Short Takes – August 28, 2007

We're still in summer mode around here (and I still haven't started the new blog – probably next week) and I'm getting used to being a dog owner again. When my brother went out to B.C. he was supposed to leave Chelsea with me but then his girlfriend told him that the dog was going with them. Well for a variety of reasons that I won't go into, it was not a happy experience for Chelsea, and at times she wasn't on her best behaviour, particularly with strangers. Suffice it to say that the choice came down to me taking her or Greg taking her to the vet to be put to sleep. So I'm a dog owner again, and for the life of me I can't understand what the people who complained about my dog being mean were going on about. That said, I am looking forward to the start of the new TV season with increasing impatience.

Kid Nation problems and opportunities: Someone said that it doesn't matter what they say about you just as long as they spell your name right. It's right up there with "bad publicity is better than no publicity at all." Well, the new CBS series Kid Nation has been getting that sort of publicity. It all started when a parent of one of the forty kids between the ages of 8 and 15 who participated in the show complained the State of New Mexico after the show was completed that the conditions verged on "abuse and neglect." A couple of incidents cited included several of the children drinking bleach that had been stored in an unmarked pop bottle, and one girl (the daughter of the complainant) whose face was burned with spattered cooking grease while she was cooking unsupervised (while the ads for the show say that the children were alone, there was frequently an adult chef present when the children were cooking). According to the New York Times (registration required) State officials in New Mexico have stated that "the project almost assuredly violated state laws requiring facilities that house children be reviewed and licensed." Romamine Serna, public information officer for the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department also added that "If the department had known of the parent's allegations when the incidents occurred, she said, 'We would have responded and would have assured the children's safety.'" There have been concerns since the series launched about whether the production skirted State and Federal child labour and child welfare laws. The Times article also states that "Until Kid Nation, no reality show had focused on taking a group of children from their homes and placing them in unknown situations, forced to deal with whatever arises and recording the results." This would seem to ignore the (dismal in my opinion) ABC series Brat Camp.

In their response CBS responded that they were confident that their actions were within the law. A number of things were cited including the fact that unlike many states, New Mexico did not (at that time – the law has since changed) concerning the use of child actors in film and TV productions. This included requirements for tutors on the set and regulations on the amount of time that children can work. The sheriff's office in Santa Fe County, which received the initial complaint (forward from the sheriff's office in the complainant's home in Georgia) investigated the production and found no criminal activity. Jonathon Anschell, who oversees CBS's legal operations for the West Coast stated that a search of the production's correspondence with the State of New Mexico produced nothing beyond a June 15^th warning that the law concerning the number of hours that a child could be on a set had been changed. He also stated that while the children did receive stipends of $5,000 each, the possibility of "gold star" awarded at the end of each episode to one participant (voted by the other children) and payment in buffalo nickels for the performance of certain tasks (the nickels were part of the show's internal economy and could be used to buy things at the show's stores), the children were not employed: "The children were not employed under the legal definition. They were not receiving set wages for performing specific tasks or working specific hours."

Following the New York Times article, the Smoking Gun website obtained a copy of the contract that the parents of the children signed. It clearly delineated the conditions under which the "minor" would live: "the Program will consist of approximately forty individuals, who are all minors, where they will form a community and live amongst themselves." The contract stated that the parents signed away their right to sue "if their child died, was severely injured, or contracted a sexually transmitted disease during the program's taping," as well as giving the network consent to make medical treatment decisions for the children including authorizing surgery, and the ability to search "the Minor's person and the Minor's belongings (including, without limitation, by x-ray or similar device)." There was also an acknowledgement that the participants "'will have no privacy,' except when they are in the bathroom. Provided, of course, that the child is actually 'in the process of showering, bathing, urinating, or defecating.'" While it seems harsh, it also seems like a typical reality show contract modified to take into consideration the fact that the participants on this show were minor children. In other words, the parents knew what the conditions would be like and agreed to them.

Partial Celebrity Apprentice line-up: You remember back in May when Kevin Reilly announced the NBC prime time schedule and The Apprentice wasn't on any list? Remember how good we all felt? Remember the street parties and the march through the streets of Manhattan to the Trump Tower to go "neener neener neener" and give The Donald the collective finger? Okay, I made that last bit up (but I doubt it would have been that hard to organize). Trump was livid and threatening to develop a new show for FOX or some other network; seemingly he believed that he actually created The Apprentice rather than being "mere" talent on a show created by Mark Burnett. Our joy was destined to be short-lived; when Reilly paid for Jeff Zucker's mistakes he was replaced by Benjamin Silverman, and apparently Benjamin Silverman likes The Apprentice. At least he likes it well enough to put the show onto the line-up as a mid-season replacement. This time though there's going to be a better gimmick than having losing candidates live in tents in the back yard (and accidentally setting things up so that a contestant who was never a project manager actually became the new Apprentice). This time we're going to have Celebrity Apprentice! Be still my beating heart – or better yet, be still Trump's beating heart (permanently). Recently Donald Trump announced a partial list of the "celebrities" who have signed on for this adventure. They are: Mad Money host Jim Cramer, "actress" Carmen Electra, comedienne Joan Rivers, singer Naomi Judd, boxer/preacher/ shill for the famous Grill (which I love btw except for the difficulty in cleaning) George Foreman, original Apprentice villain Amorosa, 6 foot tall former model Kimora Lee Simmons, disgraced former Baseball player Pete Rose, racing drivers Danica Patrick and Jeff Gordon, and professional skateboarder Tony Hawk. In the same article Trump stated that Paris Hilton has expressed an interest, and that he'd like to get Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan on the show. Trump claims that more than a hundred other celebrities want to do the show. One who doesn't is Rosie O'Donnell (who Trump called a "fat slob" at one point – and that was one of the milder things he said about her) even though she apparently was asked. Rosie is reported to have said, "It will not happen in this lifetime or beyond." I'd say that was a No, but Trump might regard it as a definite Maybe.

Simon Cowell is quitting: Well he is quitting as judge of American Idol anyway, when his contract runs out in three years. He also seems intent on giving up his other on air jobs: judge on the British series X-Factor, a British show that seems a lot like American Idol which itself was based on the British series Pop Idol on which Cowell was also a judge (Cowell didn't have any ownership rights on Pop Idol and as a result pulled the plug on it to do X-Factor which he does own). Cowell told Britian's Daily Mirror that "I have three more seasons under contract with American Idol and that will be it. And it will probably come at the same time in the UK. I am contracted for another two or three seasons in Britain and I think by that point the public will be sick to death of me anyway and it will be time to go." Of course he'll be keeping busy; Cowell, whose net worth is estimated at about £100 million (about $200 million) created both the international Idol franchise and X-Factor but also American Inventor, the Got Talent franchise (starting with America's Got Talent) and Grease Is The Word, a British version of the NBC show Grease: You're The One That I Want. It's something that he acknowledges in the Mirror article "I run a record label, I run a TV company, we're making movies now - I love that part of my life. I probably get more satisfaction from making a show than being on a show." His music division – Syco Music – employs just 11 people but is responsible for 40% of the profits of its parent company Sony-BMG last year.

FOX does it again: If you look at a variety of blogs and comments about the behaviour of TV networks in general and FOX in particular, the one big complaint that you hear is that they cancel shows almost at the drop of a ratings point. Now I'm not saying that their most recent casualty, the reality show Anchorwoman, was the equivalent in any way of Firefly, Wonderfalls, or Drive. I can't because I didn't see the show on the one and only occasion when it aired (videotape problem – literally the tape I had in the machine wouldn't record anything at all). In fact I don't actually blame FOX for cancelling the show given that it drew a 1 rating and 2.7 million viewers (3% share) , getting thoroughly trounced by Drew Carey and The Power of 10 (8.7 million 2.3 rating 7% share) and just barely beating a rerun of America's Next Top Model. And to be fair FOX at least let the show complete its one episode (there's a story that I heard many years ago about a local station – possibly apocryphal but I seem to recall reading it in TV Guide – that cancelled one of Tim Conway's network shows while it was still airing its first episode; they cut for commercial and never went back). The problem is that even when it's justified, as in this case, it leaves a bad taste. There was no time allowed for the show to try to develop an audience, and while Anchorwoman might never have improved on its first airing this is symptomatic of why people are wary of getting too attached to a new show. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; people won't watch a new show because it might be cancelled and the networks cancels the show because it didn't get high ratings immediately.

Who does the PTC hate this week?: This "dog days of summer" business seems to be hitting hte PTC just about as badly as it is me. This time around the "Worst of the week" and the "Misrated" sections are dominated by a rerun of Criminal Minds, which as I recall they didn't find at all objectionable when it first aired, and a series – The Knights Of Prosperity – that was being burned off but only managed to last two episodes of the burn off. Oh, and there's a summer reality show too.

Let's start off with Criminal Minds. The episode in question was the one in which two serial killers are operating in the St. Louis area, one well publicized because his victims were upper middle class, the other ignored because his victims were prostitutes. Of course what the PTC sees is that "Guns, blood, death, necrophilia and graphic violence against women all played a strong role in this TV-PG LV rated program." The "review" emphasises the opening scene in which a women is abducted from a park and the follow-up to the scene where "This opening scene is not only disturbing for its violence, but is particularly upsetting due to the way the program's writer emphasized the hopes of the innocent family, gaining the viewer's sympathy before shattering the family's dream with a senseless crime." This of course is a case of building dramatic tension and our feelings against this killer; a discerning audience with even a little experience with this show would know that the victim of the abduction has already been killed. The PTC's commentary barely touches on the second killer, the one who kills prostitutes saying, "The show continued with several scenes involving prostitutes, including one scene where a killer drives up to two female prostitutes and mercilessly guns them down. They are left for dead, bleeding next to a dumpster in an alley." That's all they actually have to say about the most violent moment of the episode – the murder of the two prostitutes in the alley. No, they are more fixated on the killer who kills middle class women and hides their bodies in the woods: "He greets the corpse as if it were still alive, and proceeds to comb the woman's hair. After applying lipstick to the dead woman's lips he leans-in to kiss her." Inanely they add "The killers manage to murder seven innocent women before police are able to catch them." I guess that somehow in the PTC's universe the police (really the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit) would immediately determine who the killers were and arrest them before any further murders occurred. But here's the worst bit from the PTC: "Besides being inappropriately rated as TV-PG, the episode is simply inappropriate for prime- time broadcast television. Sadistic serial killers and the violent murder of women is what CBS is selling to the viewing audience, and we should acknowledge that reality." I'm sorry but are we watching the same show? The whole point of this show is that the FBI unit has been set up to apprehend serial killers by understanding them psychologically. I don't know how you are supposed to present this concept without showing the heinous acts of the people they are out to capture. But of course the PTC would much rather that the public only watch shows like their Best of the Week this week, So You Think You Can Dance, a fine show but not the sort of thing that you'd want a non-stop diet of which is what the PTC would like to force on viewers.

Of course the PTC's real fixation isn't on violence. They're fixated on the S-word (sex) and the two N-words (naked and nipples). That seems to explain their reaction to the E! Network's basic cable series Sunset Tan and what makes it their worst cable show of the week, because obviously there was nothing wrong (in their view) with that week's Rescue Me. To the ordinary viewer Sunset Tan proceeds in the rather dubious footsteps of "tattoos shows" like Miami Ink and the fitness instructor show Work Out. I think maybe you can tell that I'm not a huge fan of the genre but that's not really the point here. The point is the PTC's reaction which is typically directed against the "subsidizing" of this evil show. What makes it evil is the "the barrage of bare breasts." Of course there are other evil things in the show as well: "To be fair, the show contains non-graphic shock appeal as well: that of utterly unrestrained consumerism. Watching a mother take her young daughter's cheerleading team to be artificially tanned does add a new, pom-pom inspired nuance to decadence." Huh? What exactly does that mean? Then there's the organization's reaction to the "Olly Girls," (not the Olly Twins as the PTC describes them at least once they're not related) two recently hired employees of the tanning salon named Molly and Holly: "This dizzyingly dense duo was the focus of Sunset Tan's August 19th premiere. Holly and Molly are their names; wasting time and flashing breasts are their game." Gee, they sort of sound like Mikey on American Chopper...well except for the "flashing breasts" part (thank all that is holy). Of course, we don't see the "flashing breasts" of anyone. This is basic cable after all and the companies know that if they show unobscured nipples or even much of the breasts they will be in trouble with the service providers. The PTC acknowledges this although the video (currently available at their Cable Worst of the Week page, at least until they get a new worst of the week) puts something of a lie to the notion that the women are topless "with only their nipples blurred" – a lot more is blurred than the women's nipples. There conclusion is funny as well: "Television is meant to entertain, and some of that entertainment should be mindless fun. But what do gratuitous breasts shots add to this mindless summer fare? I'm guessing it's not a strategy for uncovering pernicious female objectification, or for gaining a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of navigating the consumer-driven coastal California lifestyle." In truth what they find "wrong" about this sort of mindless fun is less "pernicious female objectification" or "the consumer-driven coastal California lifestyle" or even that the Olly Girls are "dizzyingly dense" and more that there is even a suggestion of nudity.

In their "Misrated" section they fearlessly take on The Knights Of Prosperity as show which has already been cancelled twice. The show, which aired on August 8^th was rated PG-DL, which for a PG show means suggestive dialogue and mild coarse language. In the scenes which the PTC provides as a transcript Esperanza (the female member of the group) is trying to seduce Ray Romano to get him out of his apartment so the others can rob it (though from the reading of the scene she also seems to be interested for her own reasons). To me some of the dialogue they quote seems fairly innocuous: Ray: "What are you talking about? You don't want to sleep with me." Esperanza: "More than anything in this world." She also tells Ray that "I will do special things..." To me it seems that the most suggestive thing is this bit of dialogue once Ray and Esperanza are in a hotel room: Esperanza: "I would like to freshen up my private areas first." Ray: "Okay, alright. Mine are pretty much ready to go." That seems fairly innocuous to me but not to the PTC which argues "This kind of dialogue surely warrants more than a PG-rating. A female character using her sexuality to prevent her friends from being caught engaging in criminal behavior is not appropriate for young viewers. Would a ten-year-old girl understand that using sex to get out of trouble is not a good way to solve problems?" Because of course ten-year-old girls take their cues on proper behaviour from a character on a cancelled sitcom rather than people like, I don't know, maybe their parents? They conclude that "The above dialogue, along with the rest of the episode's criminal and sexual content, shows that this program is not suitable for children under 14. The August 8^th 9:30 p.m. EST episode of The Knights of Prosperity should have been rated TV-14 for its intense discussion of promiscuous sexual behavior – behavior that was glorified and validated because it was 'for the good of the group.'" The TV-PG rating acknowledges that there is some suggestive content included in the episode and the addition of the DL descriptors emphasises the point further as does the time that the episode aired – the second half of the second hour of prime time. As usual, I find the PTC to be their usual prudish selves.

Why You Aren’t Reading An Apprentice Recap

You may have noticed that while I continue to mention The Amazing Race at any opportunity I can manufacture to do so – like right now (how cool was that descent from the Macau Tower – and that's a commercial operation so that if you ever get to Macau you can have the thrill of jumping off a building without the sudden stop at the end just like the contestants on the show) – I haven't mentioned The Apprentice at all this season. There's a good reason for that: I haven't watched at all since about the fifth episode.

I do know why I stopped watching The Apprentice. It was, as you might expect, a combination of things. The transfer of the show from New York to Los Angeles was one thing. When you think of The Apprentice you think of Donald Trump and when you think of Donald Trump you think of New York (and maybe Atlantic City). But this time they weren't in the town so nice they named it twice, they were in Los Angeles, and I don't associate Trump with LaLa Land at all.

Another thing that the show did was to replace both of Trump's sidekicks. He had famously fired my lust object Caroline Kepcher (although she says she quit – either way it was quite abrupt) and started using his far less savvy (and far less attractive, but that's beside the point) spawn Ivanka as one of his "eyes and ears." Except Ivanka frequently wasn't there and was replaced variously by her brother Don Jr. (a chip off the old blockhead) and various winning candidates from previous seasons. Even worse was the decision not to have a second observer. Gone is Vice President and Senior Council George Ross, without replacement. Ivanka, or whoever was sitting in for her, would do all the observing and when it came time to advice Mr. Trump in the boardroom, the second chair would be filled by the project manager from the winning team. That gave the person the opportunity to kiss Trump's butt and undermine the opposition. I guess that's okay, but it still doesn't seem all that fair given that the winning project manager hasn't seen how the other team performed and doesn't bring the sort of business expertise to the table that a senior member of the Trump organization does.

Another major change was that winning Project Managers would continue in that role until their team was defeated. It sounds like a reward for being a successful PM, but there are several faults in the concept. The biggest of these is that if The Apprentice is nominally about seeing which candidate is suited to running a project for one of Trump's companies, it is fairly important to see how the candidates will perform in a leadership position. Having one person stay as Project Manager as long as there team wins means that fewer candidates on a team that wins repeatedly – as happened in this season – will have their leadership capabilities shown. In fact, of the final four candidates, one had been project manager three times and had a 2-1 record as PM, two had one loss as project managers (and that happened in the first two episodes), and one – Stefani Schaeffer – had no experience as a Project Manager at all – and she was the eventual winner! Meanwhile Heidi, the person with the greatest success as a Project Manager (three wins, one loss) didn't make it to the Final Four. Her record obviously doesn't make her the best candidate any more than Stefani's lack of a record meant that she is a poor leader. What it does mean is that we, and Trump, had more chance to see Heidi as a leader than we did Steffani, and how do you evaluate someone as a leader without seeing them lead?

Then of course there was the whole business of housing the candidates. Series creator Mark Burnett seems to have fallen in love with this business of luxury versus deprivation, although this "Haves vs. Have-nots" format was actually suggested by Trump himself. He used it in Survivor where Moto Beach had all the luxuries of home except maybe a TV, while Ravu Beach had a rusty machete and a leaky pot. Well maybe the pot didn't leak but the principle is the same. On The Apprentice luxury took the form of a rented Hollywood mansion complete with swimming pool, although significantly it was somewhat lower on the hill than the mansion that Trump and his entourage had rented. Deprivation was "Tent City", which was on the mansion grounds but separated by a hedge from all the good stuff. Truth be known, even the people on Moto Beach would have seen Tent City as a step up although only a slight step up. Tent City had a wash basin for food and clothes (although at least one of the teams didn't seem able to figure out how to wash their own dishes), a cook stove with utensils, and cots for everyone. The trouble is of course that this doesn't seem to really have anything to do with business. And as was most definitely the case in Survivor being a part of the team suffering deprivation – the Have-Nots – tended to perform poorly in subsequent tasks. In fact one of the candidates resigned because she couldn't handle the conditions that she was subjected to in Tent City – she hadn't signed up for that. Trump snarked at her about quitting.

On the whole this season of The Apprentice has been a massive disappointment, and the series ratings seem to indicate that. Last season's ratings, when the show aired on Monday night, were down over previous years but it still drew and average of 9.73 million viewers (and that figure doesn't included the season finale which drew 11.25 million but aired "after the official television season ended"). This season, airing on Sunday night, the first episode drew 4.3 million – less than half of the average rating for the previous season – and the second episode drew under 4 million (Wikipedia; these numbers are at some variance with the figures that Marc Berman of Media Week quotes – choose "Click here to chat" on The Programming Insider box to reach the forums and review previous Sunday ratings). Whatever the actual results the ratings have been anaemic and the move to the third hour of Sunday night at the beginning of March not only didn't improve them, it appears to have made them worse. This puts a lie to Trump's repeated claims about the show's popularity (certainly he makes no claims about the response of critics or awards, where the show has consistently been defeated by The Amazing Race). I'm not entirely sure where the blame for this belongs. Sir Alan Sugar, who is the "Trump" analog in the British version of The Apprentice, has some thoughts: "When you're on a winner, you stick to the winner. You polish it and enhance it and try to make it more interesting to the public. Keep it simple; don't fall to the temptation of changing things just for the sake of changing things. I've watched the American series and they've made the fatal error of trying to change things just for the sake of it and it backfired. What you're going to see here is tougher tasks, better people and a very clear picture for the viewer. We've polished a great product." I think that he's right, at least in part, with the "proof" that the show has gone astray by adding new gimmicks being made obvious with the depressed ratings. On the other hand, after everything that has been going on away from the show – most notoriously the feud with Rosie O'Donnell – the public might just be sick and tired of Donald Trump. Either way, NBC has a problem on their hands as they've apparently already renewed The Apprentice for a seventh season when other shows with ratings like these are not only not renewed but are frequently pulled from the line-up before they finish their season.

Blame Canada

I can just imagine the casting conference at Mark Burnett's office when they were setting the lineup for The Apprentice.

Burnett: Well boys I love this idea of having people from different nations on the show. We hit a gold mine last time with Alla the millionaire Ukrainian stripper. The one thing I'm worried about is who we'll get to be the jerk this season. Also, we don't have a Canadian. We have a Russian, a Cuban and an Englishman but no Canadian. Get on the ball people

Flunky 1: Well the Russian guy's a bit of a jerk.

Flunky 2: And as for Canadians, well our research shows that no one can tell the difference between a Canadian and an American. A Canadian and a canoe, yes - Canadians don't tip - but a Canadian and an American no.

Burnett: Look you pinheads. First of all the Russian isn't jerky enough. We have standards to uphold and this guy isn't an Omarosa, a Stacie J., a Danny, a Markus. You know, someone we can get rid of early and people will cheer. As for having a Canadian, I'll have you know that the Canadians love this show more than Americans do. It's their third favourite reality show.

Flunky 2: What's the first? It's Survivor, or is The Amazing Race

Burnett: You said the name of that show!!! You're fired!

Flunky 3 (very stunned and weak voice - obsequious even): Mr. Burnett sir, bringer of our fat cushy jobs that help pay for our Jags and Porsches, what if we made the Canadian the jerk?

Burnett: I like your thinking son. You're now Flunky 1. But who will we get?

Flunky 2 (formerly Flunky 1): There's this guy at the bottom of the earliest reject pile that would be just perfect. Brent something or other from Toronto although he's living in Fort Lauderdale right now.

Trump (poking his head in for a moment): Hey guys I just wanted to let you know that if there's a Jewish guy from New York, he's going to win. Especially if he's not from Manhattan. I want someone from the boroughs, George wants a Jewish guy and Carolyn, well Carolyn would like Kelly Perdew but her husband won't let her set him up in an love nest.

I think that can be the only explanation as to why Brent Buckman was put on the show. Even looking at the cast picture the guy stands out. In a sea of Cassii ("Beware yon Cassius. He hath a lean and hungry look.") he's this overweight sloppy looking schlub. And that was before he opened his mouth. The guy was loud and brash and almost as soon as he opened his mouth with an idea he was shouted down by the other members of Synergy the team that had picked him last (he was the only guy left and they had to pick a man). Yes, like Survivor they went with the "School Yard Pick" system of grouping teams this year and as always the fat kid was picked last. The knives were out for Brent from the first conference for the first task of the season, when Brent suggested a karaoke machine for the Sam's Club promotion. Immediately he was marginalised for the idea although even with that it was better than anything that Gold Rush came up with. For the second day of that challenge they stuck Brent in the Goodyear Blimp - something I'm sure they got a good laugh about - because they didn't want him to have any contact at all with the public. Something about it not projecting the right image.

It only got worse. In the second episode, the one in which they were trying to promote a new generation of Gillette razors using text messaging, Brent was interrupted and stopped by the other members of his team practically any time he opened his mouth. Again, his ideas could hardly have been worse than what his team actually came up with, which was standing in the middle of Times Square, wearing bathrobes and handing out fliers. Brent's efforts to improve things consisted of hamming it up and acting like a clown - he had training in high school theatrical classes in improvisation, mime, mask, and clown - which got him roundly criticised by the other members of his team,although the show didn't mention whether text messages with their "word" went up after he went into his act or not. This week of the show featured a confrontation between Brent and Stacy, who had been the one most often interrupting and shouting down his ideas. She said he "threatened" her although the video doesn't seem to back that up. In the end Pepi, the project manager was fired (for not controlling Brent, and generally poor management skills as well as getting a late start on the task) as was Stacy for not being strong enough to stand up to Brent. In the third challenge, which Synergy won, the team decided to "manage" him by giving him grunt work to do. It's pretty hard to mess up a challenge when the only thing they ask of you is that you set out garbage cans - and then second guess the way you do that, which they did (one of the female candidates actually followed him around telling him where he should and shouldn't put the cans.

Brent was fired during the fourth episode, on Monday night. The task was to design a banner or billboard for Post Grape Nuts Trail Mix cereal. As usual Brent was marginalised - his part of the task was to check the clothing of the people presenting to the Post executives. The campaign was too wordy for a billboard - not Brent's fault - and the image of an older man and a younger woman that they chose not eye-catching enough. In fact Trump said that the man playing the father in the image - who was in his 40s - looked more like her boyfriend rather her father (but then he recently said that if Ivanka Trump wasn't his daughter he'd date her). Again this was something that Brent wasn't involved in; his idea for the campaign, which was shot down within minutes of him suggesting it focused on weight loss. Brent wanted to present but the team said that they were selling a "healthy image" and Brent's weight didn't project that; the person chosen to present stuttered throughout. Based on performance of the task Brent shouldn't have been fired because he hadn't been allowed to do anything that would actually contribute to the loss, which Ivanka Trump even commented on during the task, and even some of the other members of his team expressed that "privately". In the boardroom however they're a united front. Brent has got to go: he's obnoxious and disliked you know that's true(and a no-prize to anyone who knows that reference), which they say is disruptive. And if Brent hadn't made a vindictive and anger filled response to these criticisms which included telling Trump that the team's project manager "stunk" he still might have gone but it probably wouldn't have been as easy for The Donald. If he had said something like "Mr. Trump, how can I be that disruptive? They don't allow me to do anything substantial in the tasks. I come up with ideas and I don't even get the chance to finish my thought before they are telling me to be quiet. In this task I was told to choose the wardrobe for the people presenting the pitch. In the previous task they had me setting out garbage cans. They are messing up these tasks on their own and using me as a scapegoat." he'd have been telling the truth and expressing his frustrations in a civilized manner. Instead he came out swinging, aggressive and insulting and was fired "on the spot

Despite being a Canadian with the same first name as him, I don't disagree that Brent Buckman should have been fired. From the first episode Trump recognised him as a disaster in the making and actually said that he couldn't understand why he was on the show, and I agree. Surely there must have been other Canadian applicants who were smart intelligent and not jerks, but I'm convinced that the producers wanted at least one major jerk and Brent was chosen for that reason. Any problem that I have with the firing has to do with the fact that, based on performance, he didn't deserve to be fired on this task because he was so peripheral to it. He wasn't involved in the creative side and he wasn't involved in the presentation side at the insistence of his team mates. It would have been better to see him fired for screwing up rather than just for being a fat, angry, egotistical schlub amongst a horde of lean and hungry Casii.

Dear Martha:

You really got the fuzzy end of the lollypop on this whole Apprentice thing didn't you dear. They come to you and ask you to do it and then things just sort of fell apart. First they give you a crappy time slot on Wednesday night and then when you don't perform immediately they move your show to an even suckier time slot so that Jerry Bruckheimer doesn't get irritated. (I was going to say pissed, but you are Martha Stewart - even when you were in prison people didn't use words like that around you.) I mean people actually watch Lost - his silly E-Ring wasn't going to beat that.

Oh but that was all was it Martha. There were the candidates. Trump got people like Randal, Rebecca, Felisha and Alla - okay Alla's a bad example; she would use words like pissed around you - and you got Dawna, Bethanny, Howie and nutso Jim. I mean darling I know you're Martha Stewart but even you can't make silk purses out of those sow's ears, anymore than you could make Charles and Alexa into George and Caroline. (Oh by the way Martha, I hate to tell you this - I've had more erotic dreams about Caroline than I've had about you, and I'm even counting the one with you and Alexa together, which I know is something you don't like to talk about). I mean sure Donald got saddled with Markus and the virgin Adam but you had Jeff, Jennifer and Chuck. Too much dear.

But of course it didn't stop there did it. There were other indignities. First Donald Trump shows up on your show, all sweetness and light, talking about how he's your friend and all that. Then when his ratings started to tank he doesn't blame NBC for their deteriorating Thursday night lineup or Jerry Bruckheimer for CSI being good this year, or the other networks for being like the crocodiles on Survivor: Guatemala in search of a vulnerable target. No Martha, he blamed you. Said you diluted the brand or some such bullsh....sorry Martha.... Bovine Scatology. So I suppose it's no wonder that the network weasels over at NBC - the guys who had been so welcoming to you when you got out of the Big House (no not your place in Maine; I'm talking about prison dear) - turned around and cancelled your show. Where is the love there?

Ah but the finale, the finale was where the final digs came in. Trump got a battle for the ages between Randal and Rebecca, and you got, well you got Dawna and Bethanny. I mean talk about white bread; and factory made white bread at that, not the stuff you (or rather your assistants) hand make yourself. They give Trump two hours to wrap things up while you get an hour between a game show for people too dumb to play Scrabble - oh sorry I forgot, wasn't it Dawna who had no idea how to play Scrabble - and a repeat of Law & Order four days before Christmas when no one is watching TV. I mean set aside the fact that it takes you an hour to wrap one Christmas present (what with making the wrapping paper, the ribbons, and those perfect name tags), just giving you an hour is a bit of an insult. And Trump gets Lincoln Center and a crowd of thousands while you get your daily show studio and a crowd of hundreds, well dozens anyway. So sad.

Now I have to confess I didn't watch all of the last episode. There was a particularly gripping episode of Call For Help on at the same time and I kept switching back and forth, so I missed the defense each of the candidates gave for their events, which as far as I could tell went off like clockwork. That may have been a problem. I mean remember all of the "sturm und drang" that Trump's show got out of things falling apart for Randal and Rebecca. Things falling to pieces and being "rescued" - or not - at the last moment is the stuff of drama. The best your ladies could come up was all the corrections that had to be made to the Liz Claiborne program, and that was well-defended. So no, Martha you weren't exactly up there on the drama part.

And then of course there was the live conference room. Let's just say that you made the safe choice, and of course the obviously correct choice. You need a team player and the very fact that Bethanny had to pick someone who hated her like Carrie or whoever it was did spoke volumes about her as a team player throughout the process. Even nutso Jim commented on that one and let's admit that he's pretty observant when it comes to gaps in other people's armour - ones he can use at least. (By the way Martha, if you and Donald Trump are still on speaking terms you might want to recommend nutso Jim to him, either as a candidate for Apprentice or for Court Jester. The guy is a funny Macchiavellian although he'd probably be insulted by the funny part of the description. Anyway, someone far more suited to working fro Trump than you.) You were left with the nice safe choice of Dawna, someone who doesn't make waves and can be left to submerge herself in whatever project you assigned her. Which turned out to be a position as Director of Development in one of your magazines based out of Boston. Is it really called Body & Soul? Apparently you are far less imaginative than I give you credit for in my erotic dreams. No matter, it's a good fit for her, and you even gave her a Buick Lucerne to escape from New York during the transit strike. Best of all you didn't put her on the hot seat by asking her if you should hire Bethenny too - that's not your style. Unfortunately the whole thing seemed anticlimactic (and no that's not a reference to erotic dreams) which made it seem, well... boring.

So dear Martha, this phase in your life has ended. I wish you good luck in your future endeavours but sadly in this circumstance you simply didn't fit in.

The Apprentice Finale - And Aftershock

It isn't often that the word "aftershock" is really appropriate when talking about a television show, and particularly a reality show, but I think you can argue that the decision of one player at the end of the fourth season finale of The Apprentice set off something of a firestorm. Or an aftershock.

At the start of the two part Apprentice finale Donald Trump had narrowed the field of 18 candidates to two, Randal Pinkett from Somerset New Jersey and Rebecca Jarvis from Chicago. As usual in the show, the final task for each was to coordinate a charity event, with a staff made up of three previously fired candidates each. In this case each potential Apprentice had to deal with a corporate sponsor. Randal was put in charge of a celebrity softball game for the charity Autism Speaks with Outback Steak House as corporate sponsor, while Rebecca was given a comedy event for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation with Yahoo! as corporate sponsor. Both Randal and his group and Rebecca and her group encountered problems. In Rebecca's case the problems were twofold. The original host for the comedy event was supposed to be former Saturday Night Live cast member Joe Piscopo, however soon after a meeting with two of Rebecca's employees, Piscopo pulled out claiming resistance from "the union". (Since there isn't a "comedian's union" I suspect the resistance may have come from either AFTRA or Actor's Equity concerning payment from the producers of The Apprentice, but I haven't seen any specific union claim.) She responded by contacting various comedy clubs and finding a replacement MC for the event. A bigger problem was staunch resistance on the part of Yahoo! to attempts at direct fundraising during the event. Randal found similar resistance from Outback Steak House but after hearing details about Autism from the representative of Autism Speaks he and his team were able to persuade the company to give in on that point. A bigger problem for Randal was the weather - on the day that he developed his plans for the event the weather was excellent but the day of the event had heavy rain and the groundskeeper at Brooklyn's Key Span Park where the softball game was to be held felt that even if it stopped raining the field wouldn't be ready in time for the game. Randal was forced to improvise a "Plan B" in a matter of hours.

The events went off with some difficulty. Randal decided to crowd the various celebrities and VIP guests into the dressing room for the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team and proceed with a planned auction sale there with proceeds going to Autism Speaks, with bins for personal donations also provided. In his opening remarks Randal gave a spirited explanation of the need to donate to the charity, however during the course of the event the celebrities - who were invited to participate in the softball game - were spread throughout the room rather than placed in a position where they'd be visible to the crowd. Worse, by the time that Donald Trump arrived for the event it had stopped raining and he wondered aloud whether the game could have been held as planned. (In Randal's defense, in such matters one should usually defer to the opinion of the experts, in this case the stadium groundskeeper.) Still Randal managed to raise $11,000 for Autism Speaks.

As for Rebecca, she seemed to have totally caved in to Yahoo!'s demands. The whole place was resplendent in purple and white (the Yahoo! colours) including the drinks - Yahootinis and drinks with purple blinking ice cubes. The only visible mention of the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation was one rather small banner placed above the bar, and while Glaser's son did speak to the crowd at the start of the comedy performances, and the MC did from time to time mention the group, there was no way to directly contribute. Gift bags were given to the attendees at the end of the event which included a brochure and a donation form but no money was raised directly from the event. At the live "board room" in the second hour of the show, an executive from Yahoo! tried to make up for this by donating $50,000 each to Autism Speaks and the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation - the executive who told Rebecca that they didn't want direct fundraising at "their" event was seated beside him looking somewhat shame faced.

The final boardroom, broadcast live found Trump faced with the choice between two of the best candidates he's ever had. Randal's education (five degrees from Rutgers, MIT, and Oxford - where he was a Rhodes Scholar), business acumen and leadership skills were up against the younger Rebecca, a financial journalist who had attended the University of Chicago and as a teen had founded her own charity which raised over $750,000 and had involved both Bill Clinton and Colin Powell. For this she had been named in 2000 as one of Teen People's "20 Teens Who Will Change the World". Still things came down to performance both in the final task and long term. Randal questioned Rebecca's youth and lack of practical experience in the world of business while touting his own success as an entrepreneur and his greater success as a team leader during the interview process. Neither George or Caroline was particularly kind to either candidate's plan. Caroline in particular was unimpressed with Randal not having a well considered Plan B in the event of rain or checking with the weather service regularly to be sure that the softball game could go ahead, while George wondered why Randal didn't make sure that the celebrities in attendance weren't more prominently on display. The George's point has somewhat less merit than Caroline's although there was probably a better way to make use of the celebrities in the auction situation. The big criticism went to Rebecca for losing sight of the fact that her client wasn't Yahoo! but the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation.(It should be noted here that the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation is a particular favourite charity of Mark Burnett's production company - proceeds from the auction of Survivor props from each season goes to the Foundation as do proceeds from auctions of Apprentice memorabilia.) In the end it came down to Donald Trump's own decision. He chose Randal.

And then he asked the question excited the aftershock. I don't think that anyone either present at Lincoln Center or in the TV audience would disagree that Randal was deserving of being selected as Trump's Apprentice, even though there was a general sense that if Rebecca were selected it wouldn't be a bad choice either. Certainly the final two this season were far superior to either of the Season Three candidates Tana or Kendra, and perhaps the best final two of any season of the show. So maybe it shouldn't have come as a big surprise when Donald Trump asked Randal if Rebecca should also be hired. And then Randal surrendered all the considerable good will he had won. With Felisha and Alla both shaking their heads so hard that you could probably hear them rattling, Randal said ''No, Mr. Trump. It's not called The Apprenti. There should only be one.'' There were boos from the audience at Lincoln Center but even greater were the comments at various online locations. Before TVSquad shut down their comments for maintenance, they received 116 comments most of which could be summed up with the statement "Randal is a jerk." At The Donald's Trump University blog there were 276 comments the last time I checked, the essence of which, in virtually every case was "Randal is a jerk and you should hire Rebecca anyway Mr. Trump."

As for me, I'm not sure. If Trump had wanted to hire both he could have. If he felt that it was for the best for his organization he should have, and probably still should. More to the point he shouldn't have asked a newly hired employee whether he should hire her unless it was a case of having her work for him as an assistant or as part of his team. At the same time however, Randal is probably obliged to tell his employer whether he thinks the company would be better off if he were to hire Rebecca. And there hangs the real seed of any controversy. The reasons expressed by Randal are personal rather than business related, related to his interests and the name of the show, The Apprentice. He won; he is The Apprentice but in saying that he is going against the final line of the show's intro - "It's not personal, it's only business." By not offering a sound business reason for not hiring Rebecca, he has put the personal ahead of the business, and if that doesn't make him the things that people have been calling him, perhaps it does make him less sound as a businessman, which after all is what Trump is hiring.

The Apprentice: Xerox

I have a confession to make - well two really but this is the big one. I once had an erotic dream about Martha Stewart. Yes, I know but it was a really good erotic dream. She was very - how shall I put it - assertive. I sometimes like women who are assertive in that situation. This was a few years ago, but as I think of it today I have the sneaking suspicion that in real life she would be assertive in that situation as in most others. As though having gotten something between her nethers that didn't run on batteries (to steal a line from Serenity - I have a partial review of it written but it's still only partial) she's want the event to be perfect and she'd tell you exactly how to make the experience incredibly satisfying for both of you ... but especially her.

Unfortunately this hasn't happened with The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Here's my second confession: I like The Apprentice: Martha Stewart better than I do The E-Ring the show with which it was swapped on Wednesday nights and at least as well - if not better _ as the version with Trump. The characters on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart are far more believable and I would rather that The E-Ring be crushed (deservedly) by the juggernaut that is Lost than Martha. That said, what is happening to The Apprentice: Martha Stewart was entirely predictable. In fact I predicted it back at the beginning of September after the latest attempts by the networks to launch their own "faux Trumps" on an unsuspecting world had provided a disastrous series of shows which were only watched because it was summer. The only one which was anywhere near to being successful was Hell's Kitchen on Fox and that only got ratings because it turned the format on its head by emphasizing Gordon Ramsay not as some aloof figure like Donald Trump but as someone who was down in the pit with his contestants. The trouble with The Apprentice: Martha Stewart is that after two years of watching people create show about making schmattas (The Cut), trying to become part of high society (Who Wants To Be A Hilton), or becoming American next great lawyer (The Law Firm), not to mention CBS's attempt last year to find the "next domestic diva" (this being after Martha herself was hustled off to Club Fed for insider trading), Mark Burnett and NBC believed with the fervour of a true believer that it wasn't just Donald Trump that made The Apprentice work. Well he was right and he was wrong.

There isn't a lot of difference between Martha's Apprentice and The Donald's. Each show has 16 participants in a "job interview" arranged in two teams of eight, although Martha allowed her candidates to self select their teams, with disastrous results. Martha's team split between Business people and Creative people with the probably predictable result that the business oriented team kicked creative but. Trump split his team into an all male team and an all female team after last year's Book Smarts versus Street Smarts fiasco. On The Apprentice: Martha Stewart tasks have tended to be a little more craft and cooking related - in one episode the teams made wedding cakes - but in the end everything has had a business element - the deciding factor in the cake challenge was not how well the cakes looked but how much money they brought in. To succeed in that sort of task, and indeed in just about any of the tasks that have been assigned so far in Martha Stewart's show there is a singular need to understand the market you are appealing to, something which the business oriented people have understood throughout and which the creative people have never completely grasped. And of course there has been backbiting and manipulation by players on all of the teams.

Continuing with the similarities between the two shows, while Trump meets his teams in the corporate board room Stewart deals with hers in a conference room because at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia "there are no boardrooms". A rose by any other name would still produce rosehips. Like Trump Martha has an older male and a younger female underling to serve as her eyes and ears because she of course is too busy dealing with important matters. Charles Koppelman, who is in fact Chairman of the Board of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, stands in for Donald Trump's long time associate George Ross who is Trump's top legal advisor. Taking the place of the lovely Carolyn Kepcher in Martha's organization is the lovely Alexis Stewart, Martha's daughter.

As you can see the two shows stick very close to each other in terms of content and style. There is no gross variance which sets one apart the other and indeed very few minor differences. So why does Donald's Apprentice work better than Martha's. Well beyond the fact that I'm not sure that one really does work better than the other, I think there are a couple of factors: personality and time slot. In terms of time slot, the first two episodes were up against a preview of Lost the first week and the first hour of a two hour premier of Lost the second week, after which the network panicked and in an effort to save The E-Ring swapped the two shows so that The Apprentice: Martha Stewart was up against Lost permanently. I am not convinced that, had the show remained in the original time slot it wouldn't have improved its ratings against the relatively weak comedies on ABC CBS and (eventually) Fox it's ratings would not have improved. There's another factor worth considering though and that is the question of exposure. For all that Donald Trump is a rabid publicity junkie of the "I don't care what you say as long as you spell my name right" variety he is an amateur when compared with Martha Stewart. She has to be seen - without her there is no Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia - but because of this it is possible to argue that she's more overexposed than Trump. While I won't say that people were happy when she went to jail - although there were many who were - I think the group of people who felt a sense of schadenfreude when she went away. As a result I think it is entirely plausible to question whether, if the world really needed an exact duplicate version of The Apprentice (and remember the fate of virtually all of the Apprentice imitators in the past couple of years), Martha Stewart was the right person to front it. Of course it might just be that the show's creator, Mark Burnett, and NBC simply tried to go to the well one too many times with the Apprentice concept without looking at why it works and how it could be changed. Because change was needed if only to keep the two show's distinct and in keeping with the personalities of their "stars".

Survivor - Manhattan

I totally missed the first season of The Apprentice. Quite frankly the show didn't appeal to me any more than most reality shows have appealed to me. When you add in supreme egotist Donald Trump the show was definitely not on my list of shows that I had to see. A couple of things changed last Fall which allowed me to see most episodes of the second season of The Apprentice and I have to admit that I was intrigued.

The Apprentice has an excellent pedigree. It comes from producer Mark Burnett who created Survivor and before that the Eco-Challenge races. More recently Burnett has had some failures. The Restaurant which ran on NBC was a qualified success in it's first season but the second season was much less popular. His non-competitve "reality" show The Casino which ran last summer on Fox was at best dreadful. His attempt at a sitcom, Commando Nanny (based on his own experience as an former officer in the British Parachute Regiment who took a job as a nanny after leaving the service) was so terrible and trouble-plagued that while the WB Network actually bought it and put it on their schedule, it was cancelled without airing. Burnett is on much sounder footing when he sticks to what he knows which is people in competition in unfamiliar surroundings, like racing through the jungles of Borneo, trying to live on a deserted island in the South Pacific with a group of people that they have nothing in common with, or trying to succeed in business by really trying.

It seems apparent to me, and probably to just about anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute, that The Apprentice really is Survivor retooled for a different network. In Survivor disparate individuals are put together into teams, or "tribes", to live and work together and accomplish goals. In The Apprentice disparate individuals are put together in teams, in "corporations", tow live and work together to accomplish goals. In Survivor success brings reward and immunity from elimination, while failure means that one of the losing group will be taken out of the game. In The Apprenticesuccess brings reward and immunity from elimination (both for the group and potentially for the leader of the winning group if they lose the next challenge), while failure means that a member of the losing group will leave the game. In both Survivor and The Apprentice, while the tribes and corporations attempt to put display a united front of people who are working together, the truth revealed in individual interviews is frequently backbiting, disloyalty and open dislike and disdain for other competitors on their own team. In Survivor losing teams go to "Tribal Council"; in The Apprentice they face "The Board Room". The big difference between the two shows is that while eliminations in Survivor are decided by votes of the other members of the losing team and give vent to interpersonal rivalries and competing alliances, eliminations in The Apprentice are made based on the opinion of one man: Donald Trump. It is a change that makes the show both stronger and weaker than the original.

In The Apprentice the tasks that the teams have to accomplish are business oriented. Decisions on the team that wins and who loses are made by experts in those aspects of business. Where Trump comes into the mix is in deciding which member of the losing team will be eliminated. There is some input from team leaders - they choose who will go into the final board meeting with them - but it is Trump who makes the final choice with advice from his associates George and Carolyn, and by viewing videos of the teams during their tasks. Given that Trump is (supposedly) looking for someone to lead one of his companies, it isn't surprising that for him leadership ability is a major consideration. During all of the second series of The Apprentice and the first four episodes of the third Apprentice - a total of 17 competitions - "Project Managers" for failed teams have been eliminated 13 times, with one competition having two players eliminated and one player quitting during an episode. In short you have to screw up pretty badly to be eliminated when you aren't project manager. Almost inevitably this leads to the most qualified people being in the running to win the game. At the same time it undercuts the importance of interpersonal relationships within the teams. It doesn't matter who you like personally unless you are prepared to actively sabotage someone's efforts during a competition. The makes the backbiting and alliance building that is the hallmark of Survivor and vital in the way that show works, seem unimportant and petty in the world of The Apprentice.