The Navy didn't cooperate with the production of the ABC reality series featuring Lt. Andy Baldwin, forcing the television show's producers to improvise naval backdrops for the sailor they bill as the real-life incarnation of Richard Gere's character in "An Officer and a Gentleman."

Camera crews could not film any scenes on naval bases, nor film him in uniform, aside from some limited exceptions.

The service frequently helps Hollywood television and movie productions, "Top Gun" and "Pearl Harbor" being prominent examples, so long as officials believe the programs help educate the public about the Navy.

Bob Anderson, the Navy's liaison to the TV and film industry, said the Navy reviewed the proposed script for "The Bachelor" and considered cooperating. But officials felt the program — which has Baldwin meeting and selecting his life partner from 25 female contestants — didn't meet their requirements.

The final episode, in which Baldwin picks between two finalists, airs Monday.

SOME PARTS OF SHOW A 'BIT RISQUE'

"Cooperation with a production usually requires explaining how the Navy works and lives," Anderson said. "It's a little bit outside of that."

Plus, he said, "there are some parts they found a little bit risque."

Anderson didn't say which particular scenes gave the Navy pause.

But in one "group date" scene at a mud-bath spa, a half-dozen bikini-clad women and Baldwin smear brown sludge on each other's bodies. In many episodes, the bachelor is kissing and cuddling so many different women that it's hard to keep track of who's who.

The series has vaguely polygamous overtones as Baldwin dates multiple women who live dormitory-style in the same Los Angeles house for much of the show.

EXCEPTION MADE FOR USS ARIZONA VISIT

One exception to the uniform ban was made when Baldwin takes the three semifinalists — one at a time — to visit the USS Arizona Memorial, a white structure that straddles the sunken hull of the battleship in Pearl Harbor. The bodies of hundreds of the ship's sailors killed in the Dec. 7, 1941 attack rest underwater.

The Navy and the National Park Service, which runs the monument, hold that all active duty servicemen visiting the site should wear their uniforms out of respect to the fallen, making it natural Baldwin would don his summer whites for the scene.

Baldwin, a special operations dive unit doctor at Pearl Harbor, took the opportunity to speak passionately about his pride in the military.

In an earlier episode, he gave two women a tour of the USS Midway, a retired aircraft carrier that's now a museum moored at a public pier in San Diego, and told them a little bit about what it's like to be a Navy doctor.

A spokeswoman from Warner Horizon Television, the show's production company, said no one was available to comment on how the Navy's decision affected filming.

Baldwin said in a statement issued through Warner Horizon that his command was very supportive of his effort and he felt he represented the Navy well.

"I used my personal leave time (40 days) to pursue a very important goal of mine — to settle down, get married, and start a family," Baldwin said. "I strove throughout the show to be a gentleman, and to uphold the integrity and values that the Navy has taught me."

NAVY OFTEN AVOIDS REALITY SHOWS

The Navy tends to avoid reality shows because they're unscripted, Anderson said. Many pitches suggest pitting one branch of the military against another, a concept the defense department rejects, Anderson said.

Studios send the Navy's film and television liaison office in Los Angeles an average of one reality TV show proposal a week but the Navy almost never cooperates.

The Navy is more likely to work with movies and television dramas.

Studios send Anderson's office about 20 to 30 movie scripts and some 10 or 15 pilots for new TV series a year. The Navy opts to cooperate with about half to three-quarters of the serious movie and non-reality TV pitches it receives, Anderson said.

Warner Horizon is owned by Time Warner Inc.

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