Weekly Update on Celebrity Apprentice

How often do I want to blog weekly about a show? So far, though, I think I have had something to say about most of the episodes. And I have never been a fan of Donald Trump - there is no denying his prowess as a business man, however, tycoons rarely appeal to me and his employment practices where the show is concerned bother me.

Yes, I know... it makes better television and apparently the normal employment laws don't quite apply to this sort of thing. Still...

I've posted "Just Fire Dennis Rodman Already" (30 March) and "Celebrity Apprentice 2009" (20 March) - I thought I had said more, but apparently not. I'd thought I had posted about the wedding dress episode but I don't see anything.

Well, onto the last airing (Sunday, 5 April, 2100)... Clint Black and Melissa Rivers faced off as team leaders in the last episode, entitled "Trump Makes a Surprising Decision". They have the rather unenviable task of developing a "viral video", a term I'd never heard and really would not have encountered for a much longer time had I not seen this, for All Detergent's 3-in-1 or whatever it is. (Adverts don't seem to work with me, for the most part... I can't remember the product whether I like the ads or hate them.)

I wouldn't have done well with this, but after seeing the episode, I wonder if I wouldn't have done better than them. The team Athena was working hard and very cohesive, which was surprising - Melissa Rivers doesn't inspire confidence with me and I found her abrasive in the other episodes. She is also quite unpleasant to look at (I'm sure I posted about that). In an earlier episode she took credit for an idea that wasn't hers and that really coloured my perception of her. And in another one, she turned to Joan Rivers (her mother) and asked her to jump in to defend her (I'm sorry, how old are you that you cannot fight your own battles?). But she did well in this task.

The team KOTU was awful. Clint Black did not do well at all. He had shown major tendencies to micromanage and this put him in a position to really go nuts - he lived right up to my expectations with that. I did not expect him to do well as a project manager, given past episodes. He can follow - whatever his opinion of the manager and/or his role - and does everything he is told. But he wants to be involved in every little detail and it is annoying. He wasn't promising as a team leader, but it was obvious he was dying to do this. And then there was the idea...

Neither of the teams had perfect ideas, but Athena's was much better than KOTU's. They both came up with ideas involving little people which both groups referred to as "migdets", a term I would never be comfortable using. Yes, people under a certain height fall into the category of "little people" but to me they are 1. just people, like anyone else and 2. the term midget is not a flattering term. It implies a prejudice. But both teams noticed that within this world of viral videos, the term "midget" was in the top five posted words (you know, with the most hits).

Then Athena developed the idea that Jesse James would be attacked as a mechanic in a dirty clothing by three little people and then he was sparkling clean at the end. In the end, one of the actors pitched a fit about the demeaning nature of the video to little people and cursed and threw his hat and wig off. I think it should have been edited out but the women thought it was funny (!) and kept it in. (Bad idea...)

However, KOTU blew them away for how bad an idea can be... Clint came up with the idea of a man who calls his wife wanting to have sex but using the euphemism "let's do some dirty laundry". I have never heard of this before but we don't have kids and don't have to hide the idea of having sex. (My parents never made it a secret, dirty or otherwise, so I don't understand that attitude, either.) But to expound on the idea, Clint continued to say that the woman comes home, states her readiness to "do the dirty laundry" and the response is something along the lines of "don't worry, honey, I did it by hand; it was a small load". Say WHAT?!

The team all loved it (which is just as appalling as the idea itself) until they met with the executives of the product - all except Clint, who wanted to keep this idea despite the rather cold reception that their questions received from the execs. He was so committed to this folly (which appeared to be purely ego-driven) that he excluded his entire team from the rest of the process and even locked them out of the editing room. He physically locked them out! It was unreal. And while the other two (the golf pro and Khloe) did not say much, Joan Rivers, true to her nature, let him have it. Good for her.

They had some guy named Perez Hilton (which I kept mishearing as Paris Hilton) look over the two videos and give his opinion on them. He's a little flamboyant but he definitely hit the nail on the head with both of them.

They both failed. Had Athena dumped the cursing and obvious anger of the goth little person at the end and change the term "midget" to "little people" they would have won. KOTU did not have a prayer. While Clint seemed to honestly believe that no woman would be offended by the obvious reference to masturbation, he clearly understands nothing of the average woman. (I don't try to get the attitude, but most women are clearly unhappy with the idea of their husbands masturbating even though their sex lives have diminished - usually because of having kids. Men are very physically sexual. They almost need to have the release. But I digress...)

In the boardroom, Clint thought that the experience went "better than expected" and I found that amazing. And when it got a little ugly between Clint and Joan, Melissa jumped into the fray. OK, woman, grow up! They both need to stop that. Joan was perfectly right to jump down his throat but Melissa wasn't there.

At any rate, Clint should have been fired for just being a completely terrible job as project manager. The video was just appalling. It referenced sex, cheating, masturbating (with the product, no less; when is the last time you wanted to use a caustic for a whaddya-call-it?)

Jesse James, on the other hand, was perfectly wonderful! He appeared so completely uncomfortable but genuine on the video and the concept was great! But they screwed it up with the last bit with the cursing unhappy actor. It's too bad. Jesse did a great job.

It wasn't anyone's idea to have that tantrum show up, it just happened. What was the bad idea was that they left that part in it.

The executives did not like either one.

So the Donald had two people to fire, anyone he wanted. He first fired the R&B singer... Oh, what is her name? TJ, Tione, something like that. She offered to return and be put up for termination. Obviously she never watched the show when Donald Trump was looking for an executive to run this or that new venture. He automatically fired a contestant who threw himself under the bus thinking that this was an act of kindness and would ensure he would not be terminated. Had she seen that she'd have known to not do that.

The second person was a total shock. He fired Khloe instead of Clint because she'd gotten a DUI/DWI and had to do classes mandated by the court for rehabilitative measures. I don't agree with that and in my world it is completely illegal to do that. But again, this is television and these people are not really his employees but are rather contestants raising money for their favourite charity.

It was surprising, though.