I think that Randal's mistake was way over blown. During the presentation one of the XM guys turned to the other and brought out the mistake with the channel, the other guy basically brushed it off as "small detail", meaning I guess, "Hey it can be fixed easily and quickly. Besides, that's not why this presentation sucks." It was the song choice. I dont get how you decide to go against the programming of the radio show, especially since the whole selling point of satellite radio is the fact that all the channels are specific to a particular group or interest. The teams' song may have worked on another channel or show but not the one the customer wanted to promote. This loss was about not listening to the customer, and that goes against the PM.

I have come to the personally painful conclusion that if Felisha looked like Rebecca and Rebecca looked like Felisha, I'd think Felisha was brilliant and talented and Rebecca was hardly better than adequate.

Although I would still have trouble with how Felisha spells her name and her fashion choices.

My favorite moment was Rebecca sizing up Miss Universe. I could just hear her thinking, "Can I take her? Yeah, I can take her."

One should never underestimate the power of a very smart very attractive brunette.

[quote]Rebecca is being kept around...why? [/quote]

The Donalid is blinded by his crush. As are many viewers, probably.

On the other hand, when she's been a possibility for firing, there have always been other even riper candidates such as Clay. He had his wins, but how are you going to keep somebody who's explicitly been pointed to by practically everybody else in the place as someone they can't ever work with again? Of course, he'll probably be brought back as part of the team for one of the unlucky final two!

[quote]I found it quite strange that Rebecca and Randall were so hot for Clay. Don't they all live together? Surely the Apprenti have noticed how trouble always followed him! "I thought he was cool ......until I worked with him." Snerk.[/quote]

I think they figured that if they were nice to him he might spare them. Fat chance with Clay, obviously. He really does hang on like an attack dog, long after the actual provocation ought to be behind him, as Alla said.

[quote]I think the losing team's big mistake was picking the wrong type of singer. I mean, he was a good singer and all but I think for a task like that you should try to just make the catchiest song you can find,[/quote]

I pretty much agree with this, but if they'd given a good listen to the station, they clearly could have picked up on what the song needed to fit in there. Look how quickly Felisha figured out that her song was going in the wrong direction, and all she needed to do was tell the musicians what sound she was looking for and they delivered it immediately. It was trying to push the envelope and not listening to what the station actually plays that did them in. ... Seems to me that part of that was Rebecca's snob factor again -- these particular listeners are smart and educated, so they'll like having their envelope pushed ...


[/QUOTE]noticed it too and it really annoys the hell out of me. It's kind of makes her seem like she's better than everyone else here. She really did not do anything up to this task, and she didn't do anything this time either. Usually when other team members screw up, it all comes back to PM, at least to some degree.
[QUOTE]

This phenomenon was even more striking on the Tethno-Expo task, where somehow Rebecca didn't notice that there were mistakes all over the place and the dang thing didn't have any kind of theme or attractive feature. The signs said stuff like "station one." It was her job -- in my opinion -- to make sure it did have those things and to be aware of and push for elimination of the flaws in indivdiual aspects of that task. Yet even though the whole thing looked like it was put together by kind of lazy fifth-graders, Rebecca wasn't called on it for a second. Now, there, I suppose her foot may have had something to do with it. But I think the big Trump crush has more to do with it, since history has now completely repeated itself. Once again, she missed the entire point of the task, which the execs articulated up front -- put together a song that fits our format.

The boardroom seemed perfunctory. It reminded me of the first season boardroom between Katrina and Amy when no one was really at fault more than the other but there was no way Trump was going to fire Amy over Katrina. In this case, Clay was the obvious third wheel. He also didn't seem to either be given a chance or try himself to present an argument--he would have had valid ammo against Rebecca for going with the unorthodox musician.

Randal's mistake seemed kind of overblown. Yes, it was a sloppy error. But it was an error on a project he took on his own initiative and for something that (apparently) wasn't released yet anyway. It wasn't like the whole project was the ad and that's all they were being graded on. I thought he took it like a man, and I think Trump was just trying to rattle him with the talk of firing.

Trump's boardroom monologue seemed odd. When he mentioned history, I eventually realized he was referring to Clay's past history in fighting with teammates. Originally, I had no idea where he was going. I thought he was going to channel Jack McCoy and ask if the team had seen the movie "The Third Man."

Trump definitely has a crush on Rebecca, who I think hasn't been the worst candidate but in no way has been the best. Felisha really showed her up in this episode. Rebecca has a talent for a snappy confessional comment and a quick and nasty boardroom crack, but I don't see anything else there that would qualify her for a job with Trump. I agreed with last night's firing, but I think Rebecca was lucky that Clay had been so obviously hard to deal with. Given that, I'm certain that he'll be back in the last task for some unlucky PM. Since I am an Alla fan, if she manages to get that far, I hope he's someone else's problem and not hers. That having been said, I can see her doing what Kwame didn't and saying 'Clay, you're fired (again). Get the hell away from here...'

And edited to add that it looks to me that Alla and Felisha are this season's Kwame and Troy. If Alla does make the Final Two, I think Felisha would be a loyal and helpful 2IC. If Felisha does, I think that Ice-Cold Alla would do the same for her.