Heh. meowing, dumb-down television sells better, just like lemonade sells at a higher price when sold by pretty people. IMO, it's almost the classic example of how very smart people, (book, street, whatever) know how to take a high-level concept but dumb it down enough to appeal to a wider audience. Season one of this show did it beautifully. It was appealing to many people on many different levels. The Simpsons do it. Seinfeld did it. If I understand correctly, The Amazing Race has dumbed it down a little, and the ratings have gone up. (I'm sure that TPTB don't consider that to be a coincidence, even if I do.)

In other words, I agree with you that on the surface it looks like season three is playing to simplistic stereotypes, but I think there's a lot of potential for it to play out much more richly. I can see where the ones who make it to the end will be the Kwames who show some street-smarts and the Troys that exhibit strong knowledge of things traditionally learned in school. Thus, hopefully leaving us with Trump learning it's dumb to categorize people based on education, when all that really matters is what that person really brings to the table.

At least, that's what my request for season three would be, but I just watched The Grinch, so I may be overly optimistic at the moment.

Haha, xnef255, great Office Space reference. Especially since the Bobs won't have to stumble over last names any more since TA doesn't reveal them. But now you've opened up the specter of Michael Bolton singing theme music in the process.

Outsider interviews may seem arbitrary, but early on it may work well to weed out any obvious schleps who snuck through casting. Plus, often we just don't get to see much of early-eliminated contestants(i.e. Rob seemed interesting,) and a long pilot would be a good opportunity for that, even a montage of 1-2 minute clips where erroneous expectations of the first task(i.e. a tacit admission of flying under the radar strategy) could mean big troubles.

But Trump probably has it in his contract for 30 minutes to rehash how successful the second season was and to show off his limo and Melania and progress on the Trump Tower and what have you.

I think Richard Branson had the best solution at the start of The Rebel Billionaire, and the surprise can't be duplicated now it's been done--scotching 2 people right away when they didn't know he was the cab driver. I'm sure Trump has some non-famous underlings that could mingle with the new contestants as they arrive, and if anyone seemed famewhorish(in a way that wouldn't benefit TD, natch) they could be zapped post-haste. Maybe the new NotGeorge could have been inserted as a placebo contestant?

Then maybe for TA4 it could happen in the middle of the season--say, when they had to move from one suite to another, or something, to see how they react to unexpected changes.

The one good thing about the interviews when it's down to the final four is that the contestants are seen as if they were being hired in a conventional way. They are judged on their individual merits and their speaking skills, similar to how I would assume the Trump organization normally hires employees. Also, the interview "task" is the only one where they can't be blamed for someone else's faults, which causes a lot of good candidates to be fired. Is it just me, or did Trump almost always fire the Project Manager for "not controlling" some crappy member of their team? Even in the last task at the end, sometimes a teammate, or an "employee" screws up, and the contestant has to face the consequences. The results of the interviews are at least based on individual merit and are not dragged down by the worst member of the team.

I saw in today's paper that the street smart team name is Networth (I actually thought it said Genworth) and the book smart team name is Magna.

Hmm.

Good TV?
How about for season 5, when they start to run out of stupid ideas, they have an ex-celebrity Apprentice. You know, washed up celebrities looking for a way to pay the bills. Could bring big ratings if they cast the right people.

The second season demolished any intention on my part to keep watching. This show has the same authenticity as American Idol.........Trump, you're fired!

For Apprentice 5, they could have the 4 previous winners as the 4 Horsemen of the interview round.

How about for season 4 the teams are split between those who willing to kiss Trump's ass and those who won't??? As if they would pick anyone who does not bow to the hair (Amy, we hardly knew ye )

Profiles of Season 3's contestants are here.

A couple of things I noticed right away: Season 3 doesn't have as many Ivy Leaguers and people with post-graduate degrees as there were in Season 2. In fact, only one person in Season 3 (Danny) has attended a Top 10 university (MIT) but it's unclear if he has degree from MIT.

At first glance, I can tell these people have NO CHANCE of winning:

Audrey, the 22-year-old real estate agent who's a high school dropout. It looks like she was only cast for eye candy reasons.

Craig, the firefighter whose only business experience seems to be that he created a no-name music company and he used to shine shoes. (I love how they describe it as Craig also created and developed a modest shoeshine franchise entitled, "Peaceful Feet Shoe Shine Inc." when in reality he probably just moved his shoeshine stand to another street.)

As for the term "book smart," I think it's the show's generic term for anyone who has a college degree. I would've liked for Season 3 to have more "book smart" people with post-graduate degrees or who come from Top 10 universities. I'm not impressed with most of the academic credentials of Season 3's "book smart" contestants.

CHANGES AND REQUESTS. That's the topic. Please stick to it, thanks.

If I had my way, the following phrases would be banned from being used on the show

Executive decision
At the end of the day

How about never hearing "thinking outside the box" ever again??
GlennGlenn the thought of seeing whatever dead animal is on top of Trump's head in high def would surely cause a yuuuuge epidemic of blindness. Lasix doctors around the world will rejoice.

I'd like to see a surprise guest judge in every boardroom. The judge could be someone who dealt with the teams on that episode's task -- someone who doesn't work for Trump. A guest judge who doesn't work for Trump would bring a valuable perspective as an alternative to the general ass-kissing that Carolyn and George do with Trump because he's their boss.

In addition to the guest judges (hey what a great way to mess with the candidate's heads-Hee) someone needs to remind the Donald that louder is not the new better.

I really want to see him throw the smack down on top of anyone who tries to scream their way through the boardroom this year.

How about if we start the show with 30 or so of these people, and have the damn interview first? It makes no sense to me to string someone along for ten weeks because they're exceptionally skilled at dog-washing or ice-cream-selling if they lack the "intellectual horsepower" (read: ability to snow those in power) to do the job.

druish princess said:


Word.


How about letting the Viceroys during the first 4 or so tasks be able to fire someone?

ETA: Because PM and Viceroy don't mean the same thing

If I don't have to hear the next crop of apprenti bitch one another out for refusing to "take accountability", I'd sit quietly in a corner all season. Seriously. No, really, I promise.

Same with all of those godawful malapropisms only found on Apprentice. They should all be issued a booklet titled What Not To Say.

Don't forget the companion booklet - What Not To Wear.

My general opinon is that the women who have thus far appeared on this show need something much bigger than a booklet.

Also the phrase "this paticular task" is grossly over-used. I am not naive enough to think the contestants will stop saying it; so I appeal to the network sensors to bleep it.

I'd like to see the show put together to be a little more light-hearted. I understand that this is a "competition" and crap, but please, it's a competition to be a boot-lick.

I think that even though several people in season two were grade-A dickwads, there was probably a lot more fun stuff to show us. Wes and Andy looked like they might have been enjoying themselves. I think Sandy might have been having some fun. When we saw Raj goofing around, it was some of the best footage all season.

So, that's my latest request. How about giving us a break and not spend every minute of every show concentrating on how one dick wants to blame the other dick for a potential loss. Show me the important ones, but also show me that I have a reason to actually LIKE a couple of them.

The thing I don't understand about the whole booksmarts vs. streetsmarts is that people's education was always brought up. But then again Bill didn't have an impressive education so it might not matter. But hopefully this season we won't hear the stupid "I went to Princeton!" arguments or the "You think West Point is better?" questions. This is a reality show competition, everything should be based on what happens within the show. That said, I hope Trump doesn't make anymore stupid, annoying stunt-esque firings (Pamela). I was getting annoyed last season that good players got fired and idiots (Maria, Stacey) kept sliding by.

I'm still pissed that our show is "broken"!! I looked over the bios of the upcoming apprenti and will just have to reserve my opinion about TA3 until we see the first epi. If it is the same crap as TA2, I'm not giving up CSI to watch TA3. I'll still read Miss Alli's recaps because....well, it's Miss Alli and I need hilarity in my life! And I'll continue to come here to read the fab comments by my fellow TWoPers!

I'm sure hoping they dump the PM exemption thing on TA3...it was stupid & just muddied the waters on the teamwork thing, IMHO. I'd also like to see fewer of those stupid teeth-gnashing phrases:

"TAKING accountability"....stop irritating our Miss Alli!
"skillsets"....you've either got "skills" or not, they don't come in a box like cookware! This is SO pretentious!
inside or outside of "the box"....Just. Stop. It.

For me, unless there are several episodes based upon picture hanging and roof work I don't want to hear about anyone "stepping up" or "not stepping up" this season.

And I have to add a great bit of hesitation regarding there being any kind of changes from season two to this one since apparently they were taping them concurrently... I mean seriously, WTF? It starts next week?? Didn't the other one just end like last week?

I was stunned to see they're attempting to raise this phoenix from it's ashes so quickly. I hope that some day soon The Apprentice and damn near every other reality series gets in touch with the 'quality over quantity mantra. A nice request they could take is to not just slap-dash together as many episodes as possible in as little time as possible. Futher more it'd be cool by me if they also didn't then take those half-assed episodes, jam them down our collective throats and tell us how tasty they are.

The Amazin Miss Alli must truly feel the reality world is out to get her with it's recent run of haywire scheduling. Hang in there, you're the best!

Fewer "street" selling tasks.

Stop TD from telegraphing every week's outcome with his "tip".

No Regis Philbin in any capacity.

More tasks involving the Trump Modeling Agency and Wife Emporium. (A little eye candy never hurt anyone, and I've usually come to hate most of the contestants too much to let them fill that role.)

If they are set on doing another Apprentice, I'd like to an "audition" period where they show us the top 50 contestants and then have groups of them outsmart each other to make it into to top 18. They could have Carolyn and George -- sans The Hair -- run this part.

Hopefully this would prevent them from sticking us with people who have no chance of winning (Danny/Elizabeth/Omarosa/Jen C/Maria I'm looking at you.) And wouldn't a year of 18 people who were actually qualified competing against each other be exhilarating.

Yes, yes it would. But it's not going to happen because the Omarosas and Sams and Dannys are the ones who get the attention, who draw people into the show. People who didn't start out watching the show felt they had to because they heard people talking about what a loon Sam was or what a drama queen Omarosa was. I think a show made up of competent people -- Bill and Kwame and Troy, even Kelly and Jen -- would be absorbing to watch, but it would be a show for PBS, not NBC.

For each task, the PM would get one 60 minute session with George or Carolyn (they would be assigned to the team throughout the program, always constant). This meeting could be used for planning, advice, feedback, problem solving, etc.

This way, as the teams are shaken up etc., everyone in effect would have had the opportunity to "work" with both George and Carolyn. This 60 minute meeting could come on the first or second day of the project, up to the PM.

I think this would be so interesting to see A) George and Carolyn in action and mentoring, B) how the Apprentices choose to use/not use this valuable tool.

Although they are around the projects, ask questions sometimes in a manner to "push" the PM down the right road, this would be obviously more direct. As to how this might influence their opinon in the BR, not much, if at all; already during the project their have formed their own ideas of how things should be done, streamlined, etc. If a PM is successful without following their suggestions, no BR. If not, so be it. The chips will fall wherever.

Edited to add a variation:

If not given the above, then each PM allowed a one time meeting during the project to last not more than 30 minutes to deal with one issue, can be Carolyn or George.

I've been thinking about exemption and finally figured out why it's a bad "reward" for being the winning PM.

I start with the assumption that both teams are roughly equal; it is never a 1927 Yankees vs. a 1962 Mets setup. Since the teams are roughly equal, there's a roughly 50/50 chance that the team you're on will win any given week.

Okay, so you're the winning PM and you're given exemption if your team loses the following week.

To start out with, there's that 50/50 chance your team won't lose, and thus the exemption is useless.

But it gets worse. Suppose your team does lose.

Three people will be taken into the boardroom for starters, which means unless your team is down to 3 people there's no automatic assumption you'll be one of the 3 in there to make use of your exemption. As a matter of fact, when the teams are large (up to 7 people) the odds will always be that you won't be taken in.

One of the people always in the boardroom is the losing PM. But if you were PM last week you're extremely unlikely to be PM this week, which means all you'd have to do is avoid being 1 of 2 people on your losing team to be brought into the boardroom. So your odds are even better then.

Once in the boardroom, the odds are only 1 in 3 that Trump will fire you. But even that's an exaggeration, since the PM is always the most likely to be fired and you're not the PM.

Add up all those odds (which I am totally incapable of doing) and there's no great upside to exemption.

If the winning PM is entitled to some kind of reward, I can think of several that would be an improvement. Winning PMs could be given an exemption for the next time their team loses, which would at least increase the odds that they are repeating as PMs and therefore more vulnerable to being fired. Or the winning PMs could be given a free pass (like they have on Wheel of Fortune) which they can use one time when their team loses (it could even be like Jeopardy and they have to announce the use of the exemption before knowing whether their team has won or lost). Or they could be given a separate reward for a team win. Or they could be given a half hour one on one time with a Trump executive in a department of specific interest to them or with an executive from the company they worked with on their successful project.

But just an exemption from firing for the next task is not such a big deal reward. It may not even be reward enough to justify the risk of being the PM in the first place.

Interesting analysis, ellisbell.

My feeling is that the primary benefit one gets out of being the winning PM is not necessarily the exemption, but the benefit at some point in the future of saying things like "Mr. Trump, I have lead twice, and both times my team won." Otherwise, you wind up with a finale like season 2 where one of the candidates had almost nothing she could point to about her effort to defend her work.

I continue to think that the best way to handle all of this would be to handle it like My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss and grant the PM an exemption for the task they lead. If their team loses, they pick 2 or 3 other teammates to go to the final boardroom. This gives each team member an incentive to work hard for the PMs (instead of sabotage them), and also creates a more realistic business scenario.

...

I'd like to see a bunch of Apprenti where NO educational background is given to Trump. Just let him decide who's worthy of hiring based on their performance. Period.

I find the current Book Smarts vs. Street Smarts breakdown tedious. Oh Trump, stop telling the Book Smarts how bad they look getting beaten by High Schoolers. It's like telling the guys they got beaten by a bunch of girls (Ooooo, with cooties and everything). You might be able to tell that I didn't like the breakdown by sex either.

How about a team breakdown gives each side a marketer (maybe 2), a tech person, an accountant, a lawyer, an entrepeneur and the like? Okay, some areas of expertise (lawyer, for example) might be a 'college' giveaway, but it would be a step in the right direction. Too logical for good TV?

Only one problem. Some alumni from "certain" schools will tell you within 10 minutes where they went to school. Whether it's relevent to the current situation or not. I have to give it to those schools. They didn't an awesome job of indoctrinating their students to shill for them at any opportunity.

I would like to see married personnel vs single folks. Angie and Tana, the oldest two contestants, appear to be two of the least crazy people on the current season.

I'm glad Ellisbell noticed the reward trap. For those of you interested in the math, it might look something like this: (if you hate math, skip down to the last paragraph.)

Let's suppose there are eleven people on the show. Further, if you're PM, you have about a 50-50 chance of winning, and a conservative (but math-simplifying) 60% chance of getting fired. You've got a 30% chance of being fired this week.

There are two PMs, each with a 30% chance of the Short Goodbye, so that leaves only a 40% chance that ANYONE ELSE is getting fired. .40/8 remaining non-exempt contestants is .05, or a one-in-twenty chance anyone else is out the door.

Suppose you survive, but next week, you're not PM. Then your odds are either zero (if you won), or .057andchange if you lost (a little worse because now there are 9 remaining non-exempt contestants.) Your odds for the second week cut that .057 in half.

Even if the person being fired were being picked randomly, you've got a 1 in six chance of being fired if you're PM, and a 1 in 12 if you're not (with a fifty-fifty chance of improving from two in 21 (or 2/(3*7))to one in 21 the following week.)

It seems like the only real benefits to being PM are that:

1. You believe you can improve the odds. Trump's casinos are founded on this very principle.
2. You can use the "I was a successful PM" in future boardrooms.

I also think it would be interesting if there was another way to get immunity (my vote is for the winning PM could pick someone else to be exempt with them.) Then all the math goes out the window.

I think the PM needs to have the power to 'fire' someone on the team. You know how Trump asked Kwame in season 1 why he didn't fire Omarosa, and he said that he didn't know that it was an option.

Then in the boardroom the 'fired' employee will have to explain why he/she wasn't doing anything, or sabotaging the team, or not taking direction, etc.

This is sort of done now since the PM chooses whom to bring into the boardroom, but this new twist would add some drama during the actual task and give motivation to the entire team not to sabotage the PM.

Too many times either Trump, George, or Carolyn has taken a PM to task for not controlling a team member, when it isn't a real-world situation where a PM truly does have authority over the team.

Great idea, LurkerNoMore. Then the PM would be judged, in part, on whether s/he rightly or wrongly fired a team member. That would add a very interesting dynamic. Of course, the PM "firing" would only be temporary, and could be reversed by DT if he felt that the firing was wrong.

They already have the power to bench a useless teammate - but no one has ever done it. Kwame said he didn't know it was an option, but Trump said it was; even if it's not spelled out in the rules, Trump has implicitly given the PM that authority ever since.

But Sheap, since no one has really done this, it must not be explicitly stated that it is an option, and the talk in the boardroom about 'why didn't you fire so-and-so' from Trump, Carolyn, etc. is really just rhetorical. If being able to 'fire' someone was a true option and incorporated well into the game, I think we would see more PMs doing it.

Please, please please: More task, less reward and boardroom. After TA1, when the boardroom footage was wildly popular (since it was new and fresh), TPTB reacted by increasing the amountof the footage. It's now gotten to the point, though, that the extra boardroom footage isn't enjoyable: first, it's become hackneyed, and secondly, we see so little of the task, we have no idea how accurate anyone's comments are (granted, even the firstyear, our perceptions of accuracy were colored by editing, but now we've got no basis for judging what we see and hear).

Nothing is more important than readjusting this balance in the episodes.

What I would LOVE to see.....A camera in the Losers Lodge. Maybe they could pull out footage just for the clip show. See the faces of the current residents when their newest roomate comes through the door.

How about this for next season: NYC vs. the rest of America. One team is based entirely of people based in NYC, and the other features a mix of people from other major cities and smaller places. Because of Trump's little theory that NYC is the "benchmark for success", the NYC team would be positioned as the favorites and the other would be underdogs trying to pull off an upset, kind of like Magna and Net Worth, respectively.

Another idea...instead of making sure each job function is represented on each team, maybe one side could be all "creative" types (marketers, product developers, etc.) and the other could be "numbers" types (bankers, accountants, operations managers, etc.). Make all the tasks neutral, like the "set up a business in an Airstream trailer" task, big enough to require both sets of skills. See how each team does with the skills they're not supposed to be good at.

Hmm, Beancounters versus Bullshiters. I like it.

Delurking

During the first season of Apprentice, Friday mornings at the office meant a complete re-hashing of the task. We actually used the Apprentice as a learning tool!

It was kind of fun to discuss the pros and cons of a task being done in a certain way and how we could have done it differently/better. The boardroom was insightful in that you would actually glean some business advice from DT, Carolyn and George.

Seasons 2 and 3 have just been bitch fests that have less to do with any kind of business and more to do with who can talk louder over the other whiners and complainers. Bring back Season 1!!

OT: I heard Mark Burnett speak on Friday and he told a rolicking story about how he got Trump to agree to do the Apprentice. He also gave some good tidbits about Survivor too.

sphoebus

I really like this idea.

I also like gapkid's married vs single...

I have a couple of other ideas. How about a "Well known school" vs. "unknown school". I have done fairly well for myself and I went to a school that no-one outsite of metro-Detroit area has heard of. Or how about a "Middle managers vs Entrepeneur's or Small Bus Owner".

I don't know if it has been mentioned, as I have only read the last few pages.

But if they are going to have 18 people, I would be interested to see them divided up into 3 teams of 6 initially. I think it would completely change the dynamic to have to defeat not just one other team but two.

Of course once numbers dropped a bit they would probably have to change it back to two, but I thought it would make the first rounds different.

What a GREAT idea! It would also relieve us of the predictability of the PM getting fired everyweek.





roflmaopimp!

This is TOTAL reality and I think the bullshitters would win, every time. Like they usually do in my world. (Oh yeah, Im a beancounter can ya tell?)

A comment I've made to my husband is this... if the "jobs" the apprentices win is having them be in charge of BUILDING these high rises, or resorts, or whatever, why is it that none of the Apprentice candidates have anything to do with the construction world whatsoever?

I worked for one of the top construction companies in the country (I think it was ranked in the 30's last year). I'd love to see one of the younger executives from that company in the board room. I've seen them in meetings where the shit was really hitting the fan and to watch them work was amazing.

A comment I've made to my husband is this... if the "jobs" the apprentices win is having them be in charge of BUILDING these high rises, or resorts, or whatever, why is it that none of the Apprentice candidates have anything to do with the construction world whatsoever?

I worked for one of the top construction companies in the country (I think it was ranked in the 30's last year). I'd love to see one of the younger executives from that company in the board room. I've seen them in meetings where the shit was really hitting the fan and to watch them work was amazing.

I know that this may be a stupid request, but can anyone here take one of the TA3 backgrounds and make a fade away picture a la ANTM?? I think that it would be a cool thing to see.

I agree. The only thing remotely like that has been the apartment/condo/hotel tasks (S1/S2/S3 respectively) and the Home Depot task. Which made it even stupider for Erin to pick that task to "not be good at".