Last page of this week's Entertainment Weekly (Oscar race cover with Jennifer Connelly, Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts). "Stupid Questions" segment features The Donald. It's a fun interview (the reporter mostly makes jokes and Donald plays along well), seems like Donald is going to emit a light-hearted and laidback image for the show. He might even be funny.

edited for grammar

Slate has an article on the first episode. The only line I like is:

Someone said above that Trump is ugly, and dear God I heartily agree. I have all the respect in the world for the man regarding his success in business, but I saw him upclose at a charity event and he is hideous. He has the most awful comb-over I have ever seen, and his hair is so wispy and dry at the same time. His eyebrows could be braided, to boot! He was with some gorgeous woman many years his junior. I suppose having loads of money and possible access to professionals in the beauty industry does not preclude one from making terrible hair decisions!

Seems as though the ratings were strong: NBC won for the night and a lot of that is credited to the Apprentice (here). Came in second behind CSI over on CBS, but the ratings were deemed "solid" in this article.

Also, did anyone catch David on Today this morning? Seems there's no link on the NBC site, and silly me forgot to Tivo it.

never mind

Penarol - From the Slate article, I also like the line:

Interview with Mark Burnett from CNN

There is a minor spoiler about what the challenge is for the next episode so if you like to be surprised, you might want to skip it.

An eh article in the Philly Inquirer quoting some local execs about their take on the show.
Philadelphia Inquirer Article

That Philly article is great. It's nice to get some input from some corporate types. But my favorite part was this:


Heh.

In the second half of today's column for the Washington Post, Lisa DeMoraes discusses the show and predicts that Trump hires a woman, although that's speculation on her part and not a spoiler. There are a couple of bits that might be a teeny bit spoilerish, such as Trump's comments that the women were better than the men, and he wants to hire 5 next time (there's a next time already?), which implies that he wanted to hire 5 from this round. Is he prohibited from hiring more than one of the contestants? Or is it like American Idol, where there's one winner and multiple recording contracts? Do we know?

The Donald unloads on CBS head-honcho Les Moonves here. No, Donald, tell us what you really think! And MB was onstage with him at the time.

Ouch! But, as the article points out, TD can get by with dumping on a TV exec since he's not really in TV for a living. That and the fact he could buy and sell Moonves, CBS and all the other networks together, I guess.

According to the following Boston Herald article, the real winner in episode #2 of "The Apprentice" was Marquis Jet.

Read what their President had to say about the 2 ad campaigns created by the two competing groups for his firm. Also, learn how he was able to get millions of dollars of priceless promotion from The Donald by having the show built around his own company.

Read Article

This interesting 1/16 article in The Christian Science Monitor provides reaction from some members of the business community to what they've seen transpire on "The Apprentice"...

Read Article
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And this other article, appearing the Canada's National Post, has 3 different business experts comment on the show too:

Read Article

Interesting how the Canada Post story got the name of the first person fired completely wrong. Best article of the three was the CSM one.

ETA: The Celebrity Justice website has an article on the show. CLICK HERE Apparently if the contestants reveal anything about the show's outcome it will cost them $5,000,000.

Evidently USA Today is going to devote a full page each week to this show. In the business section ("Money") no less. In this week's critique, there's an article, a comment by Trump, and analyses from 12 experts. (You'll have to click on some of the boxes on the right of the link above to get to all this stuff.) My favorite comment was from one of the experts:

Article in today's Boston Globe about Marquis Jet, its CEO, and what he thought about the apprentices. For people who are wondering "why Boston?" it's probably because it's based here.

A real winner of "The Apprentice"

I found this in today's Wall Street Journal and scanned it in. Yes, it is a gold mine for Marquis Jet.

According to today's NY Times Link Marquis Jet is actually using one of the commercials filmed by the teams. Doesn't specify which one, while implying it's the womens. At $666 per airing ($100k/150 airings) it's probably being shown on late nite TV and is likely only another way for Marquis to stay in the news!

The Boston Globe article mentions that they are going to run the ad in Colorado, where many potential customers have winter home -- I imagine they will buy the local cable system's share of ad time on networks like CNBC and FNN and on financial shows on all-news networks. Those spots probably do sell pretty cheaply, but they reach a very desirable demographic for these ads.

From The Christian Science Monitor article above

Linda Howell DiMario, CEO of the Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau in Texas said:

Sam has "great characteristics"................ am I watching the same show she is?

Jason popped up on "Inside Edition", whining about how he really hadn't expected to go. They didn't really show much else.

From one of the aforementioned articles:



Hee!

Also, of the articles I read, two of them got the name of the first person fired wrong. Wasn't his name Dave? One called him Dan and the other Michael. Maybe one of them is another name he goes by, but it was a little weird that the writers wouldn't have referred to him by the name they used on the show. Or that they wouldn't do their research to get the name right. Whatever.

I just heard on the news this morning that Deutch has been approached to do a reality show of his own, after the big success in ratings on Thursday.

Please let it be sans nipples.

According to the following article "The Apprentice" is a "whopping" TV Ratings Winner: It had the highest TV ratings of any reality show since the finale of "American Idol" last May. More significantly, the 2nd episode BEAT C.S.I. (The #1 rated U.S. series) & (instead of the usual 20% decline from a series debut) actually had 2 milllion MORE viewers than its debut episode did. New York Post

"Return of the Short Fingered Vulgarian" (Trump) - an article chock full of delicious snark.

My favorite line =

Great article, Skycatcher! Thanks for pointing it out. My favorite line is:

When it comes to ego, it's hard to trump the Donald
That's what the first half of this article in the Star-Telegram is about. Read Article

The Washington Post TV Week has a possible spoiler about the next episode:
"an underdog assumes a leadership role and steers the group into the doghouse."
Of course, there could be more than one "underdog" between the two teams.

FIRE TWO! WHY DONALD DROPPED THE AX ON HIS 'APPRENTICE'
For the run of his hit NBC show, "The Apprentice," Donald Trump will be recapping in the Sunday Post the lessons he gives in his new school of hard knocks.
Read Article

People Magazine (Randy Jackson on cover holding "fat" pants) has "The Blast Tycoon" on DT. Re: the Hair the article says:
So, he knows, and he likes it that way - end of discussion, as far as he's concerned. And, who's gonna argue with the boss!

Skycatcher, thanks for sharing that article. It's just so snarkfilled!

My favorite citations from the Globe & Mail article:





BWAH!!

A Jan 7 Star-Ledger article, NBC plays the Trump card.

One interesting quote: Which can be said of many reality shows.

Another interesting quote from that article:

"..."The Apprentice" is wealth porn -- a weekly showcase of privilege that lingers over limousines, aircraft, champagne, caviar, fancy clothes and expensive shoes with the same loving care that soft-core sex movies lavish on naked bodies."

All I can say is, hee!

Pammi at tvrules.net conducted & posted the following interview with contestant JASON from "The Apprentice": Jason Interview

I swear, the more interviews I read or see with Jason the more I'm convinced that The Hair made the correct decision. What an asshat.

The following article says that with "The Apprentice" Trump has freshened the entire reality genre, making "You're fired!" the most recognizable catch phrase since "The tribe has spoken." He's a kind of Richard Hatch embodying the greedy, ambitious nature of the show in a way none of the actual contestants can touch.
Read Article

The following article claims that water coolers are abuzz that Sam & Omarosa have emerged as breakout stars of "The Apprentice"... & as its biggest trouble-makers. Source Link

In the 1st episode Jason Curis interrupted The Donald & Trump blasted Jason for interrupting him. in the 2nd Jason was blamed for his team’s loss in the advertising challenge. But why did Jason bring in Nick? And what was Sam supposed to do when he fell asleep? Jason answers these and many other questions in the following realitynewsonline.com interview by Betsy Wasser :
Read Jason Interview

Beth Gottfried's the-trades.com interview with "The Apprentice" Cast-Off Extraordinaire: David Gould David Gould Interview

Trump redefines "bigwig." The problem, of course, is his big wig. Is it a wig? A weave? Some extraterrestrial comb-over? Or, as Letterman said, "The Taj Ma-Helmet"? An interesting & entertaining article: Read Article

From the first article pointed out by KnowledgeSeeker:


Hee! And


Double hee!

And Sam has a girlfriend! That's kinda....sweet!

Jason quote from the interview: (RNO is the reporter)

RNO: In the boardroom in the first episode, Donald Trump criticized you for interrupting him. Do you think you made a mistake by doing so, or do you think that Trump overreacted?

Jason: I was the last one on the row in the boardroom. Donald asked everyone the same question that he asked me except HE interrupted me when I was giving my answer. I politely told him to let me finish my answer. I just think that everyone was intimidated by him and I treated him like any other person. The reason that I was quiet in the boardroom was because I helped save the guys’ team that day. Sam almost lost our whole amount of money that we made that day until I saved us in the end.



How in the heck could Sammy lose the whole amount of money? Did he overbuy lemonade concentrate? Did he stop by a three card monte dealer?

I like the last bit. "UNTILL I SAVED US IN THE END"

Thanks for the article links KnowledgeSeeker.

Another one you may want to give a once over is the site FAQ, particularly this information regarding double posting.

Influential business leaders who gathered in Detroit for the Women's Economic Club committee meetings don't normally don't talk about reality TV. But this time the debate focused on the sexually-oriented tactics employed by the women of "The Apprentice" & the implications this has for today's working women.

This is the subject of the following article, SEX, THE DEAL CLOSER: Real businesswomen debate the tactics on the reality series 'The Apprentice', by Julie Hinds in the Detriot Free Press:
Detroit Fress Press article

Mike DeGeorge at realitynewsonline.com provides his "Weekly Performance Review" for each of "The Apprentice" contestants in episode #2. How can Sam fall asleep on the job and yet still not get fired? In the following article "Asleep at the Wheel" Mike tell us why and evaluates each of the candidates on what worked, what didn’t work, and who needs to step up their efforts next week:
Candidate Performance Review

Stop with the double/triple posting!

Hee! My Washington Post spoilerette from the other day was true: "An underdog leads the team into the doghouse."

USA Today once again did a page on the show, but the panel of 12 experts -- mostly CEOs -- is not online, only in the print edition. They're asked about the women's penchant for arguing. Most of them said they'd leave the women alone, at least for now. One pointed out that Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco all had consensus, and look where that got them. Another said that the men did not have consensus, they had concession, which is different. A third said that the women's heated debate does not interfere with them operating as a team when it comes to actually executing the tasks. Granted, most think the women need to get their act together, but they don't really see the bickering as a problem.

Picked up this Extratv.com article from the Omarosa thread. The Hair's thoughts on her, as well as some possible bamp-chicka-bomp-bomp between a male and female contestant that will apparently come into play in future episodes. Any guesses?