I kind of stopped watching after she left, as I had nothing left to snark about...IMHO, the show got boring..

Of course, discovering in a preshow that one or more of the contestants was an aspiring actor (a la Nick W.) or had been in some sort of adult film (who was it again from S1?) would make us all a little cynical about just how "serious" the show's intentions were, no? Because frankly, the more I learned about some of the S1 contestants, the more I was convinced that some of them never actually had a chance for the apprenticeship, and they were only brought on board as either eye candy or to add a "colorful" (i.e., weird or abrasive or controversial) personality.

OK, here's my idea's for the final 2 challenge (MB, I'll await my check)

1. I've seen many people suggest giving them 8 former players to pick their teams of 3. I like that, but I'd build on it. Let each finalist choose 2 people for that pool and let Trump pick 4. Then rather than just pick like playground dodge ball, make them compete. Let the final 2 review their tasks to see what they need, let them interview among the 8 applicants, and make them 'offers'. The tasks could include a set staff budget (maybe even salary and bonus pots), so the final 2 would be competing to get who they wanted. Applicants would be free to negociate or even take lower offers of someone who they like better or a tasking they like. Hey, more like real life. The final 2 can structure offers however they want within the staff budget.

2. I would also include more set up of their tasks by the final 2. For example, make them develop a budget for what it would take to pull off the tasks, have them present it to Trump or the Viceroys, only to hear that it looks good, but have them take a straight 15% off the top (because that is what generally happens right). Make coming in on budget a factor in the evaluation. Imagine Kwame budgeting the ballroom for the meet and greet, only to get on site later to find out that "Oh, you need velvet ropes for the line, that's $30 per pole rental. That glass of water for Jessica is $10, etc" (That is where hotels really make margin). Using his team to build a solid budget plan and account for issues I think would be a good thing to evaluate and certain can create stress down the line.

3) I would make the show then that made the final 4 into the final 2 include these parts of the final challenge in the second half. Then you can build a full 2 hour show that is the execution of the final challenge.

Only thing to this plan is that the TA finale will need to not compete with a survivor show so they can have a full prime time evening 8-10 finale ep and 10 - 11 the live recap show (Hosted be other than TD please)

Spelling counts

I really like many of the ideas here. ITA - I don't want to see anynoby from the first season on Apprentice 2, in any capacity. It was fun, but enough is enough.



This is an interesting idea, but I think there is a very big chance peer ratings will be used strategically to try to eliminate the strongest players (a la Survivor, via alliances). The way it works now, even if alliances are created and the PMs use them to bring somebody into the BR with them who didn't deserve it, the PM will be called on that and possibly fired (e.g. Erika). If it's done by vote, then nobody is to blame, so there is no danger in trying to get rid of the stronger players.

i would like to see the rewards beefed up i thhought most of them were pretty
lame. And also i would like george and carolyn to get more air time next year
and also to see more of the boardroom than the few minutes we actually
saw in each esposide.

I have a Fast Forward-type idea, something I call the 'Business Trip'.

At any point during any round prior to the selection of the Boardroom nominees, any ACW (Aspiring Corporate Weasel, tm the like-titled Death Watch) other than the Project Manager may go on a Business Trip. During your Business Trip, you cannot be contacted for dismissal (aka, cannot be fired. Self-granted immunity.) Only one person may take a Business Trip per round (the first one to call for it), and you may only take one Business Trip in the game. The PM can't take theirs because they're far too busy to leave the office (they're running their team after all.) Besides, if they leave and lose, who's going to do the nominations?

Now, this isn't completely like a Fast Forward, because a) it's a simple 'you-want-it-you-got-it' proposition, and b) certain people can't use it in addition to those who already have (the PM's.) The strategy here is also completely different than in TAR. There, it's best to use the FF when you're tired and need a round off. Here, you need to gauge Trump's perception of you if you use it. Will he think you're ducking a tough task? Are you trying to keep from getting nominated by a certain PM who just happens to hate you and your entire belief system? Did you just get some bad news from home (ex. Heidi's mom with cancer) and you just need a round to get your shit together? What? And it's not like he's not going to ask why you used it.

I just got my alumni bulletin, and one of my college classmates auditioned for TA2. His name is David Chubak. It didn't say if he made it, but keep the name in mind in case he did. I semi-know him, but not well.

The fact is few if any of the people on this show could succeed in real businessworld. Their resumes are all "Trumped" up.

Casting is underway for "The Apprentice 2." Here are the dates/locations for the auditions. (This is from an NBC press release.)

16-CITY NATIONWIDE TOUR KICKS OFF AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD ON JULY 9

OTHER CITIES INCLUDE: MIAMI, BOSTON, HONOLULU, SALT LAKE CITY, SAN ANTONIO, JACKSONVILLE, PHILADELPHIA, MINNEAPOLIS, NEW YORK, CHICAGO, SAN FRANCISCO, MEMPHIS, LAS VEGAS, CINCINNATI AND SEATTLE

NBC and Mark Burnett Productions are coming to a city near you to recruit candidates for another season of NBC's smash hit "The Apprentice," once again slated to feature Donald Trump. The nation-wide tour launches July 9 at Universal Studios Hollywood and Donald Trump will be on hand to interview prospective candidates. It is his first public appearance in Los Angeles to promote the show.

Prospective applicants should: be able to take risks, bounce back after failing, succeed in a cutthroat environment, go against the tide, remain focused, think creatively and be a leader.

Cities and locations are as follows:

* Los Angeles ***Official Launch with Donald Trump (Friday, July 9 @ 9am) Universal Studios Hollywood, 100 Universal City Plaza, Theme Park Entrance, Globe Theater, Universal City, CA. Trump to conduct interviews from 11am-1pm

* Miami (Friday, July 16 @ 9am) Nautica Condominiums, 5970 Indian Creek Drive, Miami Beach, FL.

* Boston (Saturday, July 17 @ 9am) Seaport Hotel, One Seaport Lane, Boston, MA.

* Honolulu (Saturday, July 17 @ 9am) The Hawaii Prince Hotel, 100 Holomoana Street, Honolulu, HI.

* Salt Lake City (Saturday, July 17 @ 9am) KSL Broadcast House, 55 North 300 West, Salt Lake City, UT.

* Philadelphia (Friday, July 23 @ 9am) Loews Philadelphia Hotel, 1200 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA.

* San Antonio (Friday, July 23 @ 9am) Location TBA

* Jacksonville (Saturday, July 24 @ 9am) Jacksonville Marriott, 4670 Salisbury Road, Jacksonville, FL.

* Minneapolis (Saturday, July 24 @ 9am) Grand Hotel, 615 Second Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN.

* New York ***Donald Trump slated to appear (Friday, July 30 @ 9am) Trump Tower, 725 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.

* Chicago (Saturday, July 31 @ 9am) NBC Tower, 454 North Columbus Drive, Chicago, IL.

* San Francisco (Saturday, July 31 @ 9am) NBC 11, 848 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA.

* Memphis (Saturday, July 31 @ 9am) Location TBA

* Las Vegas (August) Location TBA

* Cincinnati (August) Location TBA

* Seattle (August) Location TBA

Please check www.nbc.com for updates on the casting calls.

Interested candidates should attend one of the open calls listed above and bring a completed application. Applications can be found at www.nbc.com.

Contestants must be legally eligible to work in the United States and live in the United States; must be at least 21 years of age; must be in excellent physical and mental health; must not now be a candidate for public office and must agree not to become one until six months after initial broadcast of all programs in which you appear, if selected as a player.

How about Donald Trump, Mark Burnett, Simon Cowell, Paris Hilton, Sharon Osbourne and Anna Nicole Smith all stranded on an island. Whoever wins gets to keep their fortune. The losers have to donate their entire net worth to charity.

Potential tasks:
Day one - they each have to do their hair without any use of hair products and no combovers or unders or whatever allowed. Trump’s outta there. He'll forfeit and leave the island immediately.

Day 2 - they must demonstrate the ability to display more than one facial expression. Hilton is down and out for sure.

Day 3 - they must remain polite during and after special guest William Hung’s three hour serenade. Bye-bye Cowell.

Figured out how to find old posts just for this.

Unless they are going to use footage of how useless the "protected" winning PM is on their next week's tasks to get them booted off the show, please.just.stop.it. It makes me scream at the t.v. And if you are going to use the footage of say, Jenn putting on her lip gloss, then make the firing spectacular.

Also, please tell me you have people who are more interested in being professional business people than on t.v. for TA3. I really can't stand the cast of famelovers this year.

I LOVE the Apprentice. Personally, I think the show's concept and how it is produced are excellent, and it belongs in the same league as Survivor and Amazing Race. However, while certain things worked well last year because of the show's novelty, they don't make sense this year. For example, it's harder to think that a job with Trump is a great gig when his casinos just filed for bankruptcy and when his show's ratings hsve declined.

I also think finding players who admire Trump in a very serious way (e.g. Troy, Sam, or Nick from season one) has got to be hard. In season one, it seemed that working for Trump was the ultimate prize and that the salary was just a bonus.

What the contestants want doesn't match up to what Trump is offering. The show needs to be reworked to make us believe the people really want the prize, and that the prize is worth wanting.

I really wish they would get rid of immunity. It makes the whole show seem more like a game, well yeah I guess it is, than a job interview. Would they get some kind of immunity if, in the lawyers' cases, they won a case so they could just screw up royally, or "act unethically" in Stacy's case? It is also depressing when a crappy candidate wins and you know they will be around for at least another two weeks.

Yep, I think the immunities have the potential to keep the dead weight around. I think this will be really apparent as the teams get smaller. Maybe, they will get rid of the immunity as the teams get smaller. I think that is only fair, since the smaller the team the greater responsibility and let's say someone does just ok, but the immuned person does horrible. Then that person who actually did better would have to go and that would suck, unless of course it is Maria or Ivana.

Thanks for bringing this subject back to the first page.

I think the project manager needs to have more authority. Just being able to decide who to bring the second boardroom is practically meaningless. The PMs have become "official scapegoat" and the team members seem more focused on bringing the PM down than on winnning the task. There has to be a solution to this.

The PMs get a chance to trade their least-useful member to the other team at the beginning of each task?

If they insist on keeping this immunity crap, I would love for them to make the person immune in the next boardroom have to decide who gets fired.

Oh, that would be even worse. Then people like the Coven would just eliminate their most hated or - worse - their biggest competition.

They really should get rid of this "Immunity" crap. All it does is encourage the people who have "Immunity" to sit back and coast through the next task without contributing anything. It also dissuades good people from stepping up and helping to save a task run by a weak PM, because all their efforts will go towards rewarding someone else's incompetency.

I wish they'd extend the extended version and show more not just from the boardroom, but also more of the participants' interractions in the Suite (ie sitting down to eat at dinner, or chatting in their rooms) and more of the work on the project itself. Some of clips on the Yahoo! website are very interesting, and revealing and should be aired.

Hell, I'd just be happy if they'd bring back the E!B!F! on Saturdays, but it looks like that's finished. Fuckers.

Ditto!

Here's an idea I think could work great, especially further down the line if this show finds itself in danger of jumping the shark: "Apprentices on Tour". Have all the tasks take place outside NYC. The teams could be required to travel to various locations across the USA, not just suburban HQs of major corporations but also other big cities and a couple of small towns for variety. It would allow for a greater variety of tasks, and force the contestants to deal with jetlag and travel fatigue. The final task could require either travel to multiple locations or even outside the country. Probably not too likely this could happen unless Trump has contacts, but I'm sure there's no shortage of companies that want to latch onto the Apprentice gravy train.

Either that, or add trap doors under the chairs in the Boardroom, so "You're Fired" could be a little more dramatic.

They have been trying much too hard to overwhelm us with surprises this season. All the twists, extra boardroom footage, immunity, etc. have actually left me distinctly underwhelmed. And all the overhyped, alleged shockers like, "Don't Cross Carolyn" and "Don't Mess With George" as well as Bill's supposed boardroom blow-up have mostly been disappointments.

The witch hunt firing of Stacie J., along with Pamela's being forced to move to a truly dysfunctional Apex team AND lead them, have left a bitter aftertaste. Stacie's firing showed that Trump could be played, which hurt the show, IMO. Seeing how poorly he handled Stacie's situation undermined a lot of the show's credibility, since last season, I counted on what appeared to be his good judgment. His arbitrary treatment of Pamela further eroded my opinion of DT. Pamela may well have failed as a PM and gotten fired eventually. But forcing her to be PM on that task suddenly made her play by different rules, and put her at an unfair disadvantage. That would have been a good time to do a corporate restructing instead of making Pamela a sacrificial lamb.

I agree with those who have said that immunity for winning PMs hasn't added to the game. And the whole "take 2 or 3 in the boardroom" could just be dropped. Most people aren't going to take 3, especially as the teams get smaller, so it is a pointless exercise, something I think DT uses to toy with people and show annoyance. Actually, I'd like to see them get rid of the second boardroom altogether. Don't have the PM only bring certain people in with them. This would eliminate having people choose scapegoats. Everyone on the losing team should be on the line, and let DT & Co. figure out who was most at fault.

I am aggravated at the idea of bringing back Stacie J., Rob, Bradford, and Jennifer C. on the next episode. It appears from the promos that they are going to participate in the tasks, and the boardroom as well. What the hell is up with that? I am looking forward to Stacie J. giving Ivana a verbal smackdown, but at the same time, I'm pissed that they are using Stacie for shock value. If she was supposedly unstable enough that DT didn't want to keep her around, it makes him look like an even bigger ass for bringing her back. As for the rest of the firees, why bring them back now? I could be wrong, but it just seems like a desperate ploy for ratings, and won't necessarily advance the game in any way.

And they need to get a firm grip on the issue of the terrible editing. How they can go from telling pretty coherent stories last season, to the crap that we often see this season, is beyond me.

Maybe most importantly, they need a much better quality of candidates next season. There are more people that I am rooting against this year, and only a handful who ever appeared to have any chance at winning. I want to see more stellar candidates, doing more interesting tasks. Seeing highly competent, driven people competing at the higest level will provide much better drama than all of the contrived crap they are shoving at the viewers this season.

I agree with everyone who suggested the producers should get rid of the immunity concept - it just plain sucks. It changes the dynamics of team play. Why should anyone try to work as a team when one person has immunity and someone else has the potential to win immunity on the following task? As others have pointed out, they should give the PM more authority to "fire" someone who isn't pulling his/her weight or is causing rifts and/or unnecessary strife. If DT wants to see how the leader deals with problems then give the leader the same options DT enjoys himself in the boardroom.

The casting people should cast women who are professional and competent.

ETA: Now that was an embarrassing typo.

Well, gee, clear! There's a novel concept! The producers probably won't go for it tho....makes too much sense.

You know what they need to do? Record Trump's voice-overs in The Boardroom. Don't do the looping sessions in a booth somewhere - they sound like shit, and we all know it. At least do it in the same setting, where the acoustics might come close to matching a "live" recording.

Amen to this. I think the producers forgot what drew people in to watch the show in the first place- competent people competing for an elite job position. Its one thing to be aware of the fact that the "elite job position" is really kind of crap, but to substitute competent people with incompetent drama queens? That makes the whole premise of the show worthless. It becomes a game, and that's how the contestants are treating it.

I think the Donald picks his female candidates using the same criteria he uses for his models and Miss Universe candidates: legs and boobs.

Halcyon-

Exactly. IMO, you really narrow the pool of interested, qualified women for the show if you rule out women who are quite plain and/or even a little overweight.

Speaking as a woman, I think that, unlike men, most women are more interested in finding a romantic relationship than in getting a job where they'll have continual 60-80-hour work weeks.

But there *are* women out there who, like Carolyn, would love such a challenge. Who would welcome the challenge and opportunity of working for Donald Trump, even after what we've seen of him on TV and in the news recently. However, some of these women, while they may have great credentials and a proven track record in business, are fairly plain. Maybe some of them are 10-25 pounds overweight. And because of these "flaws", these women seem to be disqualified from being on TA, from what I've seen. Even the plainest women on TA had a certain level of attractiveness, IMO.

I'm not suggesting that Trump ought to be required to cast a severely obese, unkempt female candidate. I'm just saying that as long as part of his requirement for the job is that the woman have a really good figure and an attractive face, I don't think we'll see many truly viable (and truly interested in the job) women on this show.

ITA. If this show was a true representation of qualified job applicants, they wouldn't all be
a size 2. But I have a feeling that the real DT is a Shallow Hal and likes to surround himself with hotties.

They didn't let any fat guys on, either. Or bald guys, or guys with a unibrow, or really short guys. I don't think the velvet rope mentality in the casting department is gender-specific.

Bradford is bald, and Young Andy is (sigh) balding. And while none of the men are overweight, several of them aren't exactly buff.

I think there's a broader acceptable range for appearance in men than in women on The Apprentice. My guess is a woman who dressed with the deliberate eccentricity of Raj wouldn't make it to the finals.

Then how did Stacy get on there?

That's quite a generalization to make, my2cents. And, in my opinion, an unfair one. For myself and many of the smart, successful women I know, "finding a romantic relationship" was always pretty far down on the list of priorities. Relationships just seemed to find us when the time was right. In the meantime, no one I know would have considered sacrificing our goals - career or otherwise - because we were sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring.

Bowie/Boey.


Baldford.


OK I'll give you this one. But they're hard to find. (O/T: Can't people with unibrows simply shave off the middle part?)


Sam.

Maybe in season three they can have the person fired/PM who wins select the PM for their respective teams for the following week. That would stir things up a bit.

Lucabella - I will amend that to say I believe that "significantly more women are more interested in finding a romantic relationship than in getting a job where they'll have continual 60-80-hour work weeks."

I think that compared to men, that's true. In my experience, the majority of men I've dealt with define themselves in large part by their careers/jobs, whereas more of the women define themselves in terms of their relationships. I'm not saying there aren't super-career-oriented women out there, by any means. But - JMO - I don't think their numbers are anywhere near that of men, in general.

I think that at the beginning of each task, each project manager
should trade one member of his or her team to the other team.
That would make things more interesting. Of course some
contestestants might keep getting traded back and forth like
hot potatoes.

I think they need to change the whole format where only a person from the losing team can get fired.

Take the case of Maria total screw up on the last task (Bridal Shop) but her team still pulled a win. Would DT and Co know of this at all, since the winning team never had to relate any major screwed up in the BR?

They should make it so that they bring in every candidate for the firing some how, maybe make it so that everybody votes who the 3 or 4 most screwed up are between the 2 teams, or have Carolyn and George pick.

And I am tire of the PM of the losing team always getting fire this season, being blamed for "lack of leadership". How many firees this season have been the PM of the losing team? This week it was Chris, last week it was Raj, then there was Jen C., Elizabeth, and Pamela (I miss you Pamela *sniff*). It seems that when the team lose, that's all they focused on was how "weak" the leader was. I don't remember the firing last season, but I don't remember people using the weak Leadership excuse so much as this season.

They need to make it so that the lowest of the crops are cut out as soon as possible, so the show gets progressively better as the stronger candidates stick around and the weak one are weeded out.

How much would the show rocked right now if only the strong candidates remained?

It would be interesting to see if they could give them some sort term tasks, such as the most recent bridal show episode, but also give them a long term task, which they could work on in parallel. In the end, they could see how the teams did over 15 weeks on specific task.

I love the idea of doing a show with a much different characters. For example, draw from a pool of average joes/joans. You'd get the high fliers like Andy and Kwame as well. But take applications from 'ordinary' people. People who graduated from obscure colleges and work as middle managers somewhere.

In my own experience in biz school, the Dean's List candidates stuck together like glue on group tasks, believing they were each infallible, and failed miserably because their egos clashed, while 2nd and 3rd quartilers flourished on group tasks.

And returning briefly to the subject of selecting women that are attractive...that just shows that this is like most reality shows. (My favorite in this regards is the odius Fear Factor, where busty leggy blonds decide that the best attire for jumping out of a speeding boat or helicopter is a bikini. Get real.)

Personally, this season is incredibly MEH compared to the last. It's as if they let DT get in there with his "brilliant yet gawdy" taste and suggestions and now it's barely recognizable.

It's too predictable (odds are best the PM is fired).

Knuckleheads are slipping by (ie. Ivana & Maria) in favor of DT making some obnoxious point to satisfy his testosterone rush.

The editors have overmastered the furrowed-brow look. Everything that anybody says is followed by someone's look of "WTF are they talking about?!".

The tasks just aren't as interesting. The challenge before was to get something out of little or nothing. This season it's all about product placement and huge budgets.

Plus, this cast of characters are just not terribly likeable. He could fire the whole lot of 'em and move on to A3.

Drummouse, that's brilliant. One way to redeem this season would be that in the finale he hires NO ONE to be the apprentice. (Although I think Andy is worth hiring, I'm not sure I can picture him being a Trump lackey.)

I think they should go back 16 contestants. With 18, we had two extra episodes of gender-segregated teams, which gave extra life to the Coven. And with so few potential winners among this seson's bunch, the firings just beocme so routine because they're all just cutting yet another incompetent candidate.

I'm definitely with you on this one, VinnyQ . If the show is to remain (regain being?) interesting, Trump needs to fire the person whose actions were most responsible for the loss, not just fall back on "Well, the PM should have managed that one better." With this logic, it will always be the PM's fault when there's a loss and, as we have seen, the rest of the team then has little personal incentive to go all out for the win. (Better to remain under the radar than to actually try to do something.)

Contrast My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss: The PM always has "deniability" and therefore can never be fired, even if their team loses. Silly, but....

I have a feeling they chose 18 candidates instead of 16 was so that they could do a "very special episode" where two candidates get fired instead of one. This whole season seems completely pre-meditated. I wouldn't be surprised if the PM exemption/Bradford waiving/Bradfolrd fired was pre-mediated as well.

They just tried too hard this season. They used drama as their focal point and then cast around that, which is why they chose such asstwits for candidates.

One of the reasons they should get rid of the immunity for PMs is that it allows bad performers to stay around longer than they should.

Had Apex somehow managed to pull out a win this week against all odds, Chris would have been immune next week! Kelly has had some good moments, but it's clear that Sandy was the main reason that Mosaic won the bridal task. Kelly got $10,000 worth of jewelry. I don't think he deserves to be immune next week in addition to that.

Maria has been awful most of the season. She did do a good job in the fashion task, and deserved a reward, along with the rest of the team. But another week of safety? Hell no!

I wholeheartedly agree with the complaint that the PM is getting far too much of the blame for things going wrong (although in the last three tasks the poorest performer/decisionmaker WAS the PM); the most egregious example being Trump's firing of Pamela...someone who knew next to jack about her team colleagues, and yet managed to shape up a pack of hopeless losers into a unit that came only $10 short due to a shot-in-the-dark pricing...because she supposedly was a poor judge of personnel.

(In that case, they should fire those resposnsible for picking this season's candidates.)

The winning PM immunity must go. If there must be a reward as incentive, let it be something like a credit awarded for each winning task as PM and a debit for lsing as PM, with the total presented for consideration in the final round. But please, no more PMs with immunity taking a powder in the following week's task.

Or maybe in addition to firing someone from the losing team, Trump could grant immunity to someone on the winning team, based on how much an individual contributed to the win.

I have looked through the posts and haven't seen this one, so hopefully I am not repeating....

I'd also like to see some kind of deliberate imbalance. For example, when there 12 contestants left, pit a team of 3 against a team of nine. Being one of the team of three could be voluntary, but there could be some exchange for extra immunity, or it could simply mean that a cool reward like the jewellry gets split amongst fewer people.

The point is, there are tasks where more people may not help. It would be interesting to see who steps up. It would be even more interesting if they didn't announce the challenge first. There would have to be some measure of reason, i.e., the task couldn't obviously be skewed in favour of a bigger team. A perfect example of a 'fair task' would have been the toy task.

No need to thank me, Mr. Burnett, just make a better show next year.