# The Apprentice -- 11/10/05 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 11, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513 "2005-11-11T02:10:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/1 "2005-11-11T02:10:51Z")
They’re doing “Star Wars”? Way to pander to the nerds! (oh, wait, that’s us.) ---
**Author:** ![LilyoftheValley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/2 "2005-11-11T02:17:15Z")
Randall, you know you just locked up the SDMB vote with your adorable childhood fandom. Dumbass guy who is late for meetings, buhbye. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/3 "2005-11-11T02:23:01Z")
Yeah – how long had they been in NYC at that point that they’d never grokked “traffic”? ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/4 "2005-11-11T02:26:57Z")
Hell, I’ve never been in NYC, and I wouldn’t believe I could get anywhere in 15 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/5 "2005-11-11T02:38:27Z")
I’m watching with **Rysler** , and we both missed it – why did Marshawn pull out? ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/6 "2005-11-11T02:44:44Z")
If there was a better reason than “couldn’t take the heat”, I didn’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/7 "2005-11-11T02:47:58Z")
Hm, maybe there was nothing to miss… Don’t ya love the way Bill puts together unending strings of cliches? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/8 "2005-11-11T02:49:20Z")
I losing my warm fuzzies for Marshawn… but, by all that is Holy, dude, YOU CAN SIT IN THEIR FREAKIN WAITING ROOM for a halfhour rather than risk being late for a meeting. ---
**Author:** ![Susie\_Derkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@Susie\_Derkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susie_Derkins)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/9 "2005-11-11T02:58:08Z")
Marshawn, _noooooooooooooo_!! ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/10 "2005-11-11T02:58:27Z")
Okay, the show is over on the East Coast – spoilers ahoy! That was correct. They both sucked to a “nothing to do but fire 'em” level. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/11 "2005-11-11T03:01:32Z")
Trump is getting a little testy. He seems to be trying to speed up the whole process. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/12 "2005-11-11T03:04:32Z")
Well, can you blame him? A Manhattanite doesn’t leave enough time for traffic – and someone pulls out of a task and can’t provide any kind of coherent explanation whatsoever for doing so. I was with him on this – neither of them deserved to be saved. ---
**Author:** ![LilyoftheValley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/13 "2005-11-11T03:04:33Z")
The best part of this episode was Randall Does Star Wars in 30 Seconds. Alla really impressed me for the first time this season. She “steps up” (shoot me now for using that phrase), makes decisions confidently, and seems to have a plan. I’ve heard that other people like her, and now I can sort of see why. Now my question is how one team could come up with a room-sized walk-through interactive display, while the other team comes up with a cheesy looking generic thing the size of a posterboard? It reminds me of the “tethno” episode at the elderly home – how do they come up with such unequal efforts? ---
**Author:** ![LilyoftheValley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/14 "2005-11-11T03:06:41Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Well, can you blame him? A Manhattanite doesn’t leave enough time for traffic – and someone pulls out of a task and can’t provide any kind of coherent explanation whatsoever for doing so. I was with him on this – neither of them deserved to be saved. Yeah, both of them were appalling. If I were the project manager, I would have wanted to be in the waiting room at the time he wanted to leave for the most important part of the task. But what happens to the rest of the episodes? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/15 "2005-11-11T03:19:42Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Trump is getting a little testy. He seems to be trying to speed up the whole process. My thoughts exactly. It’s his fourth time through this thing. I think he’s lost all his patience with having to fire them one at a time and has now just taken to hacking them off in groups so he can hire Randal and be done with it already. I’m really surprised that Marshawn wussed out like that and I’m still not really clear why she did. It seemed like she was afraid to put herself in a position where she might get a lot of attention if her team lost. Somehow it seems to have escaped her that you can be forgiven in this game for trying to pull off an assignment and failing but you will NEVER be forgiven for refusing to try. I didn’t think Marashawn was that dumb or that gutless. What do you know? I was kind of put off by Rebecca’s offer to “step up” [note to mark Burnett , could you please institute a rule for future seasons that anyone caught using any variation of the phrase 'step up to the plate" will be fired on the spot? You would earn the gratitude of a nation.] It seemed to me like she did that purely as a game tactic. It wasn’t so that she could save the task or serve the client (her presentation sucked) she did just so she would have that card to play in the boardroom. It was false heroism. Did anyone notice how smug she got when Trump was asking her how much notice she got? It’s a small thing, I guess, and it _is_ a game, but I found it to be opportunistic and self-serving rather than virtuous. Oh…and hanging out with Rancic at his construction site? Worst…reward…ever. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/16 "2005-11-11T03:31:13Z")
Little Boy Gay is a creep, even though he really didn’t say “tight ass Jew”. I’ve no doubts when he gets fired he’ll mention being gay somehow in his TaxiCab Confessional. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/17 "2005-11-11T04:25:08Z")
My guess on Marshawn: I think she thought she was being strategic. The team was seeing their production in the flesh, and no one could miss how utterly _ordinary_ it was. You see the equivalent at the local Blockbuster every week of the year. So, her thinking went: we’re going to lose. It’s mainly Brian’s fault already, but if HE has to do the presentation, he’ll also get the brunt of whatever bad vibes come from that. The reason I say that is that she very clearly wanted to force Brian into doing the presentation. It was all “he’ll do a better job”, not “Who else wants to do it?” or asking Randall or Rebecca if they wanted to take over. She wanted to avoid doing it herself AND have Brian do an obviously bad job at it. Too bad, chickie. Trump admires guts and take-charge and follow-through. Failed attempts at back-stabbing your project leader? Not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/18 "2005-11-11T04:55:52Z")
This was the first full episode I’ve seen of this season, so I don’t know the whole back story, but… I didn’t think Marshawn should have been fired. I thought I remembered her saying that she didn’t know very much about Star Wars, and I thought it seemed sensible for her to encourage the guy who _did_ know a lot to do the presentation. In the middle of that Rebecca sensed an opportunity and came in – I agree with Diogenes’ interpretation of that one. I didn’t know trump could fire two people at once, so I was quite surprised and disappointed to see Marshawn get fired as well. The other team was better, though Alla got the shaft. (Side question – is Alla a non-native English speaker? I thought I heard a very slight foreign accent.) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/19 "2005-11-11T05:50:03Z")
Alla is from Moldava. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513/20 "2005-11-11T06:07:29Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Alla is from Moldava. Really! That’s cool. That might make her the first Moldovan to penetrate the American popular consciousness since…ever. I was banking on her being Scandinavian, since they’re usually the ones who speak such flawless English. (Plus she’s blonde.) Though, really, she didn’t speak too much this episode, so it was hard to really tell. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-apprentice-11-10-05/330513.md?page=2)