The Apprentice – Martha Stewart Version

That's what I thought, too. She didn't have much of a presence. And a thank-you note to the guy that got fired? LOL.

Plus, "You just don't fit in." The contestants just sat looking at each other wondering if that meant he'd been fired.

That's the big catchphrase? "You just don't fit in"?

Pfff.

I thought it'd be "Martha prefers... someone else", or something. (The one and only time I ordered something from her catalogue I got some idiot saying "Martha prefers..." everything, especially Visa.)

I thought the catch phrase was "Good bye". At least after she said "You don't fit in." Then it seemed she was still contemplating who to choose to be "fired" as she paused. She then said simply, "Goodbye."

I thought "goodbye" was an afterthought. Like Trump's "go on; out."

Shoulda been "eliminating you is a good thing."

Should have been "Get the f*ck out of my boardroom." Get some use from what she learned in prison.

LOL.

"Now you're my bitch."

I liked the first show of the Apprentice--Martha Stewart Edition. She appeared professional and polite. She doesn't need to be rude or cut-throat mean to the job applicants to put on a good show.

The candidates divided themselves into two teams. They figured out that there were two types of people present: corporate and creative types. The corporate types formed a team called "Matchstick." The creative types formed a team called "Primarius."

The first task required the teams to connect with the consumer. In this task, the target market was children and their parents who buy them story books. The teams were required to rewrite a classic fairy tale and give it a modern spin.

Primarius, led by Dawna as the project manager, decided to rewrite Jack and the Beanstalk. The team splits up. Part of the team will do the writing and the other part of the team will put together a focus group of children to test whether their book "connects" with the consumer before presenting it the the Random House executives--the judges on this task.

Matchstick, led by Jeff as the project manager, decided to rewrite Hansel and Gretel. Jeff immediately shows us that he is an obnoxious dictator who doesn't understand the task. He decides to "marginalize" his creative writer and write the book himself. He wrote a horrible rhyming story about mothers who are lame and kids that change their names. His goal is to impress the executives with HIS OWN MAGNIFICENCE while completely forgeting about the target market.

Of course, Jeff's team LOSES and Jeff is sent packing. "You just don’t fit in. Goodbye.”

There are several who just don't fit in with Martha's organization. The scowling Dawn immediately comes to mind.

I'm looking forward to the next episode.

Oh, I did enjoy the show and loved seeing that idiot project manager get tossed off. Who in their right mind would start the story by having the children want to change their names? - especially as part of the target audience is parents that buy the books.

I was a little disappointed with her tag line, however, I do think it fits her personality. I do like the advertisements for the next episode where she says - "My dear, there are no tears at work." I think the My dear works nicely and the tone is just perfect.

BBB
YAWN!

I will watch it one more time before looking elsewhere for TV diversion.

BBB

How about, "I'm taking you out of the oven now. You're done."

I was glad to see Jeff go. What a great idea to write a children's story, a la Dr. Seuss, but without the warmth, humor and talent.

Jeff --

I did not like you
not at all
but I did like
to see you fall

I did not like
the po'm you wrote
you silly, stupid
dumbass goat!


I'm betting the very strange Jim will be coming out of the oven soon too.

Ya know, that Howie is a babe!!!

I missed Martha Stewart tonight. I watched the season premiere of LOST instead.

I did, however, surf over to Martha at the very end and caught the final conference room "good-bye." Both the obnoxious Jim and pathetic Dawn squeaked by again. Their day is coming.

It seems the corporate side is more divided, not to mention arrogant, but umm that might be because of editing.

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I think the casting of the candidates is the most important feature in putting the show together.

All of the apprentice shows have common patterns. The characters are typically chosen because they are obnoxious, whiners and complainers, dominatrix, devious cut-throaters, creative, lazy, etc. The skill they all seem to lack is team leadership.

The shoes are designed and edited to get high ratings via conflict, not necessarily to find the best person to work for the show host.

I find them very predictable.

BBB

Well, I just caught a few minutes of Martha Stewart's Apprentice tonight, first time.

The task was to design a good hotel suite. Curtains, furniture, that sort of thing. Whe I came in, Team Matchstick was bemoaning the fact that the couch had not been delivered, leaving the room bare of anything to actually sit on.

Matchstick lost, of course. Maybe they wouldn't have won even if they had the couch, but they had no chance at all with no couch.

So who did Martha let go?

The person in charge of the furniture? NO.

The project manager because whe did not check to make sure all the furniture is in the suite? NO.

They fired Dawn, for no other reason than other members don't seem to like her. She had little or nothing to do with what went wrong, yet she gets the heave-ho.

Martha seems to make strange choices.

You didn't see the whole thing. Dawn did nothing. She refused to paint, she wouldn't get up in the morning - the rest of team had to literally drag her out of bed.

The woman that ordered the furniture did so under 8 minutes simply because she had no other option. The project manager left her little choice.

I think Martha was being easy on the project manager simply because she was the only person that volunteered to take the risk and move to a losing team. Matchstick has lost every time.

Dawn has been useless on every task. It wasn't just a matter of no one liking her - she was liked because she didn't work and was lazy.

You are correct, just a little bit at the end. So any info you have to fill me in is appreciated.


Okay, how bad was this? Because in the boardroom, it seemed that she was half an hour late one day. Not good, but not devastating either. But if the problem was worse than that.....


Okay, so it wasn't her fault. Sounds like the project manager's. It certainly wasn't Dawn's, (not that I am holding a brief for her, I just can't see how the loss can be pinned on her).


And Martha might have been taking notes from last year's Trump Apprentice, where players from the winning team went to the losing team and ended up losing.

However, my problem with this is, without bothering to tell any of the players, Martha gave Leslie virtual immunity on her first task. The way it is set up, you achieve immunity under certain rules, and Martha just granted it to Leslie without telling anyone. When she queried the other players as to who was responsible, the other players should have been asked, "Who besdies Leslie is responsible, because I'm giving Leslie a break here because she volunteered to come over to the losing team." Instead, Leslie got named often by the other players, as she should have been, and Martha had already decided to keep Leslie almost regardless.


It seemed to be the consensus she was not a useful addition. Funny, you look at her bio, she does charity work and looks like a well-rounded individual.

There is a tendency to think the individual who gets cut should in some way be responsible for the loss, which Dawn seemed not to be. It looks like Martha decided that it probably was Leslie's fault, (although the furniture was promised to be delivered by that time, if they don't deliver what is someone to do?), but figured that even with the loss, Leslie was still so much a better player than Dawn was that it would be an injustice to get rid of anybody but Dawn.

An unusual decision, but if Dawn was really that bad....

One thing bothers me about this, though. There were guys on the team, and the women look slim and trim so they probably work out.

They fully realize that they have no chance to win without a couch.

With a couple of hours to go before the deadline, what was to prevent Matchstick from

A) Sending someone to rent a U-Haul for 60 bucks or whatever

B) Sending a couple of others to go to the two nearest furnitiure stores and quickly select any couch with the color and general style to fit in the room. There has to be one in one of the stores. the project manager can send the two people whose taste she trusts most.

C) Bringing the U-Haul around to the furniture store, have four members load it into the truck and bring it to the hotel? The process could probably be accomplished in a couple of hours or less, assuming you quickly select the first couch that can possibly fit. Renting a UHaul doesn't take long.

Any couch that matches in color and general style is going to be superior to no couch at all-at least this way you have a fighting chance, instead of waiting for inevitable doom.