TV: Taking on The Apprentice

Two little commented items on NBC's Thursday night line up came up this week. Rumor has it that NBC may let Will & Grace go due to contract expirations (not due to ratings). And more importantly, no one's noticed that for the first time since Cosby provided NBC's Thursday night line up with a strong lead in, they've slipped as low as number forty with Joey in the latest ratings.

You read that right. It took Matt LeBlanc's disaster of a sitcom to destroy nearly two decades of success. This was the house that Bill [Cosby] built. Now, thanks to Matt LeBlanc, it's back to being the trash dump that Fred Silverman once managed. And yet NBC continues to stand by their dog. What would it take to get the show cancelled? At this point, possibly a crossover visit from Donald Trump to repeat the increasingly boring catch-phrase: You're fired.

Which brings us to this week's TV review.

A number of readers have written in asking if we could please review a reality show.

Forget that there's no reality in these shows, with the possible exception of the ABC disaster I'm A Celeberity Get Me Out of Here which may pay a legal price for taking Julie Brown out of "downtown" and putting her on an island. Forget that they're about as entertaining as the fight going on at the laundry mat and, wisely, at a laundry mat, you'd keep your head down and concentrate on folding those towels to avoid the embarrassing public revealing of secrets better kept from public eyes.

But hey, we aim to please. So we looked at the TV schedule and decided that The Apprentice is the one show we could watch. After all, any show that presents the Donald as a benefactor is only fooling the willfully stupid who apparently slept through the eighties and never saw an interview with former wife Ivanna.

There are two teams competing to win the praise of the Donald -- that and cheapo prizes. (Oh wow! Our picture taken with the Donald! That's so great! I mean it's not as though we might already have a DVD boxed set to remember him by!) The two teams are apparently dopey and ditzy.

This week's assignment? Apparently to beef up the ratings via intraparty quarreling. How else to explain that supposed business smart candidates turn in two shit-poor "billboards" to promote a new video game release?

Both teams are supposed to promote the upcoming video game to the "urban" crowd. Not a bad thing necessarily since considering the extras on the street and the "urbans" making up the focus group judging the billboards ended up setting a new record for the most African-Americans on an NBC in one week. Make no mistake, this results only from the fact that all three major broadcast networks continue to cast white. (Apparently the "urban" audience may be chased by gamers but not by broadcast networks.)

Dopey's artist in residence (at least they had one) was smart enough to realize that he knew very little of the urban scene and actually bothered to do what we'll generously and inflatedly call 'market research' by asking a few neighborhood bystanders what they thought of the design thus far and what would appeal to them.

Remember these teams are supposed to be made of business savy individuals. So when only one person thinks to do a "survey," we fear for the future of American business. (Maybe we can outsource concepts and marketing next?)

Over on Team Ditzy, an African-American woman apparently thinks a) I'm the whole team, b) because I'm an African-American I naturally know everything urban and how to appeal to urban game players even though I've never played any version of the video game and c) I'm the only African-American, nee the only person period, on the whole team.

At one point, Ditzy team leader makes the comment that of course "I'll win" because otherwise how will she hold her head up high since she's got the whole street thing down pat?

Her bravado, like the show's concept, was inflated beyond reality.

Team Dopey turns in a half-assed "billboard" that attempts, half-way in, to include some details derived from "research." So the blend ends up being like a meat loaf that someone forgot to add the meat to. In other words, just "loaf."

Well certainly the bad-mama-jamma-led Team Ditsy will get a walk to first base, right?

Oh no, no, no. While Team Leader Ditsy excells in throwing snit fits and claiming all credit for the team effort ("What I was trying to do hear . . .", "I wanted to . . ."), she completely forgets that she was supposed to be marketing a product. That's right, she forgot that the "billboard" wasn't an art project, it was an advertisement.

Man walks into a diner and orders meat loaf. First waitress serves him "loaf." Second waitress serves him an empty plate. Not really thrilled with either, he tips the first waitress and stiffs the second. That's the basic plot summary of this episode.

And now comes the part that America seems to love the most (or the ones that watch this show), somebody's going down, down, down, down.

Who's responsible for this disaster? (How about the people who chose the contestants or even NBC which, with the exception of Medium, hasn't created a new series worth watching in at least three years?) Though the show was on last year, apparently the contestants missed it -- as well as the basic business model in corporate America: when shit hits the fan, keep your head low. This is a grown up model of the popular classroom technique practiced by students everywhere, "If I stare at my desk, the teacher won't see me and, therefore, won't call on me!"

Three ditzes end up back in the boardroom with der Donald. Supreme Ditzy who's been team leader, Mini-Meltdown (who's missing her husband and never seems to realize this isn't sleep away camp) and Carl (who never should have been in there to begin with if he'd remembered to keep his mouth shut and his head down).

Things quickly get uglier than Donald's new female assistant.

Carl's interjected that Ditsy is not a leader. An obvious point, but bad strategy since Mini-Meltdown had already fingered Carl as the problem ("he's just so bossy!" she all but whimpered) and up until he opened his mouth, he had Supreme Ditzy on his side. Carl, corporate America doesn't want insight, just easy answers!

(Here's some insight, the entire team should have been fired since they didn't even grasp the assignment.)

Mini-Meltdown turns her boardroom appearence into a referendum on her marriage apparently confusing herself with the Dynasty character Alexis Carrington Colby. (If only she had Joan Collins's flair for the dramatics.) Supreme Ditzy's got her back up against Carl -- and completely misses her own opportunity to cut Mini-Meltdown off at the knees -- apparently because Carl violated the cardinal rule of reality television wherein all racial groups stick together. Has he never seen MTV's Real World? So with Carl and Supreme Ditzy taking each other on, Mini-Meltdown was allowed to skate onto the next round.

Make no mistake, the Donald should have fired everyone on Team Ditzy's asses. And you get the idea that even he knew that. (You also get the idea that der Donald can't believe the lack of quality in the contestants -- on both teams.) But someone had to go down and the choice was Team leader Supreme Ditzy.

This happens only after Carl's pulled both chairs out for the two ladies which struck Donald as the height of boardroom class. (Remember, he came to fame in the junk bond era.) Supreme Ditzy is truly shocked. Even though she was team leader, in her 'taxi cab confessions' (our favorite part of the show) she offers that she's got the goods and she'll go on to greater things.

We're sure she will. In fact, Omarosa, apparently not having had enough fun being flogged in the town square yet, will be on Monday's Fear Factor.

Donald's The Art of the Deal has petered out into The Fart of the Steal. Gasbag Donald (wearing a wig even Della Reese would look at in askance) steals your time with the assumption that you may actually learn something about business. That's what the people on campus that watch the show regularly offer as their reasoning. "It's important to study business," one dewey-eyed business major told us. Yes, and switching from plain Milky Way to Milky Way Dark will help you along the road of fine cuisine as well, no doubt.

Let's be honest, that's a self-justifying reason to cheer on someone else's humiliating public fuck-up. That's all this is about. And probably why so many losers show up on these shows. Gotta make the rubes watching at home feel like they're smarter. Why lift an audience up when you can flatter them with debasement?

To it's credit, no one's yet to offer that they're "learning about relationships" from the show, the way they do when asked why they watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. Most people will never enter the corporate boardroom and thank God for that. But we all have relationships (even if they're only one sided). So The Apprentice's skewed world view does far less damage than some of the shows pretending to educate about the human heart. That's about all we can say for it. Watch at your own risk. Donald, you're tired.