Nuts and Dolts - 
by B-side
So NBC hyped up this week's edition of The Apprentice as the one where Brent loses it. I mean, LOSES it. You know, goes completely and utterly berserk. I could not have been more excited. However, after watching the show, I had to register general disappointment. That wasn't a breakdown. That was a tiff. An angry spat. Raised voices, some pointed remarks, and overuse of the word "stink" and that pretty much sums up this week's Brent attack. C'mon NBC. When you say blow-up, we expect big things. We're smart viewers. We've been around this reality gambit for a few years. We've seen chairs thrown, arms flailing, saliva projected. You can't hype up this sort of stuff and not deliver. It's this sort of phony marketing that's causing Apprentice viewers to flee in droves. Then again, I can't complain about being too savvy and then fall for stupid marketing ploys time and time again (let's not even talk about the last Survivor).
This week's episode of The Apprentice was okay. Nothing great. Nothing terrible. I knew it would be hard to top last week's total disaster on Gold Rush -- an almost magical offering in its multi-tiered bickering. Anyway, I suppose in an attempt to snag each and every Deal or No Deal viewer, the show started about a minute or two later than usual and eschewed the "Previously on" recap, instead opting to plunge right back into the action without a moment to spare. We found ourselves again watching Theresa's wonderful crash and burn in the Boardroom, leading up to her inevitable firing. Then Lenny and Tarek returned to the suite where everyone marveled at how much worse this Boardroom was compared to the last one. And if anyone remembers Gold Rush's first Boardroom, that's saying a lot.
Well, everyone was totally shocked that Lenny and Tarek were the ones spared by Trump. I'm sure most of them thought Lenny was going home, but hey, you can't get rid of Lenny now. He has so much to offer, so many people to put down. Leslie, however, was totally surprised by this outcome, saying over and over again, "I would not have thought that." Well, there are a lot of things that people never think of that happen anyway. Kind of like hiring a horse and buggy to trot around a Chevy corporate retreat.
Knowing that he dodged a massive bullet once again, Tarek told us that his butt was really on the line now. If his team goes to the Boardroom again, he's basically a goner, he said. Charmaine, meanwhile, learned that Theresa was fired because she didn't take her into the Boardroom, causing her to first ask incredulously, "That's why she got fired?" And then like a true shark in the corporate world, Charmaine retreated to her bed and cried. "I just feel so bad about that!" she bawled. Oh be quiet. You're happy, and you know it.
The next morning, Rhona made her first glorious appearance of the season by placing an early morning wakeup call. Everyone was to go downstairs and meet Trump at the buffet. For some reason, Dan took that as a reason to bust out his giant yellow scarf, which he proudly wore down to the lobby. It was like he'd yanked a drapery off the wall and flung it around his neck. Anyway, we eventually cut to The Donald at his buffet, examining the various nutritional offerings. "We serve a lot of breakfast in the Trump Atrium," he boasted. Okay, seriously, he's bragging about breakfast now. Is there anything he won't cluck about? I can just imagine him saying, "Our rotating doors rotate more than any other rotating doors in the city!"
Anyway, we then saw a quick montage of all the culinary wonders Trump's buffet had to offer -- cereals! Danishes! Omelets! And a random Indian woman! Might this have been Toral's long lost mother? The same woman who had instilled a sense of pride and dignity in her daughter so that she would never have to appear as Zip, the Dairy Queen mascot? No, sadly, this was not Toral's mom. She was instead one of the executives from the Post corporation, which was happily pimping out their new brand, Post Grapenuts Trail Mix Crunch -- or something like that. I couldn't remember the woman's name, but don't worry. I wasn't the only one.
"Standing next to me are two very talented executives from Post," Trump said. "Your names, please?" Wow, they were so talented that Trump didn't even know their names. They're that good!
Passion?
PASSION!!
Well, after the execs introduced themselves, Trump announced that the teams would be each designing their own billboards to market the new cereal, and the Post executives would decide which campaign was most effective. Also hanging around for this week's task were George and Ivanka, which was cool, but the low number of George/Carolyn pairings this season has been truly upsetting.
The first team we saw brainstorming was Synergy, and already we knew they'd be losing. Why? Well, first, Brent was on this team, and there'd been so much Brent hype this week, I naturally just assumed this team would be going down in flames. Second of all, the losing team always seems to be profiled first. It's not a guarantee, but more often than not, that's what happens. Anyway, Tammy (a.k.a. Andrea's lapdog) volunteered herself to be Project Manager since she had alleged experience in marketing. She immediately kicked off a brainstorming process, asking all her teammates if they'd ever had Grapenuts, if they had any associations with the cereal, etc. Lil' Allie piped up with her own mildly odd observation:
"That's all I remember about my childhood -- my dad crunching on Grapenuts," she chirped. That's the only thing she could remember? That's incredibly sad.
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