Two Ladies & Their TVs

We love our shows so much we created a blog for it.

The Apprentice 3.1: "Whopper 101"

 Okay, I don't know names yet, so I have the official Candidates page open in another window.  But I may not remember who did what...

I also want to put a disclaimer here, one that'll extend through the season: I'm a high school graduate, and yes, I'm rooting for the "Street Smarts" team (at the moment; one of them may piss me off quite a bit later, and I'll switch sides).  The other Lady here is a law student.  I'm not saying all college grads are bad; just the arrogant ones that end up on this show.  Thankee.

The first two seasons of The Apprentice, men and women were split into two teams and pitted against each other.  This season there's a TWIST (oh, you crafty devil you, Mark Burnett!), and the two teams are split up into "Street Smarts" (Net Worth Corporation, hokey all the way), and "Book Smarts" (Magna Corporation, which reminds me of lava, not achieving second place in your class, and how come they didn't name themselves Summa?).  The Donald's back with his pink tie, as well as Caroline and George.  The first task (after pointing out that the Street Smart contestants make three times as much as the Book Smarts, so they can gloat over that fact repeatedly) is to choose from six new burgers, come up with a marketing campaign, and manage a Burger King for a day while selling as many said burgers as possible.  The team to sell the most wins.

(Before I go on, I have to say that when the teams first went to the apartment, there was a big spread on the dining table.  Included in the foods was caviar.  Man, I would so be Street Smart there, and sneak off for some peanut butter.)

In the flat, the teams went to different rooms to get to know each other.  Danny, he of the leisure suit, appointed himself CMO: Chief Morale Officer.  If I were on team Street Smart, I would have looked the other way and rolled my eyes.  And gagged. And he intercut much of the discussion on what to name themselves by shouting "Unbelievable!"  I swear I was paying attention to the show, but I have no idea why he kept standing and shouting that.  Unbelievable that he was there?  Unbelievable that he's not really a lounge lizard?  Afterward, they all retired to one of the bedrooms, Danny took out his guitar (I'm not kidding), and they all sang "Kumbaya".  Well, not really, but it was just as cheesy.

After getting their assignments the next morning, the two teams headed to two separate locations.  John from Tampa (hey, I used to live there!) was appointed Project Manager of the SS team, and Todd PM of the BS team (hey, that's fitting).  They then picked their burgers.
SS: The Western Burger.
BS: The Sloppy Cheese Burger.  Not really the name, but that's what it looked like to me.

From the getgo, it seemed that Net Worth had it all handled, smoothly and well: the team handled the marketing together, came up with a good plan (they went with a Western theme, a giveaway-- two round trip tickets to Las Vegas, made flyers), and then the entire team worked behind the counter, with three contestants working the registers.  And guess what?  They actually knew how to work the registers!  UNBELIEVABLE!

On the other hand, Lava split up their team and sent Danny and Stephanie away to come up with the marketing.  Once it was clear that the BK exec wasn't thrilled with what they'd come up with, Danny completely threw out their ideas, and proceeded to shoot down every single one of Stephanie's ideas.  Methinks the polyester is giving him sepsis.  Todd wasn't so great, either, and from working in the restaurant industry, I caught his mistake pretty quickly.  Instead of learning all the jobs behind the counter, as managers are supposed to know, he sat himself down in a little booth, appointed somone else kitchen manager, and delegated from the table.  When Danny cut him off on the phone, he didn't call him back and tell him to get his ass into gear (politely, of course).  And he only put two women behind the registers; one who had never worked a register before in her life.

That was Erin, btw.  In one of her balcony interviews, she was featured with a lovely pink bathmat around her shoulders.  And I swear she gave herself bangs after she got to the apartment.

Anyway, the next day, when they showed Lava's promotional gimmick, it was... Danny standing outside BK playing his guitar.  And I totally called to Mr. Calm, "No one's going to stop for him!  He looks like a street performer!"  Lines all the way to the back of the restaurant because Erin can't tap a button, and Todd couldn't help because-- well, I already said why.  Dope.  Net Worth, however, had peppy people at their registers, ones who knew how to work them, and the giveaway was a good draw.  UNBELIEVABLE!

In the boardroom, Net Worth knew they'd won as soon as Lava's totals were announced (I'm not good with numbers, can barely remember them, so you can come up with one on your own).  Yay, Street Smarts won!  Lava Loosahs, back to the suite to await your DOOM.

Oh, the winners got to go to 21 with Donald and his fiancee.  They ate in the wine cellar.  I wonder if it was cold?  Brian, El Big Mouth, asked Donald about the urban myth where he supposedly paid off someone's mortgage after they stopped to help his limo driver change a tire.  Was it true? Yes, says the Donald.  And all I remember is two "fucking"s coming out of Brian's mouth.  You know, I have quite the potty mouth (even more so after watching Deadwood for a season), but even I have the good sense not to spout "fuck" in front of my potential future boss.

Erin wears those fugly boots with the fur poking out of the tops.

To the boardroom!  Danny is chosen to be the scapegoat, because he came up with the lousy marketing plan and scared away everyone with his guitar.  Trump plays the card where he goes down the line and asks everyone who they would fire, and Kendra becomes one of my favorites (oh, what's happening to me?  I like someone on the BS team!) when she refuses to play along and names Todd, adding that if an employee of hers got out of hand, she would rein them in.  Thank God, someone who made it off the playground.  Todd names Danny and Alex to return to the boardroom, and Trump sends everyone else back up to the suite.

In short: Caroline and George both pointed out that Danny was being conveniently used, and it all came down to selling the burgers (or non-selling) that was the failing point.  So, bye bye, Todd.  Next week, we have to suffer through another episode of Danny.  UNBELIEVABLE!

Good Lord, I can't write this much each week.

Posted by: athenawj at 22:47 | link | comments (2)
reality check

Comments:

#1  25 January 2005 - 17:36

 

Kendra Todd certainly did drop the sledge hammer. This is a well written and fun article. It seems as though you are hooked on this darn show like me. I hate TV, let me say that again I hate tv. I am so darn hooked on this show I use it as training lessons for my company. Oh well that's my problem. I will be rooting for Kendra nd finally did some research and found her official or unofficial website I don't know. I think it is either Kendratodd.net or www.myhousere.com, if any one can help me with this quest I would be appreciative.

Mo'nonymous

#2  27 January 2005 - 08:15

 

Thanks! I love t.v., though. I would miss my shows dearly if I didn't have access to them.

I don't know about Kendra's official site-- my suggestion would be to type in something like "Official site of Kendra..." on a search engine and see what pops up.

I'm looking forward tonight; I hope it's not all hype and that someone DOES quit the show.

athenawj

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