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Monday, January 29, 2007
3:44 pm
39 Comments
Since its inception several years ago, The Apprentice has been notable for its clever (or not so clever) editing. We usually within 15 minutes which team is going to win, and also who is most likely to get fired. As if that was bad enough, this week gave us a new treat – previews told us to expect the first ever “Apprentice Romance,” and showed two indistinguishable people snuggling/kissing poolside. Yet nothing ever happened! I realize that so far this is turning out to be the worst season to date, but the least the editors/producers could do is follow-through on their promises of an Apprentice showmance. For shame.Last week on the Apprentice, Michelle resigned after leading her team (cleverly disguised as waiters) to a horrible defeat. Even though she most likely would have been the fired candidate anyway, her resignation saved the remaining members of her team from the two dreaded words, “You’re Fired!” After learning that nobody else would be fired, Frank shouted and jumped around like the Yankees had just won the World Series. God I hate this guy. It’s too bad this season wasn’t back in NYC so Frank could be more in his element – shouting at drivers and yelling obnoxiously into a cell phone like we’ve seen in seasons past.
Back inside the mansion, Heidi gives Team Kinetic a small pep talk while outside Team Arrow drinks heavily and discusses cheese doodles. Frank’s only been sleeping outside for three days and he’s already reverting to a child-like state. Tim the Temp spends some time flirting with Nicole which is a sorry excuse for the “romance” we’ve been promised.
All of a sudden the phones ring and Aaron and Marisa answer only to find The Donald himself on the other line. Trump demands a sacrifice and that sacrifice must be someone from Kinetic to “step up” and move outside to join Team Arrow.
Team Arrow falls dead silent. Apparently nobody wants to go from “have” to “have not” status, because as you know by now, the haves have stuff and the have nots don’t. Heidi, Surya, Amy, and Marisa all volunteer to leave the house, and Aaron and the rest of Team Kinetic choose Surya, AKA The Hair, to move into Tent City with them. For the record, this leaves Team Arrow with only one man, Derrick, which as history shows us is never a good thing.
Poor Surya packs his backs and heads outside, and we get our first look at him in black-and-white Tent-o-Vision. Surya meets the team and pulls out a journal with his thoughts on how to right the sinking ship that is Team Kinetic. He launches into long list of things Team Kinetic must change. 1) Openness, 2) Clear structure, 3) Always be better, 4) Thursday night is curry chicken night, 5) Nicole has to wax my body hair 6) Frank is never allowed to speak. I think the Unibomber’s Manifesto was shorter than this. His speech seems to go on forever and ends with him saying “I don’t want to do something that’s annoying.” Yeah, too late there buddy.
The next morning, Trump is in a limo with a few business people and last season’s winner, Sean. “PULL OVER HERE!” Trump shouts to the driver, as if he’s unaware of the 14 or so people standing in the middle of the road. I would have liked this much better had he said “DRIVER, RUN THEM DOWN!”
Trump, wearing his orange “Go ‘Cuse” tie, introduces Sean and the two suits who are execs at El Pollo Loco. Trump explains that drive-through restaurants are a 200 trillion dollar business. Today’s task will be to create and sell a new version of the Original Pollo Chicken Bowl. Whoever sells the most, wins. Is this come kind of California thing? I consider myself to be a bit of a fast food expert and I’ve never heard of this place. I’m not entirely sure I’d want to eat at a place named for a crazy chicken. Sounds like bird flu. I’ll stick with Chipotle, thank you.
Team Arrow gets to work creating a new bowl, which looks like it’s a bunch of rice, chicken, and tortilla chips. They give it the simple name “Chicken Tortilla Bowl.” Kinetic on the other hand decides to throw pineapple into a standard Pollo Bowl. Chicken and pineapple? Really? Were there no thumbtacks lying around that they could toss in as well? What about a used condom or two? Like Mel Gibson and a Chassidic rabbi, pineapple and chicken are two things that should never meet. They also decide to call this the “Paradise Bowl,” because…well…they never really say.
Off in some office somewhere, Marisa and Derrick have apparently been put in charge of marketing. Marisa HATES the name and wants to call it the “Bravado Bowl,” which is possibly an even dumber name. I wonder why nobody suggested the “Filthy Disgusting Bowl,” because that’s the impression I get when I think of the combination of pineapple and chicken. Heidi quickly dismisses the idea. But Marisa still has more ideas. She calls back and wants to send chicken mascots out on the street to promote the new bowl. Nixed again. Then she calls back again to ramrod the Bravado Bowl down Heidi’s throat some more. Has she not seen where ramrodding gets you? Marisa is aggravated because her great ideas aren’t being heard. So she calls Heidi again. And again she suggests the name Bravado…I’m predicting the words “baby sit,” and “ramrod” are going to be heard at some point soon. The real confusion here to me is why nobody seemed to think that a pineapple and chicken combo is completely unmarketable.
At Kinetic’s El Pollo Loco, Project Manager Aaron is psyched and tells the team to get ready to move out of the backyard. All dressed up in their new uniforms, they get ready to start the day. Surya looks a little bit too comfortable wearing his drive-through headset, but then again, he seems to be one of the few competent people on Kinetic.
Team Kinetic proceeds to sell, or “ramrod” if you will, the Tortilla Bowl to every customer. Aaron makes an executive decision to send Frank and Tim the Temp out to the streets to try to drum up some bulk sales. I agree with the idea, especially since it gets Frank out of the actual restaurant where he is likely to scare off customers.
Meanwhile, Team Arrow is struggling to sell their Paradise Bowl. “It has rice, a roasted corn blend, our chicken breast, mango pineapple salsa, cheese and tortilla strips.” Jesus Christ, what doesn’t it have? No wonder nobody wants it, it takes a half hour just to describe it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this show it’s KISS – keep it simple, stupid. Sean comes in to observe and appears to be less than impressed with their selling and marketing efforts. Outside, Marisa and Derrick plead with the drive-through customers to try a free sample. Marisa reminds us that she really wanted those two chicken mascots. Yes, we know.
Back at team Kinetic, the lost manpower of Frank and Tim is hurting the team. They’ve got a line that stretches out the door and about 20 cars sitting idly in the drive-through. But Aaron has a good feeling that Tim and Frank are going to score a big sale.
Cue Tim and Frank bombarding what looks like a car dealership where they manage to sell 22 bowls all in one shot. Congratulations are handed out all around and things look like they might be swinging in Kinetic’s favor for once.
And we head back to the boardroom for the official results. The Donald walks in, now wearing his pink “Ode to Carey’s Swimsuit” tie. Does he only pack two ties when he goes to LA? He needs to put Andi to work. “ANDI – I NEED SOME NEW TIES!”
Sean announces the results and Arrow wins in a landslide. For their reward, they will head to Malibu where they’ll listen to Andrea Bocelli perform a concert on the beach followed by a fireworks display. Aaron will also remain PM until he loses and will also join Trump and Sean in the board room.
Over in Tent City, Team Arrow packs their things and prepares to move into the house. I wonder if they’ll be disappointed when they learn they all have to sleep in the same room. What kind of mansion is this anyway? Eight beds in one room? They might as well be in a trailer. I’d almost prefer the tent.
The two teams cross paths on their switch and Kinetic is shocked, SHOCKED at how they’re going to have to live for at least the rest of the day. Arrow celebrates the only way they know how – by acting like a bunch of 15 year old children and they jump in the pool, still dressed in their El Pollo Loco uniforms. Muna, in her one line of the episode, tells us that she can’t belief the filth they inherited over in Tent City. Thanks for showing up, Muna.
In Malibu, it’s time for a celebration. Forgive my ignorance, but I have never heard of this Bocelli guy either. El Pollo Loco, Andrea Bocelli. Maybe they’re both California things. In any case, Team Arrow seems to be excited by him, especially Frank who says that he listens to Bocelli every Sunday at his family dinners. Man I would hate to be a part of that family.
After they eat, Tim the Temp sits down and plays some piano and Nicole tells us that she thinks Tim is cute but “I don’t know what’s going on.” Is this the romance? Because nothing else happens. NBC is a bunch of liars. At the end of the night, the team is treated to a fireworks celebration of 4th of July proportions. I’m sure this would all be very exciting if they were children, which they sort of are.
In Tent City, Heidi struggles on her decision of whom to take with her to the board room. She asks, “what could we have done better?” to which Derrick sarcastically replies “Chicken suit.” Heidi says the only person she feels she has to manage is Marisa. Oh, so just because Marisa called 500 times to say the same things over and over, now she’s a problem?
Andi leads Team Arrow into the board room for their very first time. Aaron and Sean bookend Trump, who enters wearing…his orange “Go ‘Cuse” tie. Again! Seriously Andi, make yourself useful and get the man some new ties.
Trump wants to know who came up with the Paradise Bowl and says that he didn’t like the fruit and chicken mixture. I can’t disagree with him there. And for some reason, that’s the last we ever hear of the disgusting mixture that was the Paradise Bowl. Sean explains that Kinetic did a great job selling which is why they won and that Arrow didn’t push the Paradise Bowl at the register.
It doesn’t take long for the topic to get to marketing and Marisa’s failures on that end. Marisa said she had some great ideas that got shot down early on, such as people dressed in chicken suits. Sean says the other team did a great job with their marketing, creating a spectacle that showed that something was different on this particular day. Marisa claims she tried to do the same thing, but her ideas were all shot down.
She’s got a point when she says that the team didn’t think that people dressed in chicken suits would maintain the integrity of the restaurant. That’s right. The integrity of El Pollo Loco. That’s like Paris Hilton saying she doesn’t want to publicly have sex with a midget and a donkey because it would ruin her image. We’re talking about El Pollo Loco here, not Morton’s Steakhouse. Once you name your fast food chain El Pollo Loco, you can throw integrity out the window.
Marisa says her chicken suit idea would have been excellent considering they already have a chicken mascot. She also spends a lot of time interrupting every single person in the room. Chicken suit, chicken suit, chicken suit. Trump goes down the line and everyone seems to think that Marisa should be fired. Chicken suit. Christine says that Marisa needs to be “babysat.” I saw that one coming. Chicken suit.
Heidi decides to bring Marisa and Amy back to the board room with her because of Marisa’s failed marketing strategy and because Amy was apparently in charge of sales. Aaron finally chirps in and seems to think the problem was sales and not marketing. Thanks for chipping in there, Aaron.
Amy claims that she sold her heart out, even though they lost by nearly 40%. “Aaron, will you say something Aaron?” Trump yells. Seriously. This whole bringing the winning PM to the board room thing is just not working. Marisa mentions chickens again, and Trump just isn’t buying it. She interrupts Trump over and over which prompts him to ask “Excuse me, are you ready?”
Trump says he can’t believe she could only come up with one idea. “Marisa, you’re fired.” And that’s hopefully the last we’ll ever hear about chickens…
Strike that. In her car ride interview she mentions chickens a dozen more times. We get it. Chickens = victory. Oh well. If you go to your window right now and listen close enough, you can still hear her off in the distance shouting something about chickens.
I am a little bit surprised that everyone banded together against Marisa on this one when the real problem might have been Heidi’s inability to see that a pineapple and chicken combination is just plain gross. Oh well.
Did Marisa deserve to be fired? Will these people ever learn that ramrodding is NOT a good idea? And where the hell is that Apprentice “romance?”
39 Comments
The Apprentice is so boring this season. They spend like 5 minutes on the actual task, then 45 mins showing the people living in the tents, then 10 boardroom mins. Yawn.
Yeah, the “Have – Have not” twist killed this season, and probably the series (which was already on life support).
I hope the same doesn’t happen to Survivor since they’re using it too.
I’m disappointed. I really wanted to see chicken suits. Chicken suits are funny.
Bring back Carolyn and George. Pack up tent city. And for pete’s sake your in LA…when are we going to see the ‘Tanning Salon’ challenge? The ‘botox’ challenge? How about a ‘Be a Paparazzi’ challenge?
hb
OK, this episode is BS and shows Trump’s hypocrisy (surprise!). I mean, when Carey was fired two weeks ago, the team consensus was to get rid of Michelle, but he didn’t.
Now, the team consensus is to get rid of Marisa, and he does it! I mean, how could she really market the product if all of her ideas were shot down? I’m not saying her ideas were best, but she’s hamstrung if Heidi won’t actually let her do the job she was assigned!
Also, getting rid of Marisa was a stupid move, from the drama standpoint. As has already been mentioned, this show is on life support, so why not get rid of the boring, icy Amy, who nobody will remember was even there? At least Marisa would have mixed it up with Heidi and the team would have devolved into a terrible, catty mess!
If Marisa could have kept her mouth shut, at least not interrupting Trump, she probably would not have been fired. She definitely has Jennifer Wilbanksian crazy eyes. Chicken suit. There, now she has me doing it.
The show is heavy-handed with the editing. I particularly liked the fake car horns sound effect as if we couldn’t gather on our own that there were a lot of people waiting at the drive through.
Guest columnist . . . never heard of Andrea Boccelli??? Don’t you have parents. I think every adult over the age of 50 has a Bocelli CD. If not that, you should at least recognize him from his guest spot on Idol last season.
The romance thing was ridiculous. Nice that they think they have to trick us into watching.
I’ll keep watching because at least for me this show has no competition on Sunday nights, and I still enjoy it in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way, but this show pretty much has completely run out of gas. The same three or four challenges repeated over and over, like the background passing by on “The Flintstones”. Where are the great challenges like renovating apartments/hotel rooms? Oh, right, the producers can’t pick up any product placement money doing those. How about another “Zenthura”-like challenge. Oh, I don’t care enough to complain anymore.
2 comments. first- i too am SHOCKED that you don’t know who boccelli is. he’s only one of the greatest opera singers in recent times.
second- i am wondering why this flirtation between tim and nicole is the first ever showmance. what about nick and amy from season 1 (or was it season 2)? and smarmy sean last season with his little love interest? there have certainly been love interests on this show before. so unless we see some nookie, this is nothing new (at least in my mind)
Dear Guest:
I can forgive your not knowing about Andrea Bocelli. You’re probably about 19 and are into hip-hop or some techno. Never heard of the classics and never will. That would make you a perfect Apprentice.
You’re an “expert” on Southern California and never heard of EL POLLO LOCO? Hmph. Who are you, Paris Hilton?
Marisa deserved to be bounced. She was a pain in the ass and interrupts EVERYONE way too much by repeating the same thing over and over. Good luck to her husband-to-be.
The Apprentice is dead. Not even the feud with Rosie spiked the ratings. Nice try.
I’ve actually had a few dishes that included both Chicken and Pineapple. One word – DELICIOUS!
That Aimee chick that went to the boardroom with Heidi and Marissa looks like Ethan Rom, one of the evil “Others” from LOST, but only in drag. Next time she’s in the boardroom, do the comparison. Maybe it’s the bad lighting in there, because she doesn’t look that way any other time on the show.
Dear Guest:
Man, gotta go with Tony A on this — you’re an ‘expert’ on SoCal and yet you prefer Chipotle (bland overpriced gen-Mex owned by McDonalds and a consortium of McD’s suppliers)?! Ugh. I cry for you. If people can’t make it to ‘real’ Mexican, which is almost impossible here, geez, EPL on its worst day is better than Chipotle.
Please, TVG guys, can we get someone on A-LA who at least actually lives here? This is the only recap I *haven’t* enjoyed on your site, in two years… Thanks.
Whoa, whoa, I never said I was an expert on Southern California. I said I was a fast food expert. I haven’t been to CA since 1990, and I don’t really remember the fast food establishments there – thus I don’t know El Pollo Loco. I have heard that In-and-Out Burger is excellent.
Also, I am under the age of 40 yet over the age of 20 which might explain why I don’t know Bocelli…and I definitely do NOT listen to techno. Although that would make for a good challenge. Produce and sell a techno song. The teams could be like “Hey, let’s make a song that sounds exactly like every other techno song that exists!” Would make for a great episode.
And, it’s not “200 trillion dollar business,” it’s “200 TRILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS!!”
Jordan, I’m afraid you illustrate the point exactly. You haven’t been to CA in 17 years (and EPL was very much around then, I assure you). Again, I just think we really do need someone more familiar with the area and its current quirks to cover this. My niece is 13, knows who Andreas Bocelli is, and listens to a wide variety of music. I’m not bagging on you, we don’t necessarily need an ‘expert,’ but we do need someone who’s more in touch with LA, if one is going to write about it.
This recap did not make me laugh like previous recaps on Apprentice did.
There was way more stuff that could have been made fun of.
BTW, what was with that preview they ran last week? None of it happened. Was it for the wrong week?
All I know is that I watched the show in a room with three of my friends, and not one of us knows Bocelli. Generational thing? Perhaps. I’m sure he’s a very talented guy. After all, Frank listens to him every Sunday. And Frank is probably the King of Taste
I don’t see how knowing L.A. will make a difference in recapping the show. You’re either funny or you’re not. Do you need to live on a supernatural jungle island to be able to recap “Lost” well or live in Seattle to recap “Grey’s Anatomy?”
However, being culturally/pop culturally literate (like knowing who Bocelli is or at least hitting Wikipedia to figure it out) probably will help with writing a funnier recap.
Jordan,
Just checked out your blog. Slamming the TVGasm readers like that was in poor form, and here I was (sort of) taking your side. Not cool.
When the hell is this show on? It used to be one of my favorites, now I can’t even find it! By the way Jordan, if you’re going to be a ‘Gasm writer, you can’t take every comment/criticism personally. Every writer has a different style, and not every reader will like everything you write.
Meh, who cares if he doesn’t know who Andrea Bocelli is. It’s actually quite easy to avoid shlock like that. But seriously, when I first started reading tvgasm coupla years ago, no one was ragging on the writers.
That said… he makes a number of good observations. Even if the Paradise Bowl was a veritable party in your mouth, it’s not gonna be an easy sell straight out of the gates, especially when you give it a stooopid name. Yeah, there was some sorta tropical allusion there, but still did anyone have to explain what the Chicken Tortilla Bowl was, or to offer samples to convince you it wasn’t repulsive. Whyyyyy, was this barely even mentioned.
Marissa is a headcase, plain and simple. I can’t believe Trump was even bothering with that “I like her spirit”, “oh it was a tough call” business. Her tunnel vision obsession about her ideas being rejected just drew attention to how lame her “grandiose” ideas were (does she not realize she’s actually dissing herself there). If she had half a brain, and wasn’t self-obsessed, she could’ve taken Heidi down easy for allowing that crap concoction to go through. Idjit.
I could be wrong but I think she was being sarcastic when she called her ideas “grandiose,” as in the ideas were perfectly legit in her head and crazy to the rest of her team. In any case, some chicken suits really would have helped…
Hm, I don’t think she was being sarcastic, I just don’t think she quite knows what grandiose means. I mean she was really really REALLY fixated on the chicken suits.
Some chicken suits would’ve helped for sure, but she just came off as monomaniacal. Smart move would’ve been to shift the focus away from herself altogether by targeting the product.
You know I usually enjoy the recaps here, and I do not want to insult you Guest Columnist but this is not working for you and in turn, most of us. TVGasm I do not understand why this has happened that the humor seems to have been sucked out of this series of recaps. I really thought it was me last week… an off mood.. a bad day…… but now having re-read that and this weeks recap of Donald Trumps show, just to get a good read on how I feel, and I must say Jason leaves much to be desired. So much small innuendo is missed and he points out the obvious and his writing is boring.
Where is the twisted humor, the sideways innuendo, the evil digs that we all silently chuckle about as we gleefully read after anxiously waiting for the recap to show up? I know this show is not as fulfilling as past seasons but does that mean no one with talent to entertain there at TVGasm is watching it and you have left us, your loyal public, to the devices of a novice?
Was this voted on by us your customer?
Is this a test?
OKAY OKAY– is it the bosses kid??????
Please give us a break and reassign this re cap to someone else and let Jason go back to getting the coffee. Have we been spoiled by the likes of Flipit, Tink, B-Side…and the rest….??? ? ? ?
And Jordon if you need a job you should apply to the Arizona Republic… their level of writing is about at yours and They don’t tell both sides of the story and regularly choose not to check facts and follow leads to the end. Good Luck
Guest Columnist/Jordan – I think your recaps are hilarious and I rarely laugh out loud at work. Don’t listen to these people (some of these comments are really mean!!!). Also, I only know who Bocelli is because my parents are obsessed with him, but if it was not for that, I don’t think I would know/care who he was either. Not everyone listens to the same music! I’m sure most parents do not know who the top artists are today -why would anyone insult Jordan for not knowing Bocelli?
I would like to see some captions under the pictures though! They always add some personality to the post.
Can this not be directed to the “contact” section. Seriously what spoils the recaps the most is wading through all whining and complaining.
No doubt with more writers, the recaps aren’t as consistently funny and clever as we’d like them to be, but the main reason I barely bother with tvgasm anymore are the comments. Goes both ways.
Meow, you guys are rough. Was the re-cap shoot-coffee-through-your-nose hilarious? Maybe not, but I thought it was pretty good.
And why would the writer need to live in southern California? Who cares if he’s never heard of El Pollo Loco? Or Andrea Bocelli? Would the post have been better if there were restaurant and music reviews in it? Lighten up.
Andrea Bocelli is for ignorant jackholes who don’t know opera but think that this bozo is true opera, people like Frank and his family. And by the way, i’m over 40
“Thanks for showing up, Muna” — hilarious!
I think you did a good job with the recap. Agree that the funny captions under the photos would make it better — but quite well written all around.
That said, this season SUCKS. It’s evident to me how bad it is when I only know three names of the characters — all the rest just seem to blur together. This used to be my “must-watch” — now I just watch it because I’m hoping it gets better.
Also – totally agree, you’re filming in LA, why not have some flashy Hollywood-type challenges? I’m not trying to hate on LA… ok, I am a little… all the challenges are so spread out. It was way better in New York when you could win challenges by sheer quantity of customers, all of whom were right there on the streets.
Damn!! A few of you commenters are quite unfriendly. I think the Guest Columnist did a great job on recapping The Apprentice – hey, I laughed (CHICKEN SUIT!)….
So, she hadn’t heard of El Pollo Loco or Andrea Bocelli? Big effin’ deal. Want to bet she’ll forever remember them now??
If we’re lucky, we never stop learning. Be nice!!
Sermon over
the statement below is posted in the recaps and extras area of Television Without Pity:::
El Pollo Loco
By Jacob | Season 6 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2007.01.28
**All I know is this: sometimes on a warm summer night in LA, when the Santa Ana **dies down and all the tweakers are asleep, if you listen hard enough, you can still **hear Marisa, yelling about bravado and chicken suits, and that fills me with wonder.
Below here you will read what we have posted here at TVGasm by our Guest Columnist::
**In her car ride interview she mentions chickens a dozen more times. We get it. **Chickens = victory. Oh well. If you go to your window right now and listen close **enough, you can still hear her off in the distance shouting something about chickens.
Now I have a dilemma, I don’t know what to think but either way it goes, I think someone borrowed from someone…just a little bit!
Easy on Jordan, I thought the recap was decent, better than some of the others I have seen on here lately. when the show sucks and is tired, it gets harder to make fun of. Since when does not knowing who a famous opera singer is mean that you are not up on pop culture. Who gives a crap about opera? There is no opera on TV, and there is a reason for that. Jordan please also learn all about josh groban, pavarati and the greatest opera singer of all, enricho pollatzzo before next week. You never know what the great “prize” will be when trump on the Apprentice when something ‘UGE will happen in the boardroom that sends…Trump…off…the…hook
Posted by: GIFFORDSAZ | January 30, 2007 6:35 PM(#30 of 32)
“OKAY, this finally made me laugh. Layla, Guest Columnist is a young man named Jordan, something I just learned today.”
^^Whoops! Thanks for letting me know, GIFFORDSAZ! My apologies to Jordan for calling him a “she” =)
I actually visited HIS site today (Jordan’s) and while perusing the site, I DID get the impression that “she” was actually a “he”. Okay, now I’ve confused myself
Regardless, someone above (Jason R) mentioned that Jordan slammed TVgasm readers on his site and I did not see that at all…I looked and looked. No evidence of slamming.
Re: The Apprentice – I forgot to ask if anyone else dislikes Heidi. Am I alone here?? Also, this week’s boardroom was horrid to me! The editing was so choppy.
The Apprentice has turned into a train wreck of a show. I’ll continue to watch it though…just for the unintentionally funny moments.
Jordan, thought the recap was awesome (BTW, Bocelli was on American Idol last year).
thought it was odd that the team’s prize was to eat outside on a beach when they had been eating outside every day as part of their punishment for not winning.
The recap was fine.
But the show was just plain boring. They only showed a few minutes of the challenge and then it suddenly shifted to boardroom where we knew who won and who was going home already.
I don’t see how they can have a recapper who doesn’t know Bocelli. He was on Idol last year! You need to learn your tv shows recapper, because you sure don’t.
Swim suit designers, tour guides, and now test kitchen chefs? When exactly do we get to see some of these high-octane MBAs and law degrees in action? Marisa was a nag-there’s no doubt about it. But something is usually better than nothing (which seemed to be Heidi’s strategy) when it comes to marketing a product. Though it may not have been effective at enticing diners to buy that unholy concoction, watching Marisa waddling around in a chicken suit would have been hilarious. BTW, what the hell does a class action lawyer know about marketing fast food products anyway?
Heidi should have been summarily fired for this wrongful delegation of duties. And she might have been, had Marisa trained her weapon (her non-stop mouth) upon Heidi in the board room, and pointed out her deficiencies as team leader. Instead, she sprayed pot shots at Amy and dragged her into the tussle. This diverted Trump’s glower away from Marisa, and back to her again, as she repeatedly interrupted the Donald. If Trump, the etiquette freak, has a hard-on for people who wear hats indoors, then you’ve got to figure that he really hates subordinates who interrupt him in public.
I think team Aarow won only by luck. The bulk-sales move is fine…as long as it doesn’t detract from your bread and butter sales, which it obviously did. It was an error to deploy two people to do the job of one. They needed manpower in place to move asses through the drive-thru line as quickly and efficiently as possible. Who could know how many sales they lost, as pissed-off clients left the line, and bought lunch elsewhere? I’m with Surya on this one…and as usual, Frank’s with stupid. With every passing episode I grow do despise this inept lout more and more. He reminds me of a cross between Tony Danza and Carl the landscaper from Caddyshack.
I hate to sound like an accountant, but this show’s methodology for calculating success or failure on tasks like this is totally flawed and unfair. They shouldn’t merely measure the net sales, but rather rather the sales increase (or decrease)-beyond what the store usually sells-because of the team’s efforts. How do we know that store “A” doesn’t typically outperform store “B” every day of the week? It’s completely possible that Aaron’s team produced higher net sales than Marisa’s team, but grossly underperformed the store’s usual production levels. Rigged competition or lame-brained concept design: you decide.
Just a few thoughts…
I think Guest Columnist/Jordan is doing a pretty good job, he’s new and deserves some time to find his groove. B-Side, J-Unit and the “veterans” have been honing their craft for a long time, and have built a loyal fan-base among us posters – but they can’t do it ALL!
One thing I really don’t like about this format is the fact the PM, stays the PM task after task. Heidi had a dynamic group, which was the luck of the draw. I don’t see how Heidi has shown any real skill-set or above average talent.
In my opinion Heidi should have been fired for two reasons: First she committed the cardinal sin of sales and marketing – she failed to consider the tastes and habits of her target market. Second, she had no cohesive marketing strategy in place that created excitement, call to action or benefit to the buyer.
Marisa was out of line in her constant interruptions, but she did not actually fail at her task. She was shut down, and shot down, by Heidi from the beginning. Her objections and concerns were correct. Again, since these tasks tend to hinge on market positioning, WHY didn’t Heidi personally intervene and get more “hands-on” in that aspect of the job?
Heidi is the type of woman I dread dealing with in business, she has a huge ego and bad judgement.
Bocelli is NOT opera. I like Frank, he’s a nut-job just like Trump.
I’ll be looking forward to your next recap Jordan! Hang in there!
I am in total agreement with you conrad5 on a couple of things.
First, who is to say store A doesn’t out-perform store B every day of the week? I greatly dislike challenges like these. The results are always bogus and questionable.
Although saying that I would have to say the meager “signage” and balloons greatly attracted a bit more attention to store A in this instance. And then saying THIS, I would have to say the marketing/advertising team SHOULD HAVE BEEN fired because they did NOTHING other than complain about NOT getting a chicken suit. Seriously, a few balloons tied to an enter sign would have been SOMETHING. Instead the entire team settled for nothing (which Heidi allowed simply to have a finger to point at someone other than herself). Everyone sucked on this team . . . just as everyone has sucked on the other team for a few weeks.
Which is my second point I agree with — Arrow was lucky on this challenge because they are all still total idiots. This entire season is filled with losers. This makes me dislike the fact that Aaron now thinks he has won two challenges. The moron sent out two people to make a bulk sale – if he did this, shouldn’t he have sent them to different places?!? Did it honestly take two grown men to do this chore? It took two men to sell 22 bowls?!? Pathetic.
I cannot stand anybody from this season — it almost isn’t even fair that us loyal fans get this crap for a “final” season. I don’t think there is any way for this series to re-cover from this disasterous season.
And now for my final comment: I am rather surprised that Jordan/Guest isn’t familiar with El Pollo Loco or Mr. Bocelli. As long as you can point out Iraq on a map I cannot diss you too much; but it sounds like you might have been residing in a bomb shelter with Brendan Fraser. If you haven’t heard of some of these things, perhaps keep it to yourself next time instead of opening the floodgates for criticism. But in all seriousness, this show displayed yet again that it majorly sucked by promoting El Pollo Loco. Crap, crap, crap — much like this season.
GO CUSE!