Given that Apprentice 2 is going to be a reality, there are a few things I'd really like to see them change now that the show has become more established. Maybe someone show-related will see these.

• The suitcases. No one believes that's "all their belongings." Too Survivor-esque. Leave the luggage in the apartment.
• More George and Carolyn!
• Allow Trump in a week where things really go bad to fire more than one person if he feels it's deserved. (Katrina and Tammy, I'm looking at you.)
• For that matter, allow Trump to fire someone either on the winning team or left in the apartment if it's necessary.

I'd like to be given more information about their assignments. What are their limitations (e.g. having a set list of potential clients for the Trump Ice assignment)? Let us see their planning/strategy more. Perhaps build in a requirement for them to reflect on the lessons they may have learned from previous assignments.

I understand why this is appealing, but I think part of the fun is chosing between two clearly incompetent candidates. Plus, after a point wouldn't you just want to fire them all at once?

My major nitpick about the current season lies with the "rewards". Either come up with better ones that aren't just free advertising for DT or get rid of them entirely.

Word on the rewards, that was my first idea.

Next is hire at least a few of the women based on actual business ability rather than looks.

Bring back Sam and fire him again, just cause I'm cruel.

Get some older candidates with more business experience. It would be interesting to see how old/experienced played out against young/fresh ideas.

Use something besides sex to choose the teams. For example, age. Or business experience. A college degree team versus a life experience team might be VERY interesting.

For that matter...bring back one fired employee. Have the candidates vote on whom they felt should not have been fired and bring them back.

Show the (fired) candidates saying goodby to the suite mates

Show more specualtion up in the suite as to whom is getting fired downstairs.


Incorporate tasks where the individual candidates compete for "immunity" of some sort.

Interview past co-workers about each candidate and feature snippets of said interviews in the episodes. (Especially when there are people in question like Omarosa where people are wondering "How the HELL did he/she get on thsi show?")
While Nick completely sucked in the last episode, I'd be interested to see if all of his bravado BSing is actually true and that someone can attest to it.

How about having two huge security guards flank the rejectees (with a hand under each arm) and escort them out of the building with their belongings heaped up in a little cardboard filing box?

The winner should get a cameo in any sequel to the movie Office Space.


(it would be pretty difficult to top the original though.)

I would love to see that! Would really help to figure out whether each contestant is in real life how they're acting on the show, or just the result of evil editing.

I'd hate for this to happen. I actually do think the Donald has a grip on what's going on with each contestant and so far I think he's done a pretty good job of firing the idiots, so I would hate for morons like Assorosa to keep slipping under the firing radar when she shouldn't be deserving such immunity at all. Too Survivor-esque for me.

Or just be allowed to smash an expensive copier machine with a baseball bat... while Nick cries in the background.

BWAH! I would laugh and laugh until tears were falling down my face and will the little cardboard filing box to have a rip in the bottom.

This would be awesome. The sex battles are so overdone in this Apprentice I'd hate to see it all over again.

I see what you're saying. It does seem too "Survivoresque."

My reason for wanting this type of addition is so that we can see different strengths of these candidates. So far, so many of the tasks have been sales/negotiation based. But there's so much more to being able to run a division-even if the division is a gold course. Troy has been incredible at sales and/negotiation...but how is he balancing a budget, forecasting inventory, hiring/firing candidates, dealing with unions? The "immunity" aspect wouldn't just be for saving someone's hide. It might show whether or not the candidates are well rounded. Working as a team, we really don't see how or if EVREYONE shines. Kwaame is a perfect example. While he hasn't been stellar, I do think he surpasses almost all of those candidates when it comes to financial matters like budgeting and forcasting. Unfortunatly, we haven't seen it because there haven't been any tasks revolving solely around that type of stuff.

I'd like to see each of thes candidates in action, doing what they do that got them on the show to begin with.

Oooh! Me likey! Or even Ivy Leaguers vs. no college and/or just your average state schools. I think it would be a great confidence builder for those in the latter groups (and a good lesson for snooty bosses at snooty companies) to highlight to a massive audience that a fancy school's degree does not a successful executive make. (This is suggested with no offense at all intended towards anyone who was graduated from one of the Ivy's, but with respect and in honor of everyone else who often got cut out of the running just based on the name of their school, which unfortunately does happen too often - not to me, of course, since I went to a state school and also have no business being considered for a top executive position...)

I'd really love to see more "long-term" challenges, ones that would go for two or three episodes. It's been said before, but the unfortunate things about a lot of these challenges is that they aren't based on real-life criteria (like Planet Hollywood--one day's sales does not a business make). Viewing behaviors and business decisions over the course of time is a much better measuring stick.

Also, it would be fantastic for them to have a true customer service challenge. Make them handle the "customer complaint" lines for At&T or something. THAT'S how you see who has guts and who's all show.

I love the "school of hard knocks" versus the "fresh college grads" idea. Troy has mentioned a few times in his interviews his lack of a college education. I think to put together a whole team of 25 year olds where one set has 4+ years of college, and the other team has roughly equivalent years of business experience would be great.

I also think it would be fun to pit a team of 60 year old business retirees against a much younger team.

Pretty much anything but girls versus guys would be an improvement in the future.

oh yeah, I'd love to see different teams:

old folks (maybe 35-55) v. youngsters (21-35)
East v. West
Rural v. Urban/Suburban
No college v. college
Traditional v. non-traditional jobs (porn producer v. software engineer)

Maybe the apprentices could staff the New York City 311 line line! They would be judged by the people who normally do these jobs or their managers.

NY is the fashion capital so they should involve that some how (other than getting a designer to donate something to an auction). Put on a fashion show (find designers, make programs, do publicity etc...) or maybe do marketing for a promissing young designer. (Isn't Trump's daughter a model?)

Was. She went to Wharton Business School at UPenn (just like Dad) and plans to get into real estate (not working for Dad, at least initially). According to The Hair when he was on Oprah.

Hmmm ... slutty dressers vs. conservative.
Those willing to use sex vs. virgins.
Former models vs. 200+ lb. women.

Oh wait ... they'd never want to cast any of the latter.

Make it longer. 2 hours.

More Minorities.

On Larry King, DT also said that he wouldn't want to cast anyone over 50, meaning that if they hadn't made it on their own by then, DT didn't want them working for him. I wouldn't be surprised if his actual age max is much lower.

Well if it isn't set in stone how about someone else beside Donald Trump, I liked this season but I think if this is going to be a multi-year program then other CEO's would be interesting. I know Mark Kubin (sp.?) owner of the Dallas Mavericks is going to have a reality show, I think he would have been interesting. Or maybe .... Oprah, oh my, now that would be a show filled with drama and hopefully the rewards would be better.

Oh, and how about a part of the show where the viceroys discuss/grade each of the candidates without the CEO around every round, kind of like a running scoreboard. I think that it would increase the depth of the show, fill in some of the blanks, so that maybe if we don't see why candidate X is still around but we hear the viceroys pumping the person up then we have that knowledge without having to be shown.

Not better, but fucking amazing. Those apprentices would be jumping and shrieking and going as apeshit as the audience in her "My Favourite Things" shows.

This would be pretty cool to see. I'm always for more Viceroy screentime and this would be perfect. I'd love to see where the apprentices stand in their eyes.

I vote against 'immunity challenges', because they are already taking place. People on the boards here call it 'flying under the radar', and unlike overt immunity challenges, this strategy has a built-in disadvantage as well. Everyone can see it, and it begins to attract negative attention. Everyone who would like to risk seeing Assorama-bot proceed even further than she has, based winning a few immunity challenges, raise your hands. What? No takers?

Allow the teams to split into more than two groups. C'mon Burnett, pay for a couple more camera crews.

Skip the whole 'this group vs. that group' strategy. All of the men, and half of the women contributing to this forum thought the women went overboard with the 'sex sells' motif. The same thing will happen whenever you split people along firm lines. People will complain that something isn't fair. But then, I'm not a successful tv producer, I could be completely wrong on that idea. If I AM wrong, then I vote for the oldest dichotomy of them all: dun Dun DUHHH....

Age vs. Beauty

Get a couple of cute boys and girls fresh out of Business/Modeling school, and put 'em up against a bunch of mid 40-ish type with kids and mortagages. THEN, don't make every challenge a slam dunk for a pair of tits. Make them all work for it.

I definitely think that would be great. Even in their itty bitty bit of screen time, Carolyn and George give incisive, insightful reactions and it would be awesome to hear them elaborate on them. I'm hoping that since they seem popular, it will be like the "Joe Millionaire" thing when they made the butler a bigger part in the second season and eliminated the do-nothing hostess. Of course, I hope it won't blow like Joe $$ 2.

Playing off the "looks vs. brains" angle would be perfect, especially after this season. I like the idea of actually splitting them down those lines rather than the gender lines. It would also be interesting to see how TD would work with the cute girls with no brains, the not-so-cute girls with great brains, and then the Amys, who are attractive and also have brains.

I'm surprised DT actually fessed up to this since refusing to hire people based solely on their age is a violation of the ADEA

I would love to see the teams divided differently and maybe three teams instead of two. I think it would be interesting to see teams divided based on industry (service/retail vs. manufacturing) or specialization (finance/accounting background vs. marketing/sales background).
Some other teams I think would be interesting would be:
Life experience vs. Bachelors degrees vs. MBAs or other graduate degrees
Life experience vs. State schools vs. Ivies
People from small companies vs. people from big companies vs. consultants
Dumb and pretty vs. unattractive and brilliant
Just starting their career vs. 10+ years experience

I would also like to hear more of what the viceroys think about each candidate's performance.

I actually would kind of like to see the viceroys sitting down with the individual candidates to do a post-mortem on failed projects. It would be good to see who can take feedback and make changes and who can't. Also, I think it'd make for good television to see some of these self-absorbed weasels try to deal with criticism.

Exit interviews. Not the taxi cab confessions but real exit interviews that people get when they quit or get fired. They ask the employee leaving how the felt the department was run, who were the problems, who were the superstars, how do they feel they could have improved the department.

That would be good except for the fact that all of the challenges are couched to favor people with marketing/sales backgrounds and are primarily set in the world of service/retail, so there would have to be a major shake-up on the challenges, which I think needs to be the key change. Make the challenges more well-rounded in terms of which business skills need to be used.

I think not interesting. Nothing can compare to life experience, and I think the "lifers" would kick the "collegekids" asses everytime. That said, I HATED the whole "battle of the sexes" thing. How about the good old random acey-ducey countoff with the only requirement that the gender composition of both teams be equal.

I agree with previous posters suggestions about

1.) longer tasks - but the longer task must have a "payoff" moment at the end of each show, where someone gets fired, or there is no drama.

2.) more George & Carolyn commentary; DT/George/Carolyn conferencing

3.) more "Big Brotheresque" stuff of the suite

4.) more information (perhaps just on the web for those who care enough to look) on the tasks and limitations, if any

Here are some of my own additions:

1.) Have the audience vote on who should get fired each week. DT still has the final decision, but it would be a fun reveal to see what people's thoughts are. Better yet, have the boardroom three have to READ some email comments from viewers in front of DT.

2.) Post a job description for position that the winner will get.

3.) Perhaps have them spend 13 weeks creating and running their own company - kinda like Junior Achievement. DT gives each team start-up cash for a business. Have each of the teams able to call upon a consultant as a lifeline one time during the entire competition.

I've got a great idea for modifying the rewards. Since it's a 'business' show, let the reward be the profit from whatever challenge they have that week. & enough of the piddly "Here's $1000 for the team, got see how much profit you can make in a day, crap." Have some real challenges w/ some real money used. Give 'em $5,000 or $10,000 a challenge & see what they can do w/ it. It's not like the production company couldn't afford to piss away a little more money on the challenges.

Wouldn't that require a time machine?(Now THAT would be a cool show: The Hair Through the Ages.) The show isn't done live -- the editors need plenty of time to mold viewers' perception.

I'd like to see more diversification in the challenges, as oppossed to just "what can we sell this week?" challenges.

Also, get rid of the "boy versus girl" thing. Gender and the perspective that it brings is a resource. I think a random drawing is the way to go.

I DON'T want any more of the "suite gossip" than we already get. If I want "The Real World" I'll watch that show, not "The Apprentice."

Keep the amount of Trump the same. One thing that's great about the show is that we learn about Trump, but that he's also still a little bit of a mystery and that the contestants are so in awe of him. Don't give us too much or we'll lose the mystery.

A little more George and Caroln would be nice.

If they went with the "three teams" approach, maybe they could have life experience without college, college without life experience, and college + life experience. (Though maybe the third group would have too great an advantage?)

Me. She's great entertainment and certainly was/is better in the context of the show than more than half the women(Kristi, Katrina, Ereka, Heidi, Jessie, Tammy).



He's not refusing to hire them, he's refusing to allow them to participate in a game show. That isn't against the law.



This wouldn't work for two reasons. One, it's very hard to tell a woman to her face that she is not attractive. She tends to take it personally. Even women who no one would disagree are unattractive, it would freak them out. It'd be like if there was ever an Average Joesphine. There couldn't be. And two, Amy isn't attractive, but she is smart. Banana boobies. Daylight come an' me wan go home.

Was it Bill that said in the last episode when people say, "Don't take this personally" they mean the exact opposite? Who wouldn't take a comment about their looks personally? It's hard to get any more personal.

Anywho, I think the "looks vs. brains" idea misses the point of the show. The winner is supposed run a company, which has nothing to do with looks. Ergo the smackdown from Carolyn to the ladies about using their sexuality to win. These teams might be fun to watch, but what would be the point? The "looks" people (assuming they are dumb, which is implied) would have no chance of winning.

I want to see 'exposes' in the boardroom ... scenes that particular contestants did not witness, but that would definitely influence their decisions regarding whom to take to the boardroom. For example, the Assorama my-head-is-killing-me-but-I'll-play-basketball-with-the-neighborhood-kids scandal.

Ms. Anthrope you are right. Forgot it was not live. Brain fart brought on by my sadistic desire to see people who truly deserve it - to squirm in an uncomfortable pool of fame-whore sweat.

Definitely more Carolyn and George. They are fantastic, and their comments are often the highlights of the show for me.

Lots of information about each task, including information about the seed money and any limitations.

Less cameratime of the contestants in the suite. Really, I could care less about a "budding romance." I'd rather have more time devoted to the tasks.

Better rewards. C'mon, it's Trump.

No more men versus women teams.

Things I'd like to see:

a) Challenges devoted to skills other than sales and marketing. How about problem solving? Each team is given the same fact pattern, maybe even work with some actors pretending to be problem employees, and see how each team resolves the company's internal problem.

b) More face time for George and Carolyn. I would love more commentary by them.

c) In the Boardroom, I would like the Donald to show clips of the task when questioning the apprentices. Like in the Boardroom where Katrina claims she wasn't duped, the Donald could have showed clips of Katrina's exchange with Troy.

d) I'd like to see less shots of the apprentices dancing. Actually, I'd like to have that aspect completely eliminated.

Hee. I read this as "discuss and degrade"...which I would totally enjoy and might actually be the same thing.

Thanks for clarifying Clayton. I must have misunderstood, I thought Trump was saying it was his policy not to cast people over 50 because it was also his policy not to hire executives over 50 under normal circumstances because if you hadn't made it on your own by then you never would.



I would love to see some employee relations challenges. My dad runs a small/medium-sized restaurant company and he says the most important part of his job is dealing with employees (motivation, professional development, work-life balance, and dealing with employee conflict, etc.).

nettey78

But isn't the whole rest of the show about dealing with other "employees" both as a project manager and a coworker? Because you generally are working with and for (and sometimes are supervisor for) those you are in competition with for promotions, money, etc. They also had the task of motivating the servers at Planet Hollywood if you are looking for more "employee relations among the masses" kind of stuff.

Of course they have had nothing formal like mediating issues or dealing with an employee who is milking sick time too much. Oh wait...

Definitely my vote goes to more G&C camera time. I'd love to see them 'interview' with the camera on their impressions of the contestants each week. MUCH more interesting IMHO than watching ppl prance around the suite in towels, eat, blowdry their hair *yawn*!! I also vote for no more drunken dancing & flirting scenes! Sheesh!

Criteria for chosing the teams definitely needs to be revamped...the girls & boys concept is so elementary school playground...if these are supposed to be successful businessPEOPLE, do something completely random. Just draw names from a hat, for goodness sakes! This isn't supposed to be a sorority/fraternity tug-o-war.

I agree the tasks need to diversify from the sales/marketing format EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. Lots of things are difficult when running a successful business but one of the most challenging is managing positive employee relations. Let's see some of that!

I would like to see new teams picked at random for each episode. That way you always run the risk of getting the Sam or the AmarosaRoll on your team, and also you have to be able to work and play well with everyone in the suite.

I like the random teams every week. It's great that someone like Amy is doing well in this game, but the only time she's been to the board room is to find out how bad the other team lost. (Has she gotten to talk to Trump at all other than the one question recently when she changed teams?)

With random teams everyone potentially gets an opportunity to work with everyone else. Teams have less opportunities to become a juggernaut and the team numbers are always balanced.

This

led me to think of a great way to expound on that idea and HeavenLy summed it up pretty well with this:


I would love to see Donald show the basketball clip and ask Assorama "did your head hurt only when working??" and to show the Katrina/Troy clip to all the players and have Donald ask: "Did Troy deceive Katrina or did he simply 'play the game'"? There is nothing better than dishing bullshit back at someone and it would quickly show the others what really is going on. Plus, the responses, I think would be very helpful, if I were Trump. Would Katrina be contrite and say "you know what, you're right--he knew I wanted that apt and played the game" or would she stick to the bitch attitude despite the eveidence?

As far as reducing the marketing/sales tasks, I want to see more balance to get a feel of each player's abillity to handle day-to-day CEO stuff, but I think when it comes down to it, Trump wants the winner to be the one that has the skills that makes his business successful--a business heavily driven by sales/marketing/etc. If he were a manufacturer, then maybe tasks would include improving quality control or reducing material/supply costs, etc to make that business better.

One thing I would like to see though is employee management--the CEO obviously has little day-to-day contact with lower level employees, but they do need skill in that area and there has to be a task to measure it.

I think some of the challenges could have been a little more fair. This hasn't had a negative impact yet since all teams have some dead weight they need to unload. But come the final few, they need to put the extra effort in to make the challenges even.

I don't mind the men vs women thing in the beginning. Starting with 16 people, it was just too much to remember all their names. In fact I like many, many viewers was shocked to learn that Ereka and Katrina were in fact 2 different people!

One or two months after the finale, I'd liek to see a "Where are they now" edition to see if any of the candidates found bigger or better jobs.

Whenever the teams need to be evened out... I think the team with more members should decide who they want to dump. I would love to see Oma work her magic at Versacorp. Why reward the losing team by letting them draft?

Ok ok... I understand that TPTB want to strengthen the weaker team, but if it's presented as a numbers issue, then let the dominant team decide who to dump. That's strategic as well.

That would rock. I'm all for this 'cause that means we get to watch the future Katrina screech away about deceivement while the entire boardroom stares at her in shock after having watched the clip.

I would love to see exposees in the Boardroom. It would have been so great to see Sam squirm while everyone watched video of him curling up on the floor for a nap.

I think the celebrity auction and other chalenges like that could be better if the teams or PMs have to pick from the 10 celebrities whom they can approach for donations instead of each being assigned 5 people. It would be interesting to see them have to quickly analyze who would potentially bring in the most money. It would also be interesting if they try to negotiate for the right to approach certain celebrities ("We'll let you have the Fab 5 if you let us have Rocco and Carson Daly")

I would like every show to include a picture-in-picture of Kwame in his tight boxers. That would make it the best, highest quality television show in the history of television shows with the best ratings of any show ever.

Hee, skagirl77! You do know what's most important in this show.