The current season of The Bachelorette is nearing an end, but there doesn’t seem to be much curiosity about who Ali Fedotowsky will choose. Nothing in this season has come close to attracting the attention of the big news story that has broken in its midst, the demise of the relationship of reigning Bachelor Jake Pavelka.

This might be a good thing for the franchise as a whole, which has always operated on the belief that no publicity is bad publicity. But barring some last-minute fireworks, it looks like Ali’s season will go down as a relative dud.

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What has gone wrong with The Bachelorette this summer? Our theories:

The two-hour episodes are too long: The supersizing of the Bachelor and Bachelorette episodes that began several years into their runs has not meant that we now have two full hours worth of drama every week — quite the contrary. Most of the extra time gets taken up by repetitive voiceovers, or interpersonal drama amongst the contestants. Viewers got a glimpse of the way it used to be on July 5, when this season’s action was condensed into 80 minutes in order that ABC might bring us the Jake and Vienna Breakup Special. While it wasn’t an especially interesting night of Bachelorette action, it was at least less packed with utter filler, and served as a reminder of exactly how much time is wasted during the average week.

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Ali is too young: Ali is the youngest woman ever selected as the Bachelorette. While there’s not a huge age difference between the 25-year-old Ali and her predecessors, those few years can mean a lot. Even though she is no dumbbell and left a fairly good job to go on the show, this has often seemed like the first season of the franchise to take place on a spring break. It hasn’t escaped the attention of viewers that Ali seems to enjoy her wine drinking more than most in her position; on a couple of occasions, she’s sounded downright tipsy. It’s hard to believe that someone this young is going to be settling down forever with anyone right now, let alone with a reality show contestant.

Nothing surprising has happened: By “no surprises,” I’m not referring to the rampant spoilers regarding this season and most of the recent seasons of the franchise. Most viewers aren’t up on the spoilers, but anyone could have guessed as far back as the third week of the season that Ali’s final four would be the exact four men who were left. Remember how the phrase “the most dramatic rose ceremony ever!” became a joke with overuse? It’s been a long time since we’ve heard anyone say that, or need to.

The men are all too similar: This has been a problem with the franchise from the beginning, since it stands to reason that producers aren’t going to cast the type of person that their star wouldn’t want to date. But after a while, it becomes difficult to tell one clean-cut young professional from another. There have been a few characters over the years who have strayed from the norm, most notably the scruffy snowboarder Jesse Csincsak, who was selected by DeAnna in Season Four. And the success of Roberto this season represents a first for the previously all-white upper reaches of The Bachelorette. But the newest group of contenders has learned how to behave from previous seasons of the show, which only makes the sameness factor more obvious.

Everyone is way too serious: While the joke dating shows that used to make up most of the VH1 schedule were often tasteless even when they weren’t casting future murderers, they at least had some fun with the ridiculousness of the idea that one could find their permanent soulmate in the context of a few weeks filming a reality trifle. But The Bachelorette persists with the belief that it’s perfectly normal to declare undying love for a woman after shooting a Barenaked Ladies video with her and then chatting for a few minutes.

We’ve seen it all: The Bachelor franchise seemed to get a shot in the arm during the Brad Womack season in fall 2007, and since then “surprising” climaxes (Reid wants back in! Jason dumped Melissa for Molly! Ali wants back in!) and “shocking” revelations about contestants have been more the rule than the exception. But how many times can the show go to the well before the so-called surprises become the least surprising thing about it? Even this season’s “big moment,” the revelation that Justin had a girlfriend back home and was presumably only going on The Bachelorette to gain publicity, was a pale copy of a very similar situation last summer with Jillian and Wes. There’s basically nothing else to do now but go the Tila Tequila route and have both men and women seeking roses.

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