Commentary: White flag raised on 'The Apprentice'

11:50 AM EST on Friday, February 4, 2005

By BRIAN MORAN / Special to WCNC.com

This week's Apprentice showed us who not to call when you need some event planning and it featured a shocking resignation that wasn’t really that shocking at all.

Last week we learned a thing or two about the high school-ers. Net Worth was exposed somewhat for their complete inability to debate constructively. The second any strife emerged, it turned into a talk show when the baby’s father is revealed. Brian was utterly hapless. But a big part of his demise was Kristen’s kamikaze mission. Her idea of deliberation was the winning formula of “everybody thinks”. Everybody thinks you’re stupid. Everybody thinks you’re a terrible leader. Nobody respects you. If he wasn’t so abrasive himself, I might have felt sorry for him.

And to top off their ineptitude in argumentation, Chris decides to blow a gasket just to get a simple point across to refute an otherwise flimsy comment that was just made to fill air time. It’s amazing how frequently people credit emotion as a good point. Often times, when reality stars are losing an argument they begin stating how angry they are as if that’s relevant. Annoying Beth from Real World 2 was a classic example. Arguments consist of facts strewn together to form a conclusion and the good ones even have a discernible point. They should be intended to reach the opponent, not belittle them. It’s clear that high school-ers see arguments as who can yell the loudest.

The point is this: maybe constructive debate is a learned skill and college is a great place to learn it. This Net Worth team might be clever in their maneuvering but not necessarily smart in their altercations. There is a big difference between clever and smart. After week one, it looked like Net Worth could post a shutout. Now, if this aimless aggression continues, the Apprentice will surely be one of the Lambda Lambda nerds.

NBC

Danny struggled to make decisions for the team.

As for this week, Kristen had an outside chance to throw in the towel but Verna was the obvious choice. In the least shocking surrender in reality history, Verna walked off the show in the first five minutes after doing some laps around Seaside last week. The bothersome thing is that Verna wasn’t really struggling mentally or physically at all. She was struggling socially. She was just having trouble with the adjustment to reality life. She blew it up to be much more that it was.

You see in their little worlds, I’m sure their often the center of attention and when they speak, it’s heard and respected. That’s why they’re on the show in the first place. It’s because they’re dynamic, strong and accomplished. Now when thrown together with seventeen others like them, it doesn’t quite work out as easily as regular life. There’s not enough spotlight to go around. Instead of embracing the challenge against individuals that could be stronger than her, she ran away citing exhaustion. Her reason for quitting was that she didn’t feel well. That’s why you skip church or blow off softball. That’s not why you give up an opportunity of a lifetime that less than fifty people in the world have had.

With all that said, it still pains me to see her go. I couldn’t possibly put into print how much I’d love to have the chance that she just threw away. Next time NBC, if you need a sub, give me two weeks notice to drop a chin or two and I’ll be TV ready.

With Verna out of the picture, the episode had an early lull. The task was to market Nescafe Tasters Choice, a new coffee from Nestle. Danny was given the helm of Magna while Angie embraced the reigns for Net Worth. Angie’s idea for a promotion was a pro-America theme. It featured a presidential debate contrasting Hot Coffee versus Cold Coffee. It was pure cheese. As cheesy as it was, it was clever and got a good response.

Danny’s idea was to pay an event planner 50K to run the show. Their idea wasn’t much of an idea. Every fifteen minutes or so, an iPod was given away because iPods and coffee go hand in hand, I guess. At this point, things are so boring I’m bummed I’m missing the Happy Days 30th Reunion. (Imagine this; your career is in the tank. A show you were on twenty plus years ago is having a reunion. So you get excited. Then you find out they buried it against the most popular show on television. It’s as if they don’t want to depress everyone with a fifty-something Fonzie. I really should have Tivo’ed it.)

The only real highlight of the whole show was Mike’s reluctance to do anything because of his exemption and the fact that they vetoed his idea to have European models serving the coffee. The gang was thinking it was sexist. I was thinking “Hold on a second here, you’re not gay?” After Danny tells him to help out with manual labor they’re doing in the very room he was sitting punctuating it with an expletive, Mike gets huffy and threatens bodily harm. The altercation that ensues was not productive.

NBC

Danny wore his red suit and brought along his guitar to an interview on NBC's Today Show.

Remember what I said about the college grads knowing how to argue more fruitfully. Yeah, ah, forget all that.

The fact that Net Worth actually had an original idea and Magna had about 50K worth of tables and chairs was enough to edge out a victory for the high school grads. Danny convinced his teammates that attacking Mike’s exemption was the best course of action. His effort had Donald utter these words, “Rules are rules. Danny, you’re fired.”

I could almost hear Mark Burnett off stage yelling “NOOOOOOOOOO!” It was a tough night for Marky-Mark. He loses his only ratings draw in Danny and he lost an entire show with Verna walking off which means I’ll probably be treated to yet another recap episode. They’re always a treat.

When you think about it, Danny probably should have been the first to go anyway but Burnett probably nixed it. He just delayed the inevitable because Danny and his Steven Seagal ponytail are sent jamming to an impromptu rendition of “Strung out in the Boardroom”.

At the end of the day, one thing is clear, as much as I’ll miss him, he was no Raj.