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Celebrity Apprentice 2

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RealityFreakWill:
CELEBRITY APPRENTICE
Poker Face

This season of Donald Trump’s CELEBRITY APPRENTICE on NBC is filled with surprises and new twists on his old format. Last week he took the liberty of firing two contestants instead of the standard one and this week he surprises the final 8 Apprentice cast members after the Boardroom firing
with a secondary task. Being that neither Project Manager from last week won any money for their charity the show began straight away with their new task.

Team KOTU consists of PM Natalie Gulbis, Joan, Clint & Herschel. Team ATHENA is lead by the returning Brian McKnight and his team mates are Annie, Jesse, Brande and Melissa. The task is to create a retail display for LifeLock, a company that provides protection from identity theft. CEO and spokesperson for the company, Todd Davis and his associate meet with both teams and give them the guidelines for the project.

Natalie (KOTU) does a good job of assigning tasks and allows for an open brain storming session. Natalie is a bit naïve in some areas and welcomes Joan’s experience in merchandising. Herschel and Clint get to work on the art work and display and as they near their deadline Joan suggestions they use a comic approach utilizing each of their celebrity images to enhance their already incredible packaging and store displays. Natalie personally goes to Brooklyn with Herschel to secure that their art work is correctly formatted.

Team ATHENA struggled from the beginning as Brian tries to get his head back in the game after missing an entire week due to a concert obligation he had. His management style is laid back and having Annie on his team it made it easy for her to step in as the Alpha female and take over. Jesse (who became quite ill during filming) was joined by Brande to put together the actual display and art work. While they were at JCDP where their creation was being made, Brande embarrassed herself acting like one of Hugh Heffner’s girls next door flirting and coyly strolling around the warehouse. Back at the office Annie was in a panic because Brian was doing a poor job of time management; so much so that in the end their displays lacked much thought and creativity due to is neglect.

Joan is assigned the job of presenting to the CEO of LifeLock and does a good job of brand messaging and remains serious about the task at hand. Team KOTU is delighted with her presentation. Brian finally actually does something for his team as presenter. He strokes the ego of Todd Davis and makes everyone feel very good about their display. The executives meet and both teams are called into the Boardroom.

Donald probes around looking to see if he can stir up some trouble but Joan and Clint have kissed and made up and team ATHENA appears mutually supportive, although somewhat poker faced. The decision was made and KOTU wins the task and allows Natalie to give $20,000.00 to her charity, THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA. As team KOTU returns to their suite Joan shares that the previous evening Annie Duke told her that she planned to sell out Brande because she did not feel Brande brought much to the team. As they watch what transpires in the Boardroom Joan goes ballistic as Annie is utterly two-faced doing just the opposite….remaining neutral about Brande and working to push Melissa & Brian under the bus. Joan threatens to quit the show if Melissa is fired and she calls Annie a snake, over and over. A half hearted Brian McKnight all but begs Trump to fire him and since Donald can sense the lack of interest in Brian he dies just that. When the two women return to the suite, it’s on! Joan viciously calls out Annie who keeps a completely composed demeanor.

Suddenly there is another new twist and the confrontation is halted….The Donald wants everyone back to the Boardroom pronto. When the exhausted teams arrive, their boss tells them that they are to begin their new task immediately and the battling Project Managers will be Joan Rivers VS Annie Duke. They will be preparing a fashion show/auction to showcase Ivanka Trump’s new jewelry line and the team who makes the most money wins. Both teams are off and running immediately.

 

The beginning of Celebrity Apprentice next week will likely recap the posturing that goes on among the teams and I’ll get to that next time. But what I will say is that Natalie shows that she is indeed a competitor coming up with a strategy that may help Joan exact her revenge on the two-faced, snake with a poker face, Annie Duke.

http://www.tvgrapevine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3469%3Acelebrity-apprentice-poker-face&catid=74%3Acelebrityapprentice&Itemid=1

apskip:
I know that you did not ask my opinion about Annie, Joan and Melissa, Reality FreakWill, but you are going to receive it anyway. I think the behavior of both Joan and Melissa Rivers is atrocious. Joan behaved like a person overly mad with rage for someone whose competence could threaten her daughter's preeminence in this competition. Melissa behaved like a sore loser. They both should get a serious spanking for bad behavior because they are acting like 2 year olds.

Now, Annie behaved with much more task orientation and the appearance of "cool" behavior. However, she deserves low marks for ducking the $20,000 opportunity as Project Manager so that she can save contacts for the really big Project Manager opportunity associated with the auction. She showed little class in doing so. So did Jesse in this episode. He did not want to waste his high-roller contacts for Brian's benefit when he could save them for himself. In episode 1 of Celebrity Apprentice 1, I recall Trump firing Tiffany Fallon, who could have gotten a contribution from Hugh Hefner but chose to save it for later.

I think that behavior like that from Jesse, if Trump found out about it, would cause him to be fired. That certainly makes much more sense than the firings of either Tionne or Khloe.

Texan:
I agree Melissa and Joan were terrible.  Melissa being so upset that Annie was playing nice with the other lady.  And Joan having a fit because someone said something bad about her daughter.  And her reaction with her team mates I think showed them where they stand.  You knew they had each other's back but that proved it.

I think Jesse is going to be in trouble.  He is a good worker and smart, but the not wanting to bring in his donors it not a good sign.

apskip:
Reality Freak Will's recap above does a good job on the task specifics. My recap of the latest episode of 9 Contestants Left focuses more on  the interaction of personalities:

This was somewhat easier to watch than last week's travesty of justice by Trump's choice of who to fire and who to not fire (are you listening, Clint and Melissa?). Joan says that she is still really angry at Clint, but then later in the episode she goes out of her way to hide that and work with him amicably. Talk about two-faced. Joan also goes into tirades against Annie, who she says is two-faced because she is working with her teammate Brande rather than against her as she had prviately told Melissa she would. Melissa is also incensed about Annie, which I regard as natural since Annie is her biggest competitor. Both Joan and Melissa should put their energy into their work rather than running off at the mouth. It's time for at both of them to go home, but that won't happen because their unrestrained mouthing off, unpopular with me, appears to be popular with the producers.

The episode introduces the Company of the Week, Lifelock.   Don't quote me on this but I heard that NBC was asking $2 million for a company to be the focus of an episode. Several reportedly paid over $1 million. I think Lifelock is one of the few that got sufficient exposure to warrant that amount of money. Its CEO Todd Davis comes with Andrew to tout his company and provide information to Athena and KOTU. One of the key issues is whether Todd, who has historically been showcased in company advertising (his name and social security number up on billboards just daring crooks to try to misuse it), should continue to be. Teams had to craft a concept, specific messages, and some actual advertising copy in the boardroom presentation format. Natalie and Brian were Project Managers, although why Athena did that when neither Jesse nor Annie has been one I can't figure out. Ivanka states in the boardroom that Annie needs to step up and be Project Manager.

Teams struggled to do this. KOTU after much soul-searching decided to feature its team members with brilliant copy apparently written by Clint in the ad. They had to oversee the actual production of the display board. I thought their ad was witty and this team was well managed by Natalie. Joan and Herschel both made contributions. Herschel is pissed at Clint for his style in the handling of the team cell phone. It may be OK to have Joan against you, but Joan and Herschel both? That's not OK.

Athena was supposed to be led by Brian, but he was inept at thinking of timelines and what had to be completed when, so his team seriously underperformed. Annie appeared to be the actual Project Manager and she did as good a job of sherpherding critical tasks just in advance of the deadlines as was possible in the difficult circumstances.

Ivanka shows up fairly early in the KOTU work and her observation was that Natalie had to keep the peace between Joan and Clint. Well Joan's self-restraint accomplished what probably nobody other than Donald Trump could have. She did force herself, however distateful, to get along with Clint.

George visited Athena late in their work. He concludes that there is little progress and this team is in trouble. Later in the boardroom, George calls Brian's management style "laid back". That is the kiss of death with Donald Trump, who clearly rewards a hands-on active management style.

The presentation happens. KOTU is praised for their packaging design and advertising and for a good presentation of it.  Athena get low marks for its packaging and OK advertising, but Brian gives an excellent presentation. The judging emphasizes package design and advertising, so KOTU wins. Natalie gets $20,000 for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. It is time for Athena to be judged. Brian brings in Melissa and Brande, but both of them had made real contributions to the team. It was obvious in that choice that he was setting up himself to be fired. Trump asked if he had lost his commitment to the competition. Brian admitted that it was weak right now. For many reasons (all of them right) Trump tells Brian he looks tired and fires Brian.

So, is this the end of the episode? It wasn't past 1020pm by this time so something has to occupy the next 40 minutes of NBC air time. Trump calls the teams back to the boardroom and congratulates them on reaching the Final 8. Then he introduces the next challenge. It is to have a big auction focused around the introduction of Ivanka's new line of jewelry at the Fashion Insitute of Technology. The Project Mangers are Annie (who was happy to be competing for a big prize that is sure to be close to or more than $200,000) and Joan. It's mano a mano to the figurative death for big bucks!

There are decisions to be made on models, jewelry, clothes and acessories for the live displays and all of those are for sale at the auction except the models. The other decisions are which friends or colleagues to contact to come to the auction and bid those big bucks. Annie has claim on many high rollers. Joan wastes her time trying to find out who a big poker celebrity she can get to "trump" Annie. Joan, who cares except for the amount of money someone can bring? Fuhgettaboutit. Herschel says he can bring $45,000 and Clint says he can do $25,000. Athena members are warned by Annie that she will be taking them to the boardroom if by chance they should lose based on how little they raised for the cause.

The final segment Sunday night was the arrival of a mystery guest in Trump's office. Trump tells him to act as his agent in overseeing the auction, although it sounds that the role will be bigger than the usual "Eyes and Ears". It's obvious that Ivanka cannot have her normal role as her time will be spent being highlighted(EDITOR'S note: It looks like I was wong on this and Ivanka will still be one of the Eyes and Ears and Piers the other).  He is to watch out for Joan and Clint, who hate each other, Melissa who is obnoxioius, and Jesse who is attempting to continue udner-the-radar. This guest is none other than Piers Morgan, the original Celebrity Apprentice, who reminds the audience that he is only one. His expertise in running huge fundraising auctions is clear, so he is a good chocie for this special role.

So that's where things stood as clock ticked 11pm. Come back next week for the next edition.

RealityFreakWill:
Joan Rivers' blog:

Episode Seven: Lock it up and Throw Away the Key! (Part 1)

It’s the seventh week and seven people have been fired. I can’t believe how exhausting this whole thing is. I thought of Celebrity Apprentice as a game at first, but I realize I was totally wrong. It’s a competition! And what a competition it is! We are up every day at 5:30 in the morning, in the makeup chair by six and ready to rock and roll with our teams from eight until midnight, six days a week.

Our task this time was to come up with a marketing campaign for a company called LifeLock, which protects its clients against identity theft. The CEO of LifeLock, Todd Davis, is so confident in his company’s ability to protect against identity theft that he puts his actual social security number on billboards and trucks for all to see.  I figure either his company truly does what it says, or else he has nothing of any value that anybody would want to steal.

Identity theft is a very real problem, I found out. People’s credit can be ruined because of it, and it takes years to get your good name back. Before I heard about LifeLock, I was protecting my identity the only way I knew how…by going to the plastic surgeon every six months to have something changed. I figured, if a thief couldn’t recognize me, how could he steal my identity?
 
Our team, which consisted of Herschel, Clint, and Natalie, with Natalie as our project manager, tried to learn all we could about LifeLock in a short amount of time. We hunkered down to design some great marketing paraphernalia for them. I’ll admit, we came up with some obvious and very dull packaging.

Episode Seven: Lock it up and Throw Away the Key! (Part 2)

We made a safe out of paper and inside it we “locked away” our valuables. We also designed magnets, key chains and other little gifties to let “customers” know about the company.

Being a writer, I immediately went to work on the brochure and described how LifeLock has a seven-tiered process to keep its clients safe from identity theft.  I did the best I could but I didn’t feel very turned on by the subject. It was all a bit too butch for me—and I miss Melissa and Khloe a lot.

When we hit the board room, I was shocked to learn that we won the challenge! I thought that with Jesse and Brian, the other team’s materials would look fabulous and there would be a slick theme song to accompany their presentation, but that was not the case. Brian, the other team’s project manager, was fired.  This made me sad as I had never gotten to work with him, and Melissa said he’s the sweetest, most decent man.

It’s getting smaller and meaner and it pains me to watch how Annie, who did nothing but badmouth Brandeeee before—how stupid and worthless she is, etc, etc…—now allying herself with her. At first I couldn’t figure out Annie’s motive, but I can now see she’s trying to get rid of her real competition. If just Annie and Brandeeee are left in the end, there will be no question as to which one will win.

Smart! Conniving, but SMART game playing.

http://www.joanriversblog.com/blog/

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