creator insists, it's doubtful that the scripted series about a TV dating show would have gotten under the skin of the host of "The Bachelor."
But "UnREAL" clearly bothered Chris Harrison, who belittled the Lifetime series mercilessly in an interview with Variety.
"Really, the main difference that I've seen is that people watch 'The Bachelor,' " Harrison said. "At the end of the day, no one is watching. I mean, absolutely nobody is watching that show. Why? It is terrible. It is really terrible."
It's not surprising that Harrison isn't a fan of "UnREAL"; it's set behind the scenes of a very "Bachelor"-like series and includes horrific manipulation of the contestants. And he turned out to be quite wrong about the ratings — "UnREAL" averaged 3.7 million viewers in Season 1, making it quite successful for Lifetime and earning the show a second season, which premieres Monday at 8 p.m.
What made "UnREAL" work is that it felt so real. That's in no small part due to the fact that co-creator/executive producer Sarah Gertrude Shapiro was a producer on "The Bachelor" for nine seasons over the course of three years.
And she turned that experience into a dark comedy/drama about young producer Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby) pushed to manipulate the show's contestants — to their great detriment — by her boss Quinn King (Constance Zimmer), who cared about the show and its ratings but couldn't possibly have cared less about the people involved.
Shapiro is very careful to insist that "UnREAL" is unreal. That she and the writing staff made up the part about a producer messing with a contestant's medication. That the show driving one of the contestants to kill herself was invented.
"We just sort of set out to make a great season of television," she said. "As soon as we started, all truth was out the window and we were just sort of writing fiction.
"I think the spirit of that, of sort of pushing and manipulating people, was taken farther for our dramatic effect."
It's true that no contestant on "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette" has committed suicide during production of the show. It's also true that three former contestants killed themselves after they were on the show — which is more than the number of marriages (one) that have resulted from "The Bachelor" and equal to the number of marriages that resulted from "The Bachelorette."
"We've seen in the media that there's a lot of damage that's done," said co-creator/executive producer Marti Noxon. "And it hasn't happened during the telecast, but there's been a lot of evidence after the fact that there's a lot of human wreckage after these shows."
Jesse Csincsak, the winner on Season 4 of "The Bachelorette," insisted the real shows are "dangerous."
"It is not about finding love, it is about embarrassing the hell out of each and every contestant for ratings and money," he said in an interview with "Life & Style" after "Bachelor" Season 14 contestant Alexa "Lex" McAllister killed herself. "It ruins people's lives. I'm afraid this won't be the last suicide."
How the contestants are portrayed on the show affects them long after, Csincsak said.
"You [become known as] 'the slut,' 'the drunk,' 'the cheater,' 'the bully,' 'the loser,' and you have to live with that for life," he said. "That causes depression. For anyone who has been on the show, the process causes emotional issues."
Shapiro said her former co-workers in the reality-TV industry have reacted positively to "UnREAL" — that she has "gotten a lot of love" from them.
"And then there was a host of a certain show that didn't love us," she said with a smile.
"People who disagree with us have disagreed publicly," Noxon said.
"Very publicly," Shapiro interjected.
"But there have been a lot of people sort of under-the-radar who have gotten in touch and said, 'That feels just like my job,' " Noxon said.
Although seeing what they do portrayed so negatively hasn't caused any career changes.
"We haven't had any converts," Noxon said. "We haven't had anybody be like, "I see the light. I'm quitting.' "
Zimmer said she's gotten feedback from viewers saying, "'I watch these shows differently now, and I am thinking about Quinn and Rachel.' That's just the hugest compliment ever.
"All we ever wanted to do was just kind of pull back the curtains, and I think we've kind of been able to do that. And it makes me very nervous for the second season."
Season 2 tackles an issue that has been a constant source of criticism for "The Bachelor" — race. The bachelor on "Everlasting" is African-American, which has never happened on the real shows.
Shapiro said that subject did indeed come up during her stint at "The Bachelor." And the decision to avoid casting a minority came down to pragmatism.
"I think that we've all been privy to those conversations because sort of being in television, you have to be a pragmatist," said Shapiro, who recalled hearing things like, "We will isolate this demographic. There's no way we can do it" — statements that "came out of producers' and [network] executives' mouths."
But the fact that it's too dangerous for "real" reality shows makes it perfect fodder for faux reality show "UnREAL."
"There's few things more pressing than this conversation," Shapiro said. "We don't want to fall asleep at the wheel, and we really want to keep talking about stuff that we're incredibly passionate about and that we think is important."
Twitter: @ScottDPierce