The Apprentice -- 2/3/05

I can totally understand wanting to heave Danny out a window, but still…you don’t say it out loud.

This does pose an interesting conundrum in that the person who clearly fucked up the most has an exemption.

Oh, this is excellent. “Mr. Trump – remove that exemption!”

Trump seems to have quite a bit of respect for the almighty exemption.

Trump made a good point about the FCC, though. They have to maintain some integrity within the game.They aren’t going to risk a “Quiz Show” scandal. I don’t think Trump would remove an exemption without talking to some lawyers first (and Erin’s “legal argument” made no sense at all. She’s supposed to be a lawyer? Feh.

All of this “rules are rules” stuff is pretty ridiculous, considering that Trump has played fast and loose with the boardroom rules of order in the past.

God forbid Danny try to reach a consensus.

Danny did not deserve to be fired. Trump should have broken the rules and fired Michael. I am outraged!

Whoa, Robin gets her own commercial!

I think Erin’s legal argument was “I’m cute! Tee Hee!”

It will be interesting if the group takes Michael down and stomps him.
However, Danny needed to lead rather than just hope someone would convince or lead him. He stunk.

Danny’s cab song was the best part of the episode. Here’s to hoping he gets to be morale officer of a starship or something.

Did the cab driver just tell Danny, “knock it off?” Bwahahahaha!

Is it my imagination, or is becoming PM either a gift from heaven or a virtual death sentence? Seems like lately (last season included) it’s only the PMs that get fired when the team loses. If the team wins, it’s an excuse to be a total dick.

Sure, Danny made some mistakes, but he’s a buttload better than Micheal. Danny needed a boot to the head sometimes, but no way he deserved to get fired!

I don’t think Micheal will last long anyway.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen anyone behave this egregiously the week he or she had an exemption.

I loved Danny’s song. “Carolyn and George were there, too.” Mmmmkay, Dan.

Also thought it was great that Nestle had that ad after the show, saying that you could go to the website and find recipes for the coffee drinks mentioned in tonight’s episode. As far as I know, the only coffee drinks they mentioned were HOT and COLD.

Gotta go look those complex recipes up.

Trump’s word has to count for something. He made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to renege on that, and the team shouldn’t have wanted him to.

I can’t believe they hired an event planner to do all their work!

Danny was a feel-good goof.

“Let’s vote on this!”

Sheesh.

Team Magna should have lost on the mime factor alone. shiver

Best cab ride ever.

Worst. Challenge. Ever.

If I never have to sit and watch them shill some crappy product for 15 minutes by yelling at people on the street again, I’ll be happy. Happier, anyway. BORING!

This is one reason why I really don’t like the whole exemption thing. Even Kelly last season coasted a bit during some of his exempt weeks. Nothing like this moron, but a little. And how many times has someone’s exemption come primarily from someone else’s work? Michael didn’t deserve it for Danny & Verna’s work, and he was a jerk about it this week. Obviously not everyone is going to take advantage of it (the guy last week didn’t), but I kind of think one is too many.

A bit? Were we watching the same show? He did nothing during any of his exempt weeks. When his head was on the chopping block, he was all about stepping up to head off problems for the team. When his neck was safe, he just sat back and let the rest of the team do any dumbass, counterproductive thing that occurred to them. His sorry ass invented the “exploit your exemption to lay back in the tall grass” ploy.

That’s one of the things that impressed me so much about John last week. He had absolutely nothing to lose if Brian ran the team into the ground and into the boardroom. He could have taken a walking tour of coastal New Jersey with his luggage a la Verna and he still would have been safe for the week. But he worked his ass off, and he took Brian aside and tried to defuse the situation somewhat, to try and give them a chance to win the task. Kudos, I say.

As for this week, I thought the election thing was clever, especially since this was taped last fall. Yes, I very much liked that campaign when Miller did it late last summer/early last fall. I especially liked the radio spot about the debate between the horse and the ferret.

What an awful episode.

Verna’s departure was pretty anti-climactic, and they spent too much time on it. I can’t say I blame her for wanting to leave–what with all the backstabbing and drama that is inherent in the game. But she should have damn well realized that going in. I’m not buying the “sick” excuse.

WTF was up with the challenges?

When The Donald first tells them about the challenge and they all have to meet him on the street corner, I guess they’re doing it out there to make it more dramatic. This is SOP in the episodes I’ve seen. But it just comes across as really stilted and awkward. Can’t they do that in their apartment or the hotel lobby or a conference room or something?

There was hardly any time devoted to showing what the teams did to plan their events. The whole “Book Smarts” planning segment just showed Danny’s indecision and Michael’s assholishness. Oh, and they hired an event planner. The “Street Smarts” planning segment showed… not much of anything. Did they hire an event planner, too? We weren’t explicitly shown them doing so, but their end result looked like maybe they had. What’s up with that?

“Here’s $75,000. Go hire someone else to do the challenge for you.” Real exciting. :rolleyes:

We saw very little of the actual finished ‘product’ as well. Very unsatisfying editing going on here.

Ultimately, Danny was inept and deserved to go. And choosing Michael to go into the board room with him was just the DUMBEST THING HE COULD HAVE DONE! C’mon! Did they really think Trump was going to change THAT rule? He might bend and stretch the rules here and there, but firing Michael would have meant completely invalidating one of the most important rules in the game. I never thought for a second that Michael was in any danger. Sure, Michael was a jerk and didn’t help out much with the challenge, but Danny definitely dug his own grave, here.

Speaking of Michael–he really screwed himself. I’m really having trouble deciding who was the bigger idiot, Michael or Danny. Michael may have been safe this week, but he’s alienated himself from the rest of his team and he showed the Donald what a horrible employee he would be. No way is Trump going to want to keep him around now. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Michael.

I hope next week is better.