Dull Season of Apprentice to end 4-23-07
In The Apprentice News, James Sun, Nicole D'Ambrosio, Frank Lombardi, Stefani Schaeffer | 1 comment | permalink
A Dull Season of Donald Trumps The Apprentice comes to an end
The curtain comes down on the Los Angeles season of The Apprentice tonight in a live finale from the Hollywood Bowl, and it says a lot that popular-entertainment TV’s biggest success story of 2004 is going out with more of a whimper than a bang.
A lot has changed since Donald Trump told CNN’s Larry King that applications for The Apprentice’s followup drew “more than anybody that has applied in the history of television for a show.”
There’s always been the lingering suspicion in business circles that whoever wins The Apprentice will be stuck in a cubicle somewhere, tossing pencils at the ceiling, but that was never the point. The Apprentice is a TV show, and in its heyday — remember Sam, Kwame and Omarosa? — it could be a wildly entertaining one.
Somewhere along the way, the fun went out of it. The prospect of a year-long job with The Donald lost its lustre. Perhaps it was The Donald’s constant bluster. Perhaps it was those increasingly ugly public spats, first with Martha Stewart and then with Rosie O’Donnell.
Perhaps it was the increasingly aggressive product placement. Perhaps it was the increasingly bland, milquetoast contestants. Or perhaps it was just that viewers grew tired of the same old routine, week in and week out.
This season’s change of venue to Los Angeles was intended to inject a shot of glamour and Hollywood pizzazz, but it had the opposite effect. Hollywood is an insular, self-absorbed town, high on style and low on substance — the opposite of The Donald’s familiar stomping ground of Manhattan, where the pace is brisk and the real-estate game is played for keeps. When major business deals go down in New York, much of Los Angeles is still sleeping in.
Viewers are over familiar with Los Angeles from countless other reality shows, in any event. All too often, this season of The Apprentice looked like America’s Next Top Model, without the models.
There’s a mild curiousity factor about what happens tonight, though, just the same. The Donald’s decisions have been increasingly odd this season, culminating in the twin sacking two weeks ago of his two most promising candidates, Heidi Androl, manager of marketing for a prominent aerospace engineering firm, and Kristine Lefebvre, a lawyer who specializes in sports entertainment licensing and mergers and acquisitions.
That leaves a weak field for the final job of Apprentice: 27-year-old computer engineer Frank Lombardi, who comes by his nickname of “The Mouth” honestly; 25-year-old commercial-real-estate broker Nicole D’Ambrosio, who refers to herself in her bio as “The Dreamer”; 29-year-old self-described “webhead” James Sun; and the logical (only?) choice, 32-year-old trial attorney Stefani Schaeffer, whose nickname, oddly enough, is “The Realist.”
The Apprentice News
OK, I found this quote from an interview that James Sun gave sometime during the filming of Apprentice. This demonstrates that James had other reasons for competing on Apprentice, besides the job with Donald. Probably why he was fired. Did it to Promote his own company. Please see below:
But the 1999 business graduate of the University of Washington said “The Apprentice,” which has already been filmed and debuts Jan. 7, could be a great marketing vehicle for his company, which just launched last week.
“As a Web 2.0 company, it is very hard to get mainstream exposure,” he said. “It is very easy to get your first couple thousand users who are tech geeks, but besides that, it is very difficult to tap into that mainstream market.”
Sun added that the people who watch “The Apprentice” — young, urban professionals who like to share their lifestyle — are a perfect fit for Zoodango.
What do you think?