The Donald is back, and this time he’s once again turning regular, everyday people into rabid, sycophantic dogs. That’s right … it’s time for another edition of “regular folk” Apprentice.
The reason for the return to the original premise — after three seasons of the highly entertaining Celebrity Apprentice — is the recession. Two years into the economic downturn, Donald Trump is establishing himself as a savior by offering a single six-figure job to one person already better positioned career-wise than 99.99% of the rest of us. Ignoring the fact that the only difference between the Trump apprenticeship and a guy dressed like a cup of coffee working for Dunkin’ Donuts is the costume, the series always promises to be lots of fun.
That is, once we got past the opening boardroom of awkwardness. I’m not sure how necessary it was for the sixteen contestants to sit around the table and tell all of us of their personal woes (especially not, for different reasons, the recent graduates who are simply entering a bad job market). And what’s with the people who are now selling cupcakes and the like? Are those big job markets that people can fall back on when times are rough? Do cupcake carts abound in major cities? Because if so, I must have missed them.
I do always enjoy the men versus women team construct — same-sex teams are generally bigger disasters than any other mix — but I wonder how it is that Trump gets away with it. In a corporate setting under any other circumstance, that would be a major discrimination lawsuit. His boardroom really does exist in its own universe.
As always one of the guys mentioned that the men’s team was stacked with “Alpha Males” … none of who were willing to volunteer to be the first project manager. Team Octane (men) and Team Fortitude (women) are terrible names, but that’s nothing new for this show.
And designing a workspace was a terrible first task. But (and you’ll have to excuse the callousness implied with this comment) it was really funny to hear all of the contestants comment on how excited they were to be working again. First of all, they’re not “working.” They may be putting in hard work, both manual and otherwise, but they’re not “working.” Second, don’t you think they were laying it on a bit thick for the cameras?
David seemed like a real nut, right? It’s going to be tough for me to walk on eggshells for these people, some of whom are probably legitimately hurting, so I’m not going to attempt it at all. But even if I did, his life situation has no bearing on the way he treats his fellow human being on the show. Keep your eye on the prize, but don’t write everyone else off just because they stand between you and what you want.
I found it hard to imagine that Gene had been in the military. I would think that even non-officers learn some leadership skills … Gene possessed none. Not that Nicole did either. I think I’d forgotten how different the regular contestants were from the “celebrities.” As much as I make fun of the “celebrities'” supposed fame, they definitely have a lot of experience managing — they themselves are businesses, and to capitalize on that they need to run that business well. One could argue that ending up on the show meant they hadn’t done so successfully, but still.
Plus the “celebrities” weren’t in the game for themselves, so they were generally a lot less … well … disgusting. They fought plenty, but these contestants were just plain nasty to one another.
The other difference from the “celebrity” editions is that Trump is once again the biggest name on the screen. And he milked it. He had royal music playing when he arrived at the first workspace; the top CEO Gene got to meet with was him; that look of awe and respect was back in the eyes of the contestants. The regular folk might be more annoying, but Trump is somewhat more entertaining in the “celebrity”-less seasons.
I didn’t really understand what everyone was saying about how vicious it was for the women to have attacked Nicole before they learned that they’d lost the task. If anything I’d be less impressed with their complaints if it came after the loss, because then it would seem disingenuous. Obviously they all had getting fired on their minds, but without knowing that they’d lost the women looked only to be ridding themselves of a weak player. I thought that was the right way to go about it.
I’m sure Nicole would disagree, but what can you do. Regardless, season ten of The Apprentice is shaping up to be a good one!
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Sep 17, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
I’ll admit it, I teared up a bit at some of the stories of personal loss. I think I get the heightened frustration of some of the players. (Not excusing poor behaviour, but with an apology, the initial craziness, I would let slide.)
I did not like the girls captain from moment she opened her mouth.
I think this Apprentice format is timely, this is still the United States of America after all. With hard work, and help from the Almighty, it’s all going to be o.k.
*POST AUTHOR*
I’d tend to agree with your last statement, except that this is a reality TV series, not a real job application process. And forgetting about the fact that it’s never been a “real” job on the other side of this competition, the contestants probably get paid SAG wages for being on the show. So what about hard work and the American way are they really proving?
Timely given the current unemployment numbers. Who knows Aryeh, perhaps companies will want to pick up some of these people based on their Apprentice efforts.
Hope Springs Eternal, no?
*POST AUTHOR*
You are a sunny optimist, I’ll give you that….