That said, Higgins' season is the most successful of any recent Bachelor iteration. His finale drew more than 9 million viewers , a number that neither Viall's nor Arie Luyendyk's seasons matched. Luyendyk's season was notoriously bad, raking in roughly 7 million viewers for the finale. There are a number of reasons why this happened — no one cared about Luyendyk, maybe, just maybe, people are losing faith in this franchise, and, oh yeah, cord-cutting — but some of it might have been due to Luyendyk's age. Luyendyk was 36 during filming, and he repeatedly told the camera that he was "boring." He liked to drink wine, he said, and he liked to stay home on weekends. He really did seem to want a wife, but he also wasn't going to pony up for it. This, at least, might be what ABC is thinking re: our new Bachelor, Underwood.