It's Reality. Seriously?

Every Sunday night, I get the blues. Then I get in a fight. I’m not blue because I have to go to work on Monday morning, and I’m not fighting with my wife or my kids. I’m blue because I’ve just been stuck in a two-hour train wreck called The Apprentice, and I’m fighting with the crazy-haired freak on the screen called Donald Trump. And for the last two weeks, I’ve been yelling at the losing project manager.

If you haven’t seen or heard of The Apprentice, you’ve likely just arrived from your home planet, or you’ve been stuck in a North Korean prison for the last bunch of years. I find Donald and the crew highly entertaining, that is, until the last ten minutes of the show, when whatever shreds of ‘reality’ quickly dissolve in what’s called the ‘boardroom’, where the only certainty is that, ‘… someone WILL be fired.’ 

That’s really the only thing you can count on when you invest two hours in watching the show. In it’s current iteration, Celebrity All-Star Apprentice you’ve got a bunch of C, D, and E list ‘stars’ coming back for their second kick at the Apprentice can. As an avid consumer of pop culture, I find it hard to call someone I’ve never heard of a star, much less an ‘all-star’. I mean we’re talking about aging Playboy bunnies, models, and lesser-known siblings like La Toya Jackson and some lame Baldwin dude.

 

Seriously.  Who the hell are these people?

So I watch shows like Celebrity All-Star Apprentice with one eye on the entertainment value, and one eye on the work aspect, since the show purports to be about work and teams and that kind of thing. Whatever. This show is to work as Taco Bell is to fine dining. And just as I enjoy the odd late-night cruise through the Taco Bell drive thru, I enjoy Sunday nights with the Donald. Trouble is, they both give me gas.

If I’m anal about the work part of the show, it drives me bloody insane. For the sake of entertainment, let’s set aside the crazy antics of the team tasks every week. There is no way that any of those tasks even look a little bit like work. Even when it’s not Celebrity Apprentice (although I’m sure the Donald has completely given up on the real nobodies, and now favours the celebrity nobodies full time), the tasks don’t resemble anything like actual work or actual work locations, so I’m focusing on Donald himself and his pretend boardroom meetings.

In the last two weeks, Donald has commented on Lisa Rinna’s reduced lip size (your lips look better smaller, Lisa), and on somebody’s boobs. I have chaired a thousand meetings in my career, and I’m fairly certain lips and boobs have never come up. At least out loud. He regularly comments on how beautiful the women look, and he’s been known to talk about how he could never be gay. I get that it’s the Donald, and that it’s TV. But reality it’s not. At least not any reality that I’m a part of. I’m pretty certain that even in the US, Donald would be getting his ass sued every single week for the smack he talks.

Speaking of smack talk, have you seen this prize-winner, Omarosa?  OHEMGEE!  Omarosa is a treat. This bitch will take you down before breakfast and have your body eaten up, digested, and crapped out before lunch. If ole Omorosa acted this way in any company, she’d be done, and this is her third time back at the Apprentice. She’s a ‘celebrity’ because of her three visits to the Apprentice, and nothing more. And she’s evil. She doesn’t stab you in the back. She doesn’t even stab you in the front…she stabs you right in the face, and smiles while she’s doing it. 

Omarosa.  Not afraid to bust out the tears to take somebody down.

For three seasons, they’ve called her every name in the book, sent her off on obscure magical mystery tours to get rid of her, and plotted her demise. She’s a menace. For the last two Sunday nights, she’s been at the root of my 10:59pm discontent and outrage. Let me explain my dissatisfaction. For two complete episodes, Omarosa has been her usual self, and her team went on to lose the competitions on both episodes. In both episodes the project managers identified at various times that Omarosa was their problem…their weak link. But Omarosa the bully, on both occasions had the project managers scared shitless, and when required to bring their poor performers back to face the music, both opted to let Omarosa go free, and both brought back their stars.

I’m sure there were millions of other people screaming at the TV on Sunday night, and it was good to hear Donald and his flunky kids berate the project managers for their lack of stones. Then the Donald, knowing that the project managers were just cowards who were afraid to engage Omarosa, duly turfed them both. Bye Bye,  La Toya. Bye Bye, Claudia (whoever the hell you are).

I hate myself for loving this show. As mad as I get, I know that I will be back there next Sunday, and the Sunday after, judging the project managers for their bad decisions and the Donald for his HR violations and his propensity to create hostile workplaces and fantastic entertainment at the same time. Reality?  I dunno. Good TV?  You betcha.