Apprentice Thread 10/28/04

NBC ^ | Self

[ClintonBeGone]

Apprentice Ping for tonight. Apparently there is suppose to be some good fireworks in the board room

[Alcibiades]

Missed all but the last 3 or 4 minutes of the show this week. Unbelievable that Andy went so fast. Definitely agree on the kelly fixation. I can't believe he was dumb enough to try and work with Jen to ditch Sandy. Jen has betrayed everyone who has trusted her in the boardroom. I can't believe how weak the final few are this time around. Last year at this point it was anyone's game. Troy, Kwame, Bill, Amy, and Nick all looked like potential winners.
Kevin is too concerned with blaming everyone else and not owning up to his mistakes (Raj's contractor).
Ivana either runs hot or cold. Plus after the skirt dropping to sell candy bars there's no way she can win. Would you really want to employ someone like that. She'll get fired just for being crude. Some girl (Tammy I think) last season got fired for acting in a similar fashion. She met Steinbrenner and asked him about the "Blingage".
Jen for some reason has drawn the ire of the Donald. He keeps insinuating that she is slipping by and flying under the radar somehow. Excuse me but isn't that called the "Bill Rancic" stratagem. Would anyone really take Kevin or Ivana over Jen?
Admittedly, I didn't see the globe bottles but Sandy has performed well recently. With Andy out of it I would say its Kelly's job to lose. With the exception of it not being Ivana I have no clue who he will be up against in the finals out of Kevin, Jen, and Sandy.
Kelly has the perfect blend of creativity and underhandedness. Sheer luck has a great deal to do with his success as well. From what I saw he barely participated in the Levi's jean episode. But he got at least some credit for changing the Apex's fortunes. As PM has he lost yet? When he's PM he delegates well but still maintains command.

[Captain Beyond]

It is definitely Kelly’s job to lose. This season however I’m not as impressed as I was last season with the players. It could be the editing because they are showing more board room footage and one does not get a chance to see all the interaction between the contestants and their thought processes that were shown in season one. I still think it would be better to have a 1&1\2 hour show or divide it into two parts and have a 30 minute boardroom on the next night. This way one gets to see more of the task preparation and execution to judge their performance on.

Yeah Bill slid under the radar until it got down to the final five. The first time he lead it was the charity auction in which the win would be in the hands of the bidders and not depend on what the teams actually did. It would have been nice to see how Bowie would have lead. I read somewhere or saw it in an interview that it was Bowie’s idea for the incentive program and Bill was just the presenter in the Planet Hollywood episode. So I don’t see what DT is getting worked up about. I would have more respect for Jen had she given Ivana credit during the Levi episode. What would be a good battle would be for Ivana to go head to head with Jen. It is quite obvious that Ivana is super jealous of Jen’s looks and body. It is a lot like Andy was with beating Kelly. I could not believe it when Ivana made the “She gets blonder and blonder” commit in front of Carolyn. It was such irony by showing she doesn’t think before she speaks it makes Ivana more “blond” than Jen using Ivana’s own definition of stupid. IMO Ivana should have been gone in the second show.

Whoever wins this thing is really going to have to step it up and distance themselves from the others. Other than Kelly they are pretty much all equal IMO from what has been shown. And Kelly is really not that overwhelming.

[Alcibiades]

Longer shows would definitely be better. The part I like about Fox's Rebel Billionaire show is how Branson seems to be a lot more explanatory about his own actions. You definitely see a lot more of what he thinks about the contestants or what qualities he's looking for. Donald doesn't seem to explain his actions, what he's looking for, or why he fired who he did. At least not if very much detail. Branson's show is a lot less professional(the outrageous contests and physical challenges) in a lot of ways but getting to hear his reasoning and thought processes make it worth while. Excluding their youth Fox's contestants seem to be a lot more talented as well.

Does anyone know if the Apprentice DVD version has much extra footage of the contestants or the boardrooms?

[Captain Beyond]

Sometimes Branson gives good explanations and then sometimes it seems to be a totally arbitrary decision in his firings. The show has it's good points and bad points for me. Sometimes it seems a little cheesy then they go and do something cool like the airplane stunts or the air balloon challenge and I end up going "Yeah now that took balls, great show".

As for extra footage on the DVD according to Amazon it does. See Below.

Product Details Starring: Donald Trump, See more Encoding: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. This DVD will probably NOT be viewable in other countries. Read more about DVD formats.) Format: Color Aspect Ratio(s): 1.33:1 Audio Encoding: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Rated: NR Studio: Umvd DVD Release Date: August 24, 2004 Run Time: 718

DVD Features: Available subtitles: Spanish, French Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)

The complete 2004 season with unseen footage from the ending title taxi rides

Deleted scenes

"Donald-isms"

Audition tapes

New interviews with Donald Trump and the contestants

Career advice from Trump's advisors George and Carolyn

Creator Mark Burnett on The Apprentice

Exclusive sneak peak of season 2 Number of discs: 5 From IMDb: Quotes & Trivia ASIN: B0002CX1WA Average Customer Review: Based on 17 reviews. Write a review. Amazon.com Sales Rank in DVD: #914

[Bullish]

LOL!

[Veto!]

In his immaturity he wanted be credited with coming up with the whole concept with Jen and Sandy along for the ride in a Slick Willie way of remembering things. It never occurred to him he was taking credit for losing concept.

LOL. A clever and accurate observation. The Kid was in over his head on the project and with those women. He did much better when he worked with men on the NYPD ad. But who wouldn't falter after a pummeling by those two baracuda?

Did you watch the recap show last night? Boring, a few but not enough outtakes we hadn't seen before, and the Donald pronounced blessings and curses over the dead bodies. Andy got the kindest kiss-off, "He's going to be a big success."

[Alcibiades]

Donald and George seem to give a lot of credit to the "Harvard education". I think its what got Kwame into the finals last year and kept Andy in the game for so long. Other than the NYPD ad he didn't do much to help his teams.

[Captain Beyond]

I was hoping this season that The Donald, George, and Carolyn would be giving more insight as to what they thought about the contestants performance and what they would have done different to win the tasks. It seems Mark Burnett was going for more of shock factor this time around with the way he has presented the show.

After reading the bios when the show first started I liked Bradford and Elizabeth. I figured Elizabeth would win hands down. But after the Crest challenge she seemed to get rattled to easily which makes me wonder how much does being in front of TV cameras changes how a person is going to act and make decisions? Then after the NYPD thing I was wondering how the heck she got on the show. She totally lost it under pressure for someone of her achievements. The same thing for Raj he is a successful real estate investor yet he went out and did the opposite of what one would expect him to do and devalued the property by turning a 4 bedroom house into a three and he did not fire the contractor and get someone else when it quite obvious that this guy was not going to get the job done.

Andy has a lot of energy and a lot of ideas and came up with a great concept for the NYPD training task but he seemed to lack common sense in what it takes to motivate people as in throwing money at professionals that are there to help him and withholding food from the same professionals as if that is some kind of reward for getting the job done then there is the what is and what’s not a cool factor in marketing strategy ie: Crustacean Nation and the geography game. He has a lot to learn and needs to get rid of the “They Think I’m too Young” chip that he carrying on his shoulder.

I thought Wes would turn out to be some kind of quite underdog boy was I wrong.

With a few exceptions last night’s recap show was a pretty boring as opposed to last year where we got a lot more insight into the contestants. I hope tonight’s show we finally see Ivana and Jen mud wrestle for who stays and who goes.8-)

[ClintonBeGone]

Apprentice Ping. Tonight they're suppose to invent a chocolate candy and sell it. Apparently the girls use a little sex to sell their sugar, with Ivana going a bit too far. It's suppose to be the best board room of either this or last season. Tune in! NBC. 9pm Eastern.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Was shopping in Wal Mart the other day, went down an aisle and there it was. Trump Ice, the bottled water from one of their earlier tasks.

[Veto!]

He has a lot to learn and needs to get rid of the “They Think I’m too Young” chip that he carrying on his shoulder.

Further to your good thought, Andy probably thinks he's too young. And he's right. But with seasoning, he'll do fine in the world.

I thought Elizabeth would be good, too. Her bio is exceptional, but what in the world was with her attitude? I realized I was watching a very spoiled young woman who's never had enough obstacles to overcome to grow a thick skin. Probably the result of very liberal parents who never told her no.

And I miss quirky clever Raj. Somehow he reminded me of humorist P.J. O'Rourke. I don't think Raj can successfully walk the plank of big business, but he'll make a bundle as an entrepreneur.

I hope Ivana isn't fired tonight, as I've liked her energy from the first show. She's a kick to watch even though she has no chance of winning. Odds are, she'll go tonight, however. Or will Jen finallly be hoist on her own sneaky petard? Just a few hours to go, waiting breathlessly.

[Unknown Freeper]

Your girl Ivana is out of here. What was she thinking? What would stop her from doing that in some meeting? She has to be fired tonight. And she knows she should be.

[BlessedBeGod]

Kelly has the perfect blend of creativity and underhandedness...As PM has he lost yet? When he's PM he delegates well but still maintains command.

On tonight's show (you probably heard) he's 3-0 as a PM.

[BlessedBeGod]

Ack! That should have been: On tonight's show (you probably heard) he said he's 3-0 as a PM.

[Huntress]

I have to disagree with you about Ivana. She has distinguished herself only in her ability to out-whine every other contestant on the show (with the possible exception of Stacy R). Her obsession with Jen was getting really annoying. As soon as I saw Trump talking about the dangers of underestimating your opponent, I knew Ivana would be the fired tonight.

[1L]

Absolutely stupid project. They don't have any control over the manufacturing, and they are just selling crap on the strett. Would have been better to invent a trinket and sell that.

Ivana was terribly weak, but she should have said she did the same thing as the other two hussies, she just didn't make as much money.

[MomwithHope]

BuhBye Ivana, bet Trump liked saying those words, "Ivana you're fired".
He was definitely impressed the two blondes who were screaming at each other last week worked together and beat 3 people. Kelly weakened his image in a huge way when he said price wasn't important. Big mistake. Kevin made some points with his academic resume summation. Trump does like Wharton. They'll go through some tough interviewsand I think Kevin will do well in them. Sorry to see Andy go last week.:((

[LibWhacker]

I thought it was a good decision by Trump to let Ivana go. She was ticked off that the other team was dressed up like hookers. Her response to this stress and anger? Why, to do something I thought was completely irrational and demeaning, to both herself and the "company" she was representing. Not the kind of person you want running your company.

[Captain Beyond]

Wow!! What can I say but way to go Sandy and Jen! This has got too hurt for Kelly, Kevin, and Ivana to get beat not only by just two people but by double the amount you sold and they had more candy bars to boot. OUCH!!! And losing to Jen and Sandy at that has to be like salt in the wound for them after all the trash talking they did about them. When they do the “Where are they now show” I can picture Ivana wearing a blond wig with red lipstick smeared around her mouth drooling in a white room with a red crayon writing over and over on all the walls “I HATE JEN!!!”

I don’t want to sound like a broken record but Ivana screwed the pooch from the get go before Andy, Sandy, and Jen went into the boardroom. Ivana blew it by going to Andy and trying to get him to go after Jen. This only strengthens Jen’s resolve to be a team player and beat Ivana. She didn’t think about the bigger picture in the long run that Jen would come back from the boardroom. A very super stupe move on her part by making Jen an even bigger enemy at this juncture of the game. Then to add insult to injury she was too fixated on Jen causing her to underestimate the other team and make rash decisions. She made assumptions that Sandy and Jen would not be up to task because of some stupid notion that they are two dimwitted blondes. This is where stereotyping gets people in serious trouble. She is most obviously not a student of Sun Tzu and completely unprofessional.

Kevin and Ivana didn’t believe in themselves as sales people or the product for that matter when he and she came to an agreement that there was no way they could get five bucks for a candy bar. This was reinforced in the boardroom when Kevin said he didn’t see they could sell a product for more than 2 dollars that would only retail for 50cents to a dollar. Hello? Ask Jen and Sandy about that. Obviously Ivana and Kevin missed the “Trump Ice” episode with Troy and the “Art Gallery” episode with Nick. Troy and Nick won in those two tasks not only because they had a good strategy but mostly due to the fact that they believed in themselves and in the product that they were selling. Sandy and Jen believed in themselves as sales people and they believe in the product they were selling. That is why they could go out there and sell candy bars at $5.00 a pop. They had a game plan they were the M&M girls. Sandy showed leadership ability by seeing that with only two people on the team it was more important to produce as many quality candy bars on the first try as opposed to quantity of candy bars and hope for a bunch of good ones. She recognized the need for the Mars M&M promotional van to help get them around and make them more legit. They dressed nice but not slutty. They had the yellow, red, and blue M&M color scheme going for them. So to say they sold only sex appeal is a pretty lame excuse for Ivana.

Ivana had her ultimate blond moment with the dropping the skirt thing which was extra stupid. As I said before Ivana is for more blond than Jen will every be using Ivana's criteria for dumb. She forgot about one the first rules of selling and marketing which is to ask one’s self would my client, in this case Mars M&M, want their product to be promoted in this fashion. Duhh!! Not in million years. But the most pathetic thing for Ivana was in boardroom she was still whining about Jen. She should have got the Elizabeth treatment and been fired without a second boardroom.

As for Kelly he played it safe and let the others battle it out. I can’t wait to see how the Final Four do in their interviews. I did not mean to write an essay. I usually wait and watch the extended versions before I post but with Ivana and Kevin's actions this week I didn't see any point in it.

[MomwithHope]

Good analysis. I also thought it was a very smart move for them to use the van. The 3 losers didn't do much to attract attention to themselves, 3 baseball hats with M&M's on it, big deal. They could have dressed in red, green and yellow and stood out a little more, they also could have either thought to ask for a van or made sandwich boards out of some posters. I still think Trump will have some doubts about Kelly after his "price wasn't important" remark.
I think Kevin and Jen are sharp and unflustered enough to handle the interviews the best.