The following contains spoilers for Season 28 of The Bachelor

After The Bachelor finale last night, it’s finally safe to say that the franchise is on an upwards trajectory. I’ve written at length in recent years about how producers and editors of the show were actively ruining the experience for contestants and viewers, but Joey Grazaidei’s Season 28 seems to have turned a corner for the better.

What started in Charity Lawson’s season of The Bachelorette and Gerry Turner’s season of The Golden Bachelor continued over the past few months, granting us with a season remarkably free of producer-created drama and delightfully overflowing with interpersonal conflicts among the cast. It’s not just me saying that—ratings and Instagram followers show the same trend.

Both finalist Daisy Kent and fan-favorite Maria Georgas have reached over 500k followers on Instagram. Not only that, but the show has increased in ratings season over season for just the 10th time in history. Neither of these feats have been achieved since Peter Weber’s Season 24, according to @BachelorData. In Weber’s season, Madi Prewett, Hannah Ann Sluss, and Victoria Fuller all hit the 500k marker, and are now full time influencers. Prewett and Sluss currently boast over 1 million followers. By contrast, last year’s Bachelorette lead Charity Lawson has just 291k followers at the time of this writing.

It’s hard to pinpoint just one thing that made this show so good, but it’s difficult to find fault with the casting. Daisy Kent literally grew up on a Christmas tree farm and acted as though she was straight out of a Hallmark movie. Maria Georgas is clearly made for the reality TV world, creating drama and manufacturing a larger than life personality that we’ll likely see on TV for years to come. Jenn Tran, the future Bachelorette, is bubbly and fun and supports everyone around her. Even the “villains” of the season, Sydney Gordon and Lea Cayanan, were dynamic and fun to watch.

While I was rooting for Kelsey Anderson to win Joey’s hand in marriage for weeks, at the end of the day Joey’s entire final six were people I genuinely liked. And that’s so rare! In past seasons, even if I liked the finalists, I wouldn’t love the lead. If I liked the lead, I wouldn’t love the finalists. The fact that casting managed to do both—and production managed to show the likable side of all of these people—just makes the show so much better!

As a long time fan, I’m excited to see people tuning in again and I hope that people rally behind Jenn the same way they did Joey this year. In a post-Covid-outbreak world, people want to see love and happiness on their television screens. Reality TV is an escape from the pressures of the day to day, and I’m glad The Bachelor was able to give us the TV we deserve.

What did you think of this season of The Bachelor?