The Celebrity Apprentice tanks an auction

I mentioned last week, when this task was introduced, that I was excited to see another Apprentice auction. I hastily take that back. This was no last year’s auction, under a big tent, with desirable goods, entertainment and liquor. This year’s auction was some crappy auctioneering of some ugly pieces of jewelry from the Ivanka Trump Collection; it depresses me to think that she’s called “one of today’s most influential social and style icons.” What a world.

Last year we had Richard Branson and Simon Cowell. This year, we had a bunch of people who, not only did I not recognize, but who weren’t even introduced to us. Annie Duke may be able to bring in big poker money, but who in the world were her donors? And what about Brande Roderick‘s big money man? Yes, he talked a big game by “promising” anywhere up to a billion dollars … how stupid was team Athena to continue to discuss it as if he were being literal? He meant that he would help in a big way, as he did. Talking as if you had a mint in the bag? Editing may have played up the angle, but they didn’t give Annie and Brande a script. That was just dumb.

Piers Morgan was in town to help advise Trump on this week’s task. Out of the gate he compared Clint Black and Herschel Walker to a bunch of Stephen Baldwins (zing!), while his visit to team Athena drove Melissa Rivers to the phones. Whoops! Were they supposed to be fundraising for the task?

Speaking of fundraising: Natalie Gulbis came up empty on her call list last week, and decided to try a new tact: see if any of Annie’s (opposing project manager) poker foes would be interested in bidding against her. Apparently, she got the wrong intel on Phil Hellmuth, because he called Annie to give her a heads up, and boy did she explode on him. It was a great scheme that ultimately failed for KOTU, but I didn’t understand why Natalie lied to Phil. Instead of explaining the situation, it seems she claimed to be playing Annie in a game of poker. I was a little confused by what hiding the truth was meant to gain, but whatever.

To the auctions! Annie took the helm for Athena, acting as auctioneer. I know that the crowd responded to her, but I think she was both disgusting and extremely inappropriate. By calling out bidders, she made it more of an embarrassment issue than anything else, something I can’t believe she did to her own friends. And that thing with her getting down on bended knee and the microphone … the crowd’s laughter just goes to illustrate how degenerative a society we live in.

KOTU was a disaster for a completely different reason: Clint sucked as an auctioneer. Why in the world was he not prepared with alternate ideas when the opening bid on their first item went unanswered? And, while Joan was right to save things, she did it completely unprofessionally. While I still don’t see her as a capable speaker, between the four people left on KOTU, she was the best qualified to play the room, because Trump kisses up to her, and everyone kisses up to him, ensuring maximum enjoyment. Essentially emasculating Clint was unnecessary.

Boardroom number one had some interesting moments. Trump questioned Jesse James as to why he didn’t call on his wife (Sandra Bullock) for dollars. We know from last week that Jesse’s saving his big guns, but that’s not something he could say to Trump. His silence was a bit unpleasant. Ivanka’s lashing out at KOTU over her own pride was equally disagreeable: the task wasn’t to make her look good or bad. She simply donated some jewelry (so why was it effectively on consignment?). Criticizing the team on their not having bidders for her own vanity was gross. Piers was more on track with this assessment of the quiet auction: “I could feel the will to live seeping out of me.”

I like Piers, and I know that arrogance and ego won him the competition last year, but he seems to have forgotten what it was like to sit on the other side of the table. His constant reminder of how and why he won was just a bit too much, because it didn’t speak to the specific strengths and weaknesses of this years “celebrities.” But he can take a joke: Jesse gently reminded Piers that we’re in America when Piers accidentally said “pounds” instead of “dollars” when reading Athena’s winning fundraising total. It was cute.

There were a lot of failures on KOTU, but the main one was a failure to lead. Natalie’s poor choice of jewelry (in terms of visibility from a runway; it was all ugly) was the result of Joan’s failure to instruct her. Clint’s disaster as auctioneer was a foreseeable problem that should have been avoided by not choosing him for the job. And the loss was a result of low fundraising. If Joan Rivers is who she says she is, dollars should not have been a problem. Did she fail, or is she really not famous? Instead, Natalie got the boot, and we were on to round two.

Task two was a marketing campaign for a new frozen food line that the team needed to come up with for Schwan’s. The task was assigned in Trump’s dining room: my God that man lives in an absolutely hideous apartment! Please stop showing it off! This week pitted Herschel against Jesse, the latter’s first time as project manager. Here’s where the episode lost me: I’ve been enjoying the extra task time we get in two hours. Last week changed the arrangement a bit by giving us one full task and one partial. This week saw the same, but the partial was the second half, event and boardroom, resulting in a lot more Trump and a lot less fun. Even so? The last hour really dragged. I just didn’t care if Athena went with the chili or the turkey meatballs (I can’t believe Jesse gave in to peer pressure!), or if KOTU used regular or frozen yogurt in their dessert. I don’t recall each and every week of last season, but I think this may have been the poorest task yet.

In the end, both teams were missing an ingredient (no pun) in their creation. KOTU lacked solid originality, Athena a marketing campaign. Yet Athena won … with no marketing campaign. On a marketing task. I didn’t really get that so much. Either way, I was glad to see the task end. And to see Herschel getting on the down elevator. He’s a good guy, and he raises a lot of money, but ultimately, he’s just not the face that Trump wants to put on his show. He’s so averse to anything that rocks the boat, seeing discussion as argument and debate as dissent. I think he brings a lot to the table, but everyone will be a bit better off without him. He reigns in his teammates too soon, oftentimes cutting off creativity before it can foment. See ya.

Finally, the elephant in the room. There was a very dominant undercurrent on this episode, infighting that mainly revolved around the mother/ daughter duo. For those of you who enjoy it, feel free to discuss it below. But, me? I just don’t want to waste my time.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 20, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT