Was there a real commercial shown? I only remember them reshowing the two travesties aka commercials. Maybe we didn't see it in Canada, since the Canadian feeds are known to cut things out - LIKE SCENES FOR NEXT WEEK'S SHOW. I'm talking to you, Global TV.

Maybe my fellow Canuck posters in Ontario can confirm whether they saw real Dove commercial or not.

I had the most fun watching this with Mr. Mookster, who is a first AD and runs a set like nobody's business (but, no, I would never presume to "step up to the plate" simply because I sleep with him). He said he would have apologized once to the petulant actress and if she didn't accept it, he would have said, "You're right, we're terribly sorry to have wasted your time and we wouldn't think of asking you to work under these conditions, so we'll just have to bite the bullet and find someone else." Moving on! I haaaated Bren's apology (as well as his aw-shucks "you know how bitchy women are!" bullshit.

I reiterate my complaint that they're not showing enough of the task, or the prep for the task. Why didn't anyone meet with someone from Dove? Maybe they did, but we don't know. How much did it cost? How long did they have to work on it? The BR's aren't so great that they can skimp on the rest of the show. F'rinstance, I could do without the morning wakeup call. Though when I saw barefaced Tana answer the Rhonaphone, I though of that clip from "Spanglish" where Tea Leoni asks Cloris Leachman if she needs makeup and she says "You need a shovel."

Wow, I mean, really, wow. What a train wreck. While I think that advertising is 95 percent BS, you obviously need some commen sense and have to understand your audience, which these clowns, especially Magna, just don't get.

Very unhappy that there was only one firing. Why bring both teams to the boardroom if you are only going to fire one person? And how can Trump let Magna skate by with making that commercial and no one is accountable? Just wrong.

Don't worry. Their time will come.



Verna's quitting has probably destroyed any chance of a double firing this season. I think he would of he could of.


Dead Apprentices Walking
-------------------------

Chris - "I AM NOT A HOMOSEXUAL." Between this and his oversized outburst two tasks ago I've got to say I think Chris has some serious issues.

Erin - I truly think Magna's was the worst commercial. There simply is no way that Erin is going to be able to live down having approved an "unairable" commercial.

Bren - That idea may have been the worst idea EVER to be had on the Apprentice. Thus his addition to the list of dead apprentices walking.

Micheal - As the only member of Magna to vocally object to the vegetable porn, I have to give him props. He's still dead candidate walking after his incredible short-sightedness during the coffee task.

Fired Dead Apprentices Walking
---------------------------------
Kristen - What is wrong with this woman? She brought Audrey in yet couldn't come up with a single good reason ( aside from some vague references without concrete examples to back them up ) why she should be fired. Yet she insisted that Audrey should be fired. Sensing that Kristen didn't have anything to back up her rhetoric the others turned on her and rightly so! Aside from her non-sensical focus on getting Audrey fired Kristen was also a control freak who took John's idea ( which might have had some potential before she warped it ) and completely ruining it through her incompetence. I had her pegged as a dead apprentice walking after the second task. Last night her time came at last.

Nope, no Dove commercial for us Canucks. Something to do with beef.

Hmm... this was a weird episode to watch. I do think that Mangina had the better idea, though it didn't seem to be executed very well. There have been very successful gay-themed commercials before, including one during the Super Bowl with Carson Kressley and Cindy Crawford (I think?) checking out the same guy. So it was definitely the soft-core porn vibe which killed it.

On a purely technical level, though, both commercials were awful. The Net Worth commercial looked like a demo for a crappy home video mixing console, what with all the awful wipes and boxy transitions--and what was up with the random insertion of pictures of things like a kettle and limes while the guy was slathering his face with the body wash? Ew. It could've been funny, definitely, but the pacing was all wrong and it was (needless to be said) incompetently directed.

As much as it pains me to admit it, I do like Bren--he stuck his neck out, came up with an idea that was risky, and everyone rallied behind him. And it pains me even more to say that I thought Erin did a reasonably good job of keeping everybody cohesive and coherent, even though I didn't realize she was even the PM until the end of the task.

I had forgotten that Chris wasn't even on Mangina until I looked just now, and it's baffling as to why he'd be so irate over a commercial that was vaguely suggestive when it came to the gay stuff--the cucumber washing was the main "offense," which had nothing to do with its gayness. Chris is a scary little man and I don't think he has a whole lot longer.

I do lurve both Audrey and Angie, though. Both of them are straight-shooters who say exactly what they thing. Either of them I'm rooting for. Yay for the Common Sense Sisters! (That's what I'm calling them from now on.)

I'd really like to see more out of Craig. I don't think he had a single spoken line this entire episode--and has he EVER had one of those intercut interviews shown!?

Finally I can't help but wonder if the inclusion of Nipples Douche had anything to do with his floundering talk show on CNBC. Why he even HAS a talk show is still a mystery to me. I almost wonder if it was all--oh, yeah, of course it was product placement. Silly me!

Considering the logistics of everything, more than likely she was in an actor's union of some sort--meaning that she would've been "on the clock" from her call time on. Did you notice the other actors weren't bitching and moaning? She got her money, I'm sure, and turned in a decidedly lowbrow performance. Eh. It all balanced out.

I swear to God this show is a Christopher Guest movie. All that's missing is Fred Willard in his "A Mighty Wind" role hucking the two commercial ideas, in his dead-pan, self-pleased and deluded manner.

The Magna commercial also reminded me of a spoof commercial from the old Ben Stiller Show, which was a take-off on the "What is Sexy" commercial for Jovan Musk or some such shit back in the early '90's in which scenes of shirtless Ben running around are interspersed with with scenes of cream being poured over peaches, trains in tunnels, etc., as well as models with garden tools, all to a rythmic grunting beat. You had no idea what the commercial was about until the end, when a guy with a grating accent explains it's about garden tools. Anyone remember that, or is my brain making it up?

It's a job interview. If the candidates nee dot be wary of proper interviewing protocol, so does the employer. Asking about age, race, orientation - in my book - is way out of line if not illegal.

HA! That's great. There certainly is an awful lot of bizarre behavior, and you are so right about some of the scenes we've seen fitting perfectly into one of those movies. Audrey's "ass doesn't know the difference" comment, Danny's Burger King "promotion", John and Brian's first confrontation (with the one crazy person, and the one exasperated person), the "actress" last night, and of course both commercials, would have all been perfectly normal in a Christopher Guest movie. As a matter of fact, they would probably be thought of as genius. Instead, they're just reality TV, to be forgotten quicker than that guy who lost in the first week. Bob, I think his name was.

Hey, Chris sat there stone silent in the boardroom and when George asks him what he's thinking the best he can come up with is how furious he is that Magna made a commercial that is rife with homosexual themes? I think Trump wants to know why he's offended, so he asks if he's gay. Chris brought it up, Mr. Trump was just taking it to it's logical conclusion.

Personally I think Chris' two outbursts in the boardroom (Eps 2 & 4) were totally disproportionate to what was occuring at the time. Both of them were totally off the topic, making him look foolish at best. Net Worth would be smart to make him their next Project Manager so he can go home.

I live in Oklahoma too and it was shown on the station I watch. Maybe just someone at your station?

I apologize in advance for being gross and having the mind of a twelve year old. When I saw the part of the NetWorth commercial where the runner had the Dove product slathered all over his face with a stupid grin (a small shot can be seen here), it looked to me just like someone had err, somehow gotten some bodily fluids on Bob the Enzyte Guy's face.
Sorry ...

PrincessVan77 wrote:
I guess I just don't see the problem with it. I don't see any difference between this and, hypothetically, saying "Theft is against my moral values, but I have an idea for a commercial where somebody steals the product." I actually was more unhappy with Michael's attitude, which was essentially "I disapprove of homosexuality and therefore we should not have anything homosexual-related in our ad." Bren's statement shows a recognition that not everyone shares his beliefs or has to, whereas Michael's doesn't.

Since I apparently don't remember what Bren said in the boardroom, I'm only defending the brainstorming scene. Maybe Bren said something worse in the boardroom - I'll have to watch the CNBC edition, I guess.

mookster wrote:
This I agree with. I was OK with Bren's apology, not so much with his confessional. Since the actress was so obviously playing up her being upset, a goofy, over-the-top apology from Bren was appropriate. Taken together with the confessional, though, the implication was that this is the best way, in general, to deal with upset women, which makes him look quite sexist.

This is one of the few times I would agree that editing can screw over a person. The choppy editing around both instances make Chris come off much worse than I'm guessing he really is. That he gets overly emotional and talks too loud can't be debated, but there had to be some sort of leadup to the outbursts. But the cuts were so abrupt it just didn't seem like there was. While it's possible he goes from 0 to 100 over nothing the poor editing sure leaves the audience wondering 'Where the fuck did that come from?' and paints Chris in a harsher light than he should be (which already isn't too flattering).

I seriously think Kristen is so deluded in her world-view that she thinks that How Audrey Screwed Up with the models was so blatantly obvious, that it didn't even NEED backing up. That anyone who knows anything would be able to look at the commercial and know that the real problem was that the models were out of control, and that was Audrey's fault.

Word! While I was watching, I said, "Hey, who's the guy w/ the afro?"

There are definitely sleepers on both teams right now. If Chris hadn't had his meltdowns in the boardroom the past two episodes, I'd have been all, who the hell is this guy, when it rolled around to his turn to be project manager.

Sheesh, who did that skank actress think she was?! First Lady of the American stage?!?
Excuse ME, your majesty! Even knowing how you can't swing a dead cat in NYC without hitting an actress, and that she could've been easily replaced by the production team, she brings attitude? She wasn't even very good purveying cucumber-porn!

Oh, and Craig, feel free to say, oh, SOMETHING any time now.

ITA. I think they do it for their close-ups, so their gorgeous hair frames their faces just so. [/sarcasm]

Kristen, honey? The eyebrows. Should not be drawn by a caricaturist.

I thought that Net Worth had a decent idea, but the executing was just all kinds of wrong. The way that I would've done it was to shoot the commercial outside on a street, like a real marathon. Have a bunch of extras line the streets and cast some scrawny actors that actually look like marathon runners. Of course they were limited by shooting the ad on a soundstage and the lack of time or budget to hire extras, but the execution of the ad was just horrible so Kristen was rightly fired.

I thought that George and Trump both find Chris amusing and were purposefully baiting him. And I didn't mind that, because I think Chris is an enormous tool and, judging from his extreme self-righteousness, kind of a bigot on the homosexual front.

I also think that no one was offended by the gay themes (except Bren and Chris and maybe "goo-goo for Hot European Model" Michael). The bigger offense was the absolute in-your-face sexual imagery. Everyone loves innuendo, but stroking a cucumber and slowly dipping a teabag in the harsh light of low-budget porn is a bit much.

I didn't much like John in the first episode (because of the "they have degrees and think they're better than you so let's show them" speech) but he's grown on me and I like him a lot now. I thought his idea was clever and if Kristen had done more with it than have a model with a goofy expression smear body wash all over his face, it would have gotten the point of "refreshing" across pretty well.

Kristen's eyebrows and extreme drag queen make-up freak me out.

I laughed when Angie grew exceedingly more agitated about "the box" in her rant. I find myself liking her despite the Ginger Spice hair.

I loathe Bren. Am I the only one who found his speech to the actress utterly patronizing? I'm not saying she didn't deserve it, but he was so smug and condescending, I wanted to punch him in the nose. Yeah Bren, that's the way to deal with a woman. He sounded like he was talking to a puppy. Between that and the "I don't condone homosexuality but man this gay bait-and-switch is HIlarious" attitude, I can't wait for him and his dapper dan hair to be off my screen.

ETA I loved Craig rocking the fro in the board room.

In the beginning of the episode, when Bren chewed out Michael, he referred to himself as doing it, "like a dad." And to some extent that's exactly how Bren handled it, publicly (so there could be no chance of gossip or misunderstanding), firmly (not allowing Michael to interrupt) and then welcoming Michael back into "the family" with a smile and a handshake (a hug would be inappropriate, although I bet Danny would have).

Erin later used the term "family" to discribe the team. And one of the Magna people said Bren would be a bad person for them to lose.

Bren seems to be defining the team as a family and quite possibly himself as a paterfamilias. If that's accurate, it would explain his dealing with the actress in a manner he's accustomed to from however many years of marriage. Family life is his source of metaphors.

No doubt Bren is a real human being with an actual life, but on The Apprentice he seems like a character out of a movie about southern lawyers puttin' one over on the big city folk. I am the big city folk, so he ought to offend me, but he's a little like Raj; I know he's awful but I don't have the strength to resist him.

I bet he's a helluva lawyer in front of a jury.

...

Wow, what a trainwreck. I think Magna's idea was ludicrous. It wasn't even the gay theme (for the record, I have no problem with homosexuality in any way, shape or form- I just don't see that as the path a major corporation would really want to take in advertising their products right now, especially after the last election.) It's that the whole thing was utterly sleazy. Rubbing cucumber phalluses? Only if you're advertising on the Spice Channel. It showed nothing about the product, what it was used for, or anything else of relevance. They said none of them had experience in advertising. Gee, you think?

Net Worth's idea was (a little) better, but it was executed really poorly. Water was definitely needed, but the execs had a good point that it isn't a facial scrub, it's body wash. And with that in mind, the whole marathon idea may not work, unless you're running naked (and advertising on the Spice Channel.)

I totally thought they wouldn't be firing anyone to make up for Verna's departure when there was no winner. Heh, what do I know?



Oh, total WORD! Fugly, nobody actors have no right to get pissy with their employers. (Okay, technically they do, but if they're smart they just swallow it.) I'm sure she was just famewhoring herself for more camera time, but is that really how you want to come across? "Yeah, I was in that Apprentice commercial, where I bitched my ass off like a diva, even though I'm nobody. Do you want to hire me now?" Not smart.

Frankly, I'm surprised they couldn't find anyone better looking. Because she ain't all that.



I'm not an actor, but I do work in entertainment. It's basically good set protocol to "babysit" the actors. You should always have someone on hand to bring the actors anything they might need, etc. To not have this definitely looks unprofessional, but in a situation like this, it's hardly the end of the world. As has been mentioned, it's not like she's anybody, or they couldn't have replaced her in two seconds. It's more of a formality in really low-budget productions to let the actors feel comfortable, and usually actors in those kind of things are pretty down-to-earth, and recognize that they're not really in the position to be demanding anything.

Bren's little speech was rather patronizing, but I think it helped Magna refocus rather than break down while focusing on a perceived crisis.

Obviously, that actress didn't want to punch him in the nose. All that southern sweet talk sure got her worked up for the commercial. Did you notice how charmed she was when he got done with her?

I don't much care for Bren either. He reminds me of my great-aunt's late husband. Same smooth talk (comes from drinking buttermilk with meals) and did you see how Bren handled the cigar from Steve Forbes? Just like my uncle and his pipe. There's a lot of romance in those things but underneath it all - anger and perversion - if you ask me.

If it was a British commercial, it could have gone over even with the soft-core porn vibe. Why didn't they show more of the muscular guy's body or even face in the commercial?



Maybe all her boyfriend does is direct traffic. Like car wrecks.

This episode was such a train wreck all the way around. I couldn't handle watching the second viewing of the commercials either.

You know what? I would love it if they would cut some of the skyline porn shots/Donald pretends to work shots and give us more of the tasks and boardroom. Seems like a lot of things would make more sense to me in that way.

When Erin started blabbing on about "family", I immediately thought about the ending of Boogie Nights. Except, you know, most of Magna just aren't as lovable as the folks in Boogie Nights were. And that's including that coked up drug dealer towards the end...

This episode straddled the line between Unintentional Comedy Gold and Beyond Squicky for me. I was delighted that neither team won, as 1) The porn was nonobadscaryWRONG, but 2) Kristin really needed to be fired. But so did Erin. Damn you, Verna, for quitting and making a double firing fairly unfeasible! <shakes fist at sky>.

Seriously. When Erin was going through the actors' head shots and started talking about abs, I totally got the feeling that she was about to take the photos back with her into the bathroom for a little private time. Ew. And then, when she made poor Actor Boy get half naked and started soaping him up? And The look! Of love. Was in. Her eeeeeeeeeeeeyes! Good god, I though she was about to fellate him. Or attempt to, at any rate. And that's not a place that I particularly want my mind to go. And you know that she just created that non-existent scene so she could cop a feel and get some cheap thrills. I mean, if it had been an actress playing a Hot Euro Hooker and our guy Mikey had been doing the soaping? I think it probably would have come up, yet no one at Magna seemed to be seriously perturbed by the Scrubby-Dubby-Erin-Porno-Face Scenario. Which was, quite frankly, a total moment of Ick! Ick! Ickity-ick! Ick!

I'm hoping that this whole "really irritating people getting the axe right off of the bat thing" means that Erin is next. After all, with Danny gone she's pretty much the last real Lovey-Dovey left, right?

That's because she is so busy running her mouth, she cannot hear what other people are saying.

This had to be one of the most unintentionally funny shows of all time. It was so bad, it was good.

And then he ducked the idea when he had to face Trump, because it was easier to talk about his supposed "moral values". A real brave one, that Bren.

I don't understand the comparison to Troy. Did Troy ever say "oh, I didn't really want to sell Kwame's autograph, that's my kind of moral value"? I don't remember that. Troy was a man. Bren whimpered behind Erin all while making sure that everyone knew he didn't REALLY want to support anything with gays (his hideous hair is already testament enough to that fact). I hope people aren't comparing them just because they have an accent. If anything, Bren is more like Raj or season 2 Chris or Nick -- lots of phony, oily surface charm, with nothing to back it up. And someone should tell Alex that men who call themselves "conservative" usually don't wear spangly Solid Gold dancer-esque ensembles. He can keep on selling but nobody is buying.

The main reason that Kristen took Audrey with her to the BR is because they had that tiff in episode 2, and then Audrey had some problems with the task in episode 3. We didn't see most of this, unfortunately.

The difference between Magna's commercial idea and Michael's idea is that Michael never really went beyond hot models. This was supposed to be something on the streets of New York, something that had to draw a crowd, and that's all he bothered to suggest. Then, instead of going into a better explanation of his idea, he sulked and sandbagged everything. Bren at least let other people put their own suggestions into his concept.

I saw nothing from Magna which warranted firing. Even Erin, for the most part, performed adequately. And really, their ad only needed a few alterations to be acceptable. What Douchebag and Trump steamrolled over in their zeal to blast those terrible gay people off the TV was the fact that no one on Magna had any training of any kind in directing. They were like little kids let loose. To tell them to be bold and then blast them for being bold was just more hypocrisy. And if Dove is supposed to be so stolid and revered that they cannot have such a "shocking" concept, I sure didn't see any indication of that in their ad. Last time I checked, tranny-esque showgirls, bad house music, and Miss Piggy were not at the top of the list for female consumers. Men who dress like females, perhaps (I guess Alex might know, I think the showgirl had the same fabric he wore a few weeks ago), but not females. There is no question that the Magna ad was of poor quality, but what did they expect? Their reaction was about more than just the quality. It was this hypocritcal faux-outrage that they never exhibited when it was needed, like when the women were practically giving men lap dances all through season 1. If anyone really buys the hype about "moral values" and about how election returns show that Americans will only tolerate fundamentalist, Puritan images, than someone had better tell all those people who faithfully flock to slutty pop queens, hip-hop, American Idol, Desperate Housewives and CSI week after week after week. For the first time, Dallas, Texas and Boise, Idaho (hi, Troy) sent lesbians into office this past November. If they have no problem sending homosexuals to represent them in the statehouse or as sheriff, then seeing them on TV is not that big a deal.

Bye, Kristen with your bitch face, scary eyebrows and complete lack of a sense of humor. Both commercials were just beyond bad. Today I was telling everyone at the ad agency where I work that if they missed it, they *had* to catch the rerun. Next time a client doesn't like an ad, we can say, "Well, at least it wasn't cucumber porn or soapface guy."

The marathon idea *was* workable, though.

Shirtless runner, falling behind in the pack.
Relentless sun. He's really hot and sweaty.
Grabs a bottle of water, splashes it over himself.
Grabs another bottle, splashes it all over himself.
Woman standing on curb, holding a bag, pulls out the cucumber wash she just bought. (show the product, people). If it's a screwoff top, she takes it off and smells it with a "ooh, that smells good" look on her face.
Runner grabs the bottle from her, does a double take when he realizes it's not water, (showing the product again) then a "what the heck" shrug and splashes some on.
Shots of soapy shoulders, pecs, abs. Looking all sporty, not porny.
Runner grabs another bottle of water and rinses off.
Now he's all refreshed and he really takes off, passes the pack and crosses the finish line.
Woman with the bag is standing there and holds out her hand with a "hand it over" expression. Guy gives her a sheepish grin and gives the bottle of cucumber wash back to her and she puts the cap back on. Tagline about being cool, refreshing, whatever.

Or maybe it's a relay race. The bottle gets into the race in place of the baton.

But what do I know -- I don't have a boyfriend who's a director.

This season totally kicks last season's ass. It's like watching, as someone alluded to earlier, a Christopher Guest mockumentary on reality television.

As to The Actress, while it was certainly unprofessional of them to keep her waiting, it was even more unprofessional of her to stomp around whining and bitching and further delaying shooting. And considering that they're not even in the profession, the onus was on her to be, well, professional (I used to be in the industry, so I am strongly against the divas of the scene.) I don't think she knew she was going to be on The Apprentice either, as aren't the teams forbidden from disclosing that in order to gain publicity or something to that effect?

So last season we saw the brainstorming sessions that never ended (lobster ice cream anyone?) and now this season it seems like someone mentions the first thing that pops into their head and everyone goes "Great! It's perfect!" Seriously, budget some real time for brainstorming, people! Your first ideas are guaranteed to be not good enough.

That said, I thought that both ideas could have been workable, even the porn one. The way it was first described, I thought it wasn't a huge stretch from Herbal Essences. And John's idea was cute. The execution was so bad, though. It was actually surprising to me when they both lost. I thought it would be like the Pepsi task last season where the Pepsi people clearly thought both bottles sucked, but had to pick one anyway.

Thank God Kristen's gone. I didn't know how much longer I could put up with her yapping.

Here's my 411 on the episode:

I don't think that Magna's idea was that bad; however, the devil's in the details. They should have never included the cucumber, and the other porno crap!! Here's my take on a better produced ad with a gay twist: A women in sweaty gym clothes sees a hot guy and goes to wash off with Dove body wash before going up to flirt with him. She comes out looking great, he notices, and for a split second, it seems like true love. But he's really looking at the Dove bodywash. He says something like hey can I borrow that, I have a big date tonight and waves at his boyfriend across the gym.

As for the Guest comments, who here would love to see a real Guest mocukmentary ala Best of Show about Reality T.V!!

Loving Angie and Tana. Angie for "It's not just inside the box, it IS the box!" and Tana for nodding uh-huh, uh-huh to stupid bitchy Kristen while Kristen was trying to enlist her in the plot against Audrey. (Someone please correct me if I'm mixing up Audrey and Angie.) Audrey kicks ass, as well, since she didn't put up with Kristen's bullshit. So basically the only person I hate on Magna is now Mr. "I am NOT a homoSEXual" Chris.

I'm finding it hard to work up a whole lot of hate for any of the Magna crew (pending clarification of what the FUCK Bren meant with his "against my morals" comment). I want to hate Erin and her Morticia Addams hair and her Valley Girl elocution, but she's pretty quick on her feet in the boardroom, and even though her word choice is a little suspect, she usually makes pretty good points (and definitely saved herself last night through her quick thinking).

Magna's commercial was FAR worse than Net Worth's, in the sense that Magna's wasn't a viable idea at all (Dove is not going to use a gay theme to market its very mainstream, conservative product...it's just a bad fit--the USA is not Sweden), whereas Net Worth's could have been salvaged with better execution--keeping the humor and, as other folks above have suggested, casting the lead as a WOMAN, for God's sake, and RINSING the PRODUCT OFF....like by running through a fountain, as someone clever suggested upthread.

Acutally, that whole discussion of homosexuality seemed to be held together with spit and scotch tape...I couldn't make sense of it. I think what Bren said was "It went against [his] moral values," but it was not clear what "it" was....the pornographic nature of the commercial or homosexuality. But that scene, including Trump's comments and Chris's outburst, was rather incoherent, to me.

And related to that: I don't think that the gay theme, per se, was what Trump was saying was offensive. While I think that Trump thought, as do I, that a gay theme was not a good fit for this product, I believe it was the OBVIOUS penis imagry of the cucumber that was "offensive." The Magna ad imagry wasn't subtle the way the women's ad for Marquis Jet was in Season One...those were very atry. Nor was the campaign aimed at an upscale, highly sophisticated audience, which the Marquis Jet campaign was.

I am happily and proudly gay, but I wouldn't use non-clever, overtly sexual imagry with an unfunny gay "twist" to sell an extremely mainstream consumer product like Dove. It's not homophobic to call it what is is: a bad mismatch and offensive in its blatant porniness.

Edited because incoherent paragraph structure makes Baby Jesus cry.

Episode 4: Craig speaks. Still no confessional time though.

Oh my were those ads ghastly.

The Magna idea was in trouble right from the start. I'm sure Proctor & Gmable (or whoever makes Dove) really wants to be associated with vegetable porn. For a mass-market brand like that, they dont' want "edge". They want an ad that can't offend anybody in any way shape or form. And they simply didn't have production skill to make it look like it was anything better than z-grade porn.

I thought the idea that Craig and John came up with had promise. I could picture it in my head: sweaty tired marathon runners hitting the refreshment line: grab cup, splash, grab soap, slap on, grab cup, splash, grab towel, dry off. In the movie of my imagination, the runners don't even break stride, as if this is a perfectly natural sequence for them.

But Kristen didn't get the joke, and the finished product was too horrible for words. The presentations before Danny were like watching a car wreck.

Mixed feelings on Bren. The idea was horrible, but I think he did exactly the right thing with the actress: "We're terrribly, terribly sorry but you are the bestest, most terrific actress in the entire world and we don't want to shoot this commercial without you" (Come one, you know thats want the actress wanted to hear from Magna).

I was hoping for a double-firing in the boardroom, but I don't think Net Worth will be sad to see Kristen go. When John and Angie were project managers? Smootly oiled machine. When Brian and Kristen were project managers? Chaos. I think Trump is really doing Net Worth a favour by getting rid of their most disruptive members. I see far more dead weight on the Magna side of the equation.

So far, John stands out as the contestant to beat. He contributes ideas, he has charisma, expresses his opinion when he feels he has something important to say, and doesn't shirk away from doing his job on the team. His conversation with Kristen in the editing suite was pretty representative of his approach. "This doesn't capture the idea gave you, and I think the ad is terrible. But I am going to work here in the editing suite to try and make it the best ad I can."

Kristen just seemed completely oblivious to her own shortcomings in interpreting the concept and dealing with her team and the models.

Oh and the idea I would have pitched during those brainstorming sessions? Go for a James Bond / Alias-type spy theme. Have our heroine (because women are going to the target market for the product) kickboxing bad guys and diving from explosions one minute, playing baccarat at Monte Carlo or tangoing in Paris the next. (You can riff on Alias where Sydney has at least one far-fetched disguise every episode) - with Dove Body Wash being the secret behind her instant and miraculous transformation from sweaty, dirty and bloodstained to elegant and sophisticated.

Needs work of course, and could have been tough logistically, but it would have been a heck of a lot closer to the "think big" brief than what the teams came up with.

But Donny did say that he wanted edgy and generally the team that wins in the advertising task is the team that follows edgy. The problem is that there's a line between edgy and gross, and Magna was about a mile over that line.

Ha. It's funny how the Apprentices absolutely must have seen the Ice Cream task from Season 2 ... they are always in costume! In every task! I wondered if Net Worth went shopping for the same outfit, because the cuts of the pants seemed nearly identical. It wasn't like they were just wearing white pants or something.

And, if they really wanted the "gay" theme (sigh ... I don't like how that has to be a theme ... it's not like we have "heterosexual theme" ...) they probably could have been just as effective (though not as outside the box) by doing it another way. It was definitely the cucumber that put them over the edge.

Actually, hee, I had an idea for the commercial ... kinda boring but still might have been more "acceptable." You could have had a woman drinking green tea with the cucumber over her eyes ... all spa like, with a look of relaxed bliss ... then cut to a man in the shower with the same look but washing with Dove. Then, they run into each other, she smells him and is all smiles, there is some level of chemistry, except that he smiles at another man or leaves with a man or something.

There, you have the refreshment, you have the "it helps you pick up on whoever you want", you have a bit of "edge", and you can directly compare it to how relaxing it is.

Sigh.

(But I read the posts that I could, and liked a lot of the ideas much better than mine ... but this is just my 5 second brainstorm while watching last night.)

Edited because I can spell. I promise.

God bless Chris and his angry screeds. I hope TPTB keeps him around for pure entertainment value. Wind him up and watch him go!

I'm starting to hate Erin/Asslee/Samara for putting together a halfway decent BR argument and for having to admit that she does have some mad BR skilz. Now if she'd just quit it with the fuckfaces? That would be great.

There's not enuf suckitude to describe how bad both commercials were, and I was all, "Trump's gonna fire two idiots tonite! Sweet!" John had a decent idea but unfortunately wasn't there to see the execution. Because that's exactly what Kristen did - threw the idea against the wall and shot it with a firing squad. I haven't seen such a lacking of self-awareness, bitchitude, and delusion since . . . Brian? I'm sure you guys will have much to talk about at Loser Lodge. And shut up Kristin's pink outfit. Didn't she know that's Erin's color?

So under Kristin's logic - if I date a brain surgeon, that qualifies me to do . . . brain surgery! Awesome! Off I go to find a brain surgeon, cuz I've always wanted to do that. Idiot.

I'm liking Audrey, but she needs to shut it with the DonnyDeutchsqueeeee!! And I loved Angie's "this is the box!!" Hee.

I hear there's a black man named Craig on this show, but I'm not buying the rumor. Maybe he needs to go ballistic in the BR to register on the radar, because he's not even on the radar at this point.

I just wish she could have heard what I had to say about her after the motel task.

Even though I don't like Donny or Michael, I loved how they both thought the chefs hats to the meeting was a stupid idea.

And on the actress, anybody who yells at Erin is fine by me.

Chris is really scary.

Yeah, what is up with all the coordinated outfits this season? I can totally buy Fiancee John in that green shirt on a normal occasion, but bringing white pants? For a job interview? Come on now. All the matching outfits just makes this season look... stagey.

I don't like Kristen but I can see how she missed the joke in the NetWorth concept. A guy is losing a marathon but then he bathes while runnning and this causes him to win because the soap is refreshing and he feels refreshed. Ha ha ha? Is there a connection I'm missing that makes this funny because it doesn't even sound cheesy.

I had no issue with the concept of the Magna ad, but when you're treading in the oh so racey footsteps of a twenty-five-year-old Olivia Newton John music video, you really shouldn't crow about how "outside the box" you are.

Yes, ITA. I am waiting for Chris's head detach and rocket into the air as we see steam and lava fly up through his neck....like in a cartoon. I am afraid of him.

Those commercials were like 'Mentos' commercials, only Mentos commercials were so bad they were funny. These were just so bad!

Is it really arty to have a bunch of planes assembled like erections, concluded by a big hole with "CAN YOU FIT IT IN?" captioned underneath? Would that wow a sophisticated audience? Maybe in the same way that Meghan whatever her name was was supposed to be the queen of the sophisticated art world, and then sold one painting the whole night. One of the men who ran the Marquis company said that he did not like the ad and never would have used that ad campaign. The only one who liked it was Donny Douchebag, because he's a pig who got hot when all the women shook their wares for him. They were bad little girls, they were his bondage fantasies. He didn't care that this was something the public, sophisticated or redneck, would never want. But when he saw a slightly goofy commercial which featured a gay theme and a cucumber, suddenly he is worried about "porn" and going too far. Please.

The reason that some of us have mentioned the gay aspect is because that is what Donnie and Trump harped on, again and again and again. They wanted Magna to feel ashamed for using gay images, and to her credit, Erin was the only one who did not cower under their thumb. If that had been more exploitation of women, I seriously wonder whether or not they would have had such a negative reaction.

Donnie Nipples = Ted McGinley.

I'm not sure of what I think of Audrey The Potential CEO but I love Audrey The Narrator. Awesome.

I loved the bitchy actress, only because I think some offscreen TA producer was prodding her to give the Apprenti hell. Hee. I would hope that she doesn't actually behave like that on assignment somewhere else.

Trying to decide which team commercial is better is like trying to figure out which is less unpleasant: vomiting pineapple chunks or explosive diarrhea, so I'm not going to try. Poor, poor Carolyn and *twitch* Donald for feeling they had to personally pimp Dove and their professionally made commercial (which will never win a Clio but was much better) as an apology for the candidates' gross incompetence. They should have fired the entire lot.

I love George.

Hey Chris, I hear The Advocate is hiring.

"You're so far over the line, you can't even see the line. The line is a dot to you." [/Joey]

Oh, Audrey. I was lovin' you the last three episosdes, then you went and drooled over Donny Deutsch. Ew.

For some reason, the 5 antennae on the back of Trump’s limo cracked me up. I can see one for the fax and one for the car phone, but what are the rest for? Does he have satellite TV in there?

An actress is annoyed that she’s waiting around on a set? Honey, you’re in the wrong fucking business. Except, as many others noted, she was only creating a scene in order to get some camera time. I was hoping/waiting for someone with some common sense to tell her to go ahead and walk. And as terrible as she ended up being anyway, they would have been better off casting one of the apprenti. It wasn't just that she was annoyed that she had to wait, it was her sense of entitlement about it; demanding to be coddled by everyone on the team pissed me off.

Bodywash is not edgy. Bodywash is soft and foamy. And how can you go "outside the box" with bodywash? Either you show people using it (and are like the 50 million other bodywash ads) or you don't (and risk people not knowing what the product is).

My commercial: An exhausted teacher at the end of the day flips on the tv in her room to see a commercial with a lady washing with the bodywash while singing "Cucumbers and green tea. That's what refreshes me."

The next cut would show a meter maid just chewed out by somebody. She turns around and sees a tv in a store window. The teacher is in the commercial, washing and singing "Cucumbers and green tea. That's what refreshes me."

The next cut would show a mother with wild kids. She turns on the tv and sees the meter maid in the commercial washing and singing "Cucumbers and green tea. That's what refreshes me."

And on and on until the 30 seconds is filled up.

Corny but at least you get an idea what the product is. I had no idea what the cup of tea and tea kettle were doing in the commercials until I saw the real Dove ad this morning.

No kidding. That was really weird. Why did Magna even film that scene? Did they think they were being too subtle?

I'm not sure what to make of the actress and her attitude. If she knew that this was for The Apprentice, then I have less sympathy. However, if she was merely notified by her agent of a gig that required her to show up at 4:00, then had to wait outside in the cold for almost two hours, then to be told by the people "in charge" that they weren't even aware that the actors would be there? Yeah, I'd probably go diva on some asses too.

I also found Bren to be condescending, and it actually did remind me of Troy with the treating of the models in the casino as well as of customers and Heidi in the final task ("Now, everyone stand in a line. We need to make sure Heidi here feels that she's in charge.") But I didn't hate Troy for it, and I don't hate Bren for it either, despite that, and the always-crooked bow tie. The "I don't agree with it, but immorality sells" crap that it felt like he spewing did majorly bug me, though.

Chris is an idiot. I'm not convinced he even got the cucumber and tea bag innuendoes, despite the fact that the cucumber was singled out as the major offensive factor. I took Trump's question to Chris to test his reaction. George addresses Chris, and he goes off about the homosexuality. I knew his answer would be a resounding "NO, I am NOT!" dripping with contempt, and I suspect Trump did too. I personally enjoyed the baiting, because people making asses of themselves amuses me.


HA! No kidding.

And go away, Douchebag McNippleson. You'll never be Trump.

Watching the rerun on CNBC and I just. Can't. Stand. Erin's hair! Doesn't look like she's supposed to be a brunnette and she should CUT it. Long and straight is just wrong on her. HATE. And the flirting she tries to do with Mr. Trump while addressing him in the boardroom ... Ew. Does anybody else pick up on the flirting thing?

My TA laugh-out-loud Moment of the Week:

The teams are in the suite preparing for the BR. Chris - who I think we see for the first time all episode - is adjusting his tie in the mirror and sez to someone, "it's going to be crazy in there."

Sure will, Chris - because no one brings the crazy like you do. Is he kept locked in the basement without food, then unleashed once a week in the BR? It sure seems that way. Yowza!

On the one hand, I'm not the least bit sorry to see Kristen go (BTW, does anyone know for sure if her boyfriend is a director? 'cause I think she only mentioned it, like, forty-five thousand MF'ing times), but on the other hand, I kind of felt bad that Net Worth ended up being the team that had to endure a firing. Yeah, their ad sucked, but at least there was some semblance of a usable concept in there that some reasonably talented ad agency could've run with. Magna's idea was just irrevocably, irredeemably, 100-percent idiotic. Not only did it not make a lick of sense, there's not a TV station in the country that would've run it even if it had.



Eeeexactly, royalfan. I'm a lefty-liberal who has no problem with homosexuality whatsoever, but I'm not dumb enough to think that it would be acceptable in a network TV ad to be aired around the entire country. In Alabama, where I live, the conservative-Christian community would've shown up with torches and pitchforks at the door of any TV station that ran that ad, and as a lifelong Southerner, I'm flabbergasted that Bren never took that into account, irrespective of what his own personal morals say.

By the way, can anyone tell me anything Erin did during this task other than cheesily lather up the male model before the commercial shoot? Yeah, the idea for the ad was Bren's and it was stupid, but I almost got the impression that Erin heard the idea and thought, "Oooh! I might get to lather up shirtless hunks!" and then went right ahead with it based solely on that, without bothering to devote a single thought to just what a ridiculous idea it was. When you allow your blatant, transparent horniness to eff up your team's shot, that should give you at least a 50-50 shot at a firing right there.

Eccch. Magna should be really worried that, even after giving the heave-ho to the likes of Todd, Verna, and Danny, their team is so astoundingly lame. Maybe Stephanie or Kendra can whip this team into shape, 'cause I'm certainly not getting the Jeff Bezos visionary vibe off any of the rest of them.