The Apprentice, 3/27/06

Cafe Society
21

At the end, Bill made some sort of comment that diverged from Trump’s opinion and then Trump said, “But I did the right thing, right?” Suddenly, Bill couldn’t agree fast enough. Way to be a toady, Bill. I’ve lost some of my respect for him.

I like Lenny. He probably won’t win but I hope he’s in the top four. I think his idea could have worked but it was so poorly executed. What was up with the crew member taking the castaway guy’s watch off his wrist? It looked to me like he was confiscating it. The presentation (by Dan?) to the judges really sucked too.

That said, I wish they had won. Synergy’s commercial was hardly any better and I so wanted to see them go down in flames. I really hate that they got probably the best prize of season. Grrr.

22

**Starving, ** well said! :smiley:

23

I hated that Trump said that the Norweigan Cruise Line guys hated the ad- no they didn’t. They said they really liked both of them, but one was clear and one wasn’t, and what made it unclear was the lack of voiceover. That’s the only reason Synergy won. I actually thought the Gold Rush ad was a much better concept, it just lacked in execution. In the end, Tarek’s insistence on no VO is what lost it for them, so either he should have been fired for insisting on it or Dan should have gone for approving it. I think Trump likes harping on Tarek’s questionable Mensa membership so he canned Dan.

24

Vikings.

The ads needed Vikings. Being fed at their oars, locked into a rhythm with everyone else on board, then “raiding” the new ship where they find enough room to get out of each other’s way. They could eat or sleep when they want. Get their beards styled or work out in the gym. Whatever.

The tag-line being something like “Norwegians have always ruled the seas, now they have learned how to do it with no stress.”

But I understand a three-hour limitation to the process…

25

And I meant to add – Andrea was really the Queen Bitch this time, again.

26

Andrea isn’t just a Bitch Queen. She’s an Ice Queen. Except…we saw her bawling that one time. It doesn’t make any sense.

I was worried for Roxanne for a moment. The editing sure made it seem like she was all over the place. But she handled herself well enough when Andrea kept getting on her nerves. For that she deserved the tiara.

27

I am starting to really get into how incredibly awful Andrea is. I think she’s positioning herself to kick Omarosa off the throne of “most loathsome ‘Apprentice’ candidate ever.”

28

This was a hard episode to rank, it focused so much on leadership and so little on what people actually did, not to mention my missing last week and having to catch up. So here it is, the latest Raj Ratings by Ronincyberpunk:

Lost in the Mine
Summer, Pepi, Stacy, Theresa, Brent, Dan

Panning for Gold - Hoping to get a break
Tarek - You’re back in the pits after a brief escape. Let’s hope you escape again. And dude, nice hair without the pound of grease, very… afro.

Got your pick axe - You’re at least working
Lenny - Oh how the mighty have fallen. I had to knock you down a notch. Your confidence is beginning to smell of ego, and your stubbornness is making you look like an ass. You had a good idea here but 30 seconds wasn’t going to make it work. Trump says he was going to fire you, let’s hope you take the reins and show them how it is done in Mother Russia!
Andrea - I concur with my compatriots, Ice Queen jumps down a slot as well. Omarosa beware.
Roxanne - You didn’t have clear control and much of the day was spent in what was shown to be chaos, but you ended up with a W so we can’t fault you too much.
Lee - The wunderkid didn’t do much this task except be a liasion of sorts. He attributes it to lack of direction, Dan says he didn’t find something to do. Say what you will but the kid is still around.
Leslie - Video background that you neglected to mention. Dan stole the reins without any discussion, but you should have spoken up about this.
Charmaine
Tammy
Sean
Michael
Bryce
Allie

Found some gold dust - It’s a start
No one

Cashing in the Nugget - On the gravy train
No one

29

What an excellent concept! I was thinking about people on one of those multi-million dollar yachts looking longingly as the cruise ship went by but my idea pales to invisiblity next to yours! You should be in marketing!

30

And yet the car ad that ran right after the show had no voice over, just text…

31

My impression was that they liked both ads, and immediately found one flaw in each of them – the ambiguous black-and-white beginning to Synergy’s ad, and the castaway in Gold Rush’s ad.

Those mistakes cancelled each other out, so the execs needed to find another drawback to one of the ads, and came up with the lack of a voice-over.

??

32

BTW, I’m sorry to be posting this so late. So far I’d watched each episode twice, once for pleasure, and the second time to assign points, and then my vcr picked Monday night to die. :frowning: Well, the new VCR is hooked up and I managed to borrow a tape, so finally:

How my point assignments fell out:
Okay, we start with a bit of overlap, not just the ‘previous time’ recap. Once again we see Andrea get offended that Roxanne dared say Tammy was their best leader yet, and then go all mouth open astonished/outraged at the explanation that Tammy inspires her team to want to help her win. I’d ding Andrea for that, but since I already did it last week, it’d be double jeopardy or something. However:

Andrea: -1 for not being able to let it go and instead confronting Roxanne over it back at the suite.
Roxanne: +1 for remaining civil and dignified while defending herself well against Andrea. Trump likes dignified and civil.

Dan: -1 The Invisible Man decloaks! Becomes Project Manager! Unfortunately he goes all hyper and starts spitting out orders at a mile a minute, to such an extreme that his team was laughing at him.

Lenny: +1 for coming up with the castaway idea. Yes, it was a bad idea, but all the others agree with it, and when everyone bends to your idea – even interrupting and cutting off the nomimal leader’s explanation of his idea – you’ve got sort of persuasiveness and leadership credibility with your team.

Allie: +1 for coming up with the idea of contrasting old school vs freestyle cruising.

Roxanne: -1 for not taking hold of the reins more firmly at the beginning. Andrea in particular made several attempts to usurp your decisions, and even the director had to come to you and tell you that there needed to be one voice giving the guidance/instructions.

Dan: -2 for not delegating or using his assets properly. He totally sidelined Lee, Lenny, Leslie and Charmaine, pretty much trying to do everything himself…well, in lock-step with Tarek. Even if Dan wanted to oversee the filming of each and every shot himself, he could have sent the others off to set up locations, find crew/passengers to play the roles, rehearse them…

Andrea: -1 for overriding Roxanne’s instructions in the couple dining scene, and general other attempts to seize control. (I think Andrea simply cannot take the backseat and be comfortable. A good trait in the owner of her four or so businesses, but a detriment to being The Apprentice.)

Andrea: -1 for not being on board with the idea during the cutting. Either she didn’t understand the idea fully or just needed to try to score over Roxanne, as she’d been doing all day.

Roxanne: +1 for facing the issue, and calling her team on their failure to support her fully. Again, done well – controlled and reasonable instead of being whiney or teary.

Tarek: -1 for coming up with the idea of using just captions, no voiceover, and insisting on it when challenged.

Lenny: +1 for correctly recognizing that the lack of a voice over would be a problem, risking leaving the viewer in confusion. +1 again for pointing out, again correctly, that they didn’t have the luxury of showing the commerical to the judges over and over and over.

Dan: -1 for letting Tarek’s views on voiceovers carry the day.

Win/lose points: The judges preferred Synergy’s commercial, and later Trump also sais the Synergy one was clearly better. Roxanne: +2, Dan: -2.

Tarek: -1 for his advice/consultation with Dan over who to take to the Boardroom. Tarek says he should take Lenny and Lee and calls it “protecting” Dan, when he’s clearly trying to “protect” himself from being taken there. Also for the mistake on telling Dan that he would have no friends in the Boardroom. Dude, couldn’t you see how Dan reacted? You should have sworn your own fealty loud and long until you had him reassured.

Boardroom:

Dan: -1 for saying Leslie never told you of her background in advertising, and continuing to repeat that after Charmaine and Lenny and Lee all insisted that she had.

Leslie: -1 for the way she said no one ever listens to her. It is one thing, and a demerit for Dan, when you say a particular person failed to listen to you when you said something pertinent. OTOH, saying this always happens points to a problem with you, and how you aren’t able to MAKE yourself heard, and flatout made you sound like a whiny little kid.

Lenny: -1 because Trump so clearly thought your castaway idea was terrible.

Tarek: -1 for Trump saying your no-voiceover idea was terrible.

Tarek: -1 for Trump ragging on you again for the Mensa/bad ideas dicotomy. More mockery – and not ‘friendly’ mockery – from the guy who makes the decision. Do you really imagine you still have any realistic chance?

Tarek: -1 for the way Charmaine and Lee dissed you for your overreaction to Lenny’s challenging the no voiceover thing.

Dan: -1 for making it oh-so-obvious you feared having Lenny and Lee both in the Boardroom.

Dan: -1 for still not taking Lenny when Trump gave you a second chance. Lesson for all: when Trump makes it clear he wants a particular person at risk, don’t thwart him!
Selecting Boardroom Victims: Dan -2 for taking Lee (innocent) while refusing to bring a guilty party (Lenny.)

Dan: -1 for saying you decided to bring Tarek because he didn’t say he was your friend. Very petty and personal instead of sticking to being all business. Bringing Tarek was right, but you should have said it was because of the voiceover thing.

Lee: -1 for having Trump call him a politician. Yes, Trump said he didn’t hate it, but he also said he didn’t love it. My personal view is that you don’t want Trump to call you anything at all that doesn’t directly relate to being an Apprentice. Thus being a workhorse or clever or creative is good. Being called a politician or a comedian is bad.

Tarek: -1 for another attack by Trump on how poor your decisions have been and how you’re a disgrace to Mensa.
Scores for the Candidates

Name : points for this episode : cumulative points

Roxanne : +3 : +5

Allie : +1 : +3

Michael: 0 : +2

Leslie : -1 : +1
Sean : 0 : +1
Bryce : 0 : +1
Charmaine : 0 : +1

Andrea: -3 : 0
Lenny: +1 : 0

Lee : -1 : -1
Tammy: 0 : -1

Tarek :-6 : -16

Fired:

Name : Score in final episode : cumulative score : # episodes lasted : pts/episode

Dan : -12 : -12 : 5 episodes : -2.4 pts/episode
Brent: -9 : -14 : 4 episodes : -3.5 pts/episode
Teresa: -10 : -11 : 3 episodes : -3.7 pts/episode
Pepi: -6 : -5 : 2 episodes : -2.5 pts/episode
Stacy : -7 : -7 : 2 episodes : -3.5 pts/episode
Summer: -12 : 1 episode : -12 pts/episode
Note:

Woo hooo! $30,000 worth of diamonds! Now that’s what I call a reward, not ‘pick out suits for down and out salemen’ or ‘have a nice dinner’ at some restaurant.

Interesting flipflop: Last week Synergy lost because their billboard was too confusing and there was too much text for people to read. This week Gold Rush lost because their ad was too confusing and they relied on subtitles that people would have to read. You’d have thought the lesson from just a day or two previous would have been fresh in Gold Rush’s minds.

Wow. Dan, I mocked you for being so under-the-radar, but in hindsight, it looks like that was your best strategy.

I feel confirmed in my calling Lenny and Tarek sacrificial goats in waiting – I think it was made pretty clear Trump is simply waiting for the right time to unload both of them.

Also, Trump’s comment about the lack of leadership in Gold Rush is telling, IMHO. At the top level, the teams look pretty balanced. Six people have been fired, three from each team, three each men and women. So far the imbalance hasn’t gone beyond a one person difference in team counts, so no need to do any sending a member to the ‘weaker’ team. (I suspect there will still be a team shuffle, and quite soon, just to stir up fresh intra-team dynamics.)

However, when you take a closer look, in Gold Rush you have:
Lee, whom Trump called a politician. Twice, I think.
Tarek, whom Trump has ragged on over and over and over.
Lenny, whom Trump called a comedian AND Trump made it pretty clear Lenny would have gone if Dan had brought him.
And the three high scorers on my chart are all Synergy players.

SBS

33

Thanks, SBS – I’d been wondering whether you were off crunching numbers or not. I like your scoring system quite a bit. Yanno, if you’d just present this as a spreadsheet, we could all get behind you to be the official SDMB Apprentic Candidate… :wink:

34

Thanks, Twickster! But I’m lousy at creating spreadsheets, so no Apprentice for me! (Besides being way, way over their age limit, I’m sure.)

BTW, I noticed I overlooked the second point for Lenny that was inside the paragraph, so his correct count is +2 for the episode and +1 cumulative.

OTOH, I nearly gave him a -1 for Trump telling Lee to tell Lenny he’s not long for the game… Oh, well, it’s all judgment calls, anyway. And despite his bulldozer attitude, I rather like Lenny.