The 2010 edition of The Apprentice, NBC’s business reality show starring and executive produced by real estate mogul Donald Trump, features entrepreneurs and professionals competing for a $250,000 job contract with the Trump organization. Each week the contestants must complete a business task. The winners are rewarded; the losers must report to the infamous boardroom, where at least one candidate will be fired by Trump. For the past 12 weeks of The Apprentice 2010, I’ve posted performance reviews of the candidates, their teams and their project managers. This week, at the conclusion of the final task, Trump hired his latest apprentice. And with that selection, I’m left wondering: Is it time for The Apprentice to retire?
Read and comment on other performance reviews of The Apprentice 2010 Tasks.
By now, it’s certainly no secret that Trump passed over Clint Robertson to hire Brandy Kuentzel as his newest apprentice. My response to that decision? Simply put: Clint was robbed, at least based on what we all observed during the past 13 weeks. (Again, there’s no way to take into account anything that ended up on the cutting room floor.) I repeat: Clint was robbed.
Final Task, Conclusion: Brandy, leading a team comprised of Liza Mucheru-Wisner, Stephanie Castagnier and Anand Vasudev, takes on the task of producing a VIP golf tournament, featuring comedian Kathy Griffin at Trump National Golf Resort in Westchester, N.Y. Clint, leading a team of Steuart Martens, Poppy Carlig and Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy, is producing the dinner gala after the tournament, featuring a live performance by Liza Minnelli.
Both teams pull-off their tasks successfully, but Clint’s team clearly performed better, with Steuart deftly handling the production of the dinner and Clint cooly resolving his biggest crisis, the misspelling of Minnelli’s name on both the concert posters and the dinner place cards. By contrast, Brandy’s team had a least three major blunders, to which they responded either late or not at all. First, Brandy failed to assign a complete foursome of golfers for Trump–her future boss. This left Trump with a threesome (including Liza) competing against foursomes and even fivesomes, making it, in Trump’s words, “virtually impossible for me to win.” Eventually, Brandy came up with a fix, finding two golfers to join Trump’s group on the back nine. Second, after asking Kathy
Griffin to greet the VIP golfers prior to the shotgun start of the golf tournament, the competition started before Griffin could do so–apparently no one bothered to inform the tournament announcer. Brandy’s team rebounded by having Griffin chat it up with golfers on the greens during the tournament as well as posing for pictures with each group of golfers. Finally, Liza decided to buy golf equipment for the tournament winners and smaller gift certificates of a few hundred dollars for the golfers, despite the team agreeing that VIP golfers would rather have $1,000 gift certificates. When Liza and Anand returned with the apparently no-name brand golf equipment, Brandy was incensed, but did not attempt to correct the problem.
At the end of the tournament, much of the golf equipment was left behind. Thanks to attending every Black Enterprise/Pepsi Golf & Tennis Challenge event since 1994, I happen to know that what serious golfers, especially famous and wealthy VIPs, covet from playing in tournaments is neither golf equipment or gift cards. The want bragging rights–i.e. trophies. Big shiny ones. (Winners of the Black Enterprise tournament also win the coveted Purple Jacket.)So, to sum it up, Clint’s team clearly outperformed Brandy’s team in the so-called decisive final task. Clint also has the best overall record as project manager, 2-1, among all 16 candidates of The Apprentice 2010 (3-1 if you count the Final Task). Brandy is 1-0 (1-1 including the Final Task). Clint clearly has superior people skills to Brandy’s, proving himself as a leader and motivator. He even earned the loyalty of the difficult and potentially contentious Mahsa, even though she evidently still has problems with him stemming from the events after Task 7. By contrast, Brandy selected her team specifically to avoid having to manage Mahsa. And when it comes to qualifications, there’s no contest. Brandy has a bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA and a law degree from University of Chicago Law School. Clint h
as B.A. in business administration in accounting from Texas Christian University, a law degree from Southern Methodist University and is a certified public accountant–with far more job experience than Brandy. Even when asked by Trump why he should hire her, Brandy seemed as if she felt more qualified to be mentored by one of Trump’s sons or by his daughter than by Trump himself. It sounded like she preferred an internship; not anapprenticeship with one of the most famous and iconic moguls in America. It’s clear–and has been so for at least the last five tasks–that Clint wanted it more.
So how did Clint end up getting passed over for Brandy? All I know is that I had a bad feeling about the Final Task as it was clear that it would be judged by subjective, not objective (for example, amount of money raised or revenue generated), criteria. I will give Trump the benefit of the doubt and not take into account the feelings of many (at least based on all of the #Barbie plus #TheApprentice hashtags I saw on Twitter last night) who feel that being a young, attractive blonde female gave Brandy an advantage over Clint. I also reject the argument that Clint’s country-boy demeanor (including his liberal use of the word “y’all”) marked him as unsophisticated and not suitable for hire. To have passed him over because he speaks with a southern drawl is just as blatantly discriminatory as it would be if he spoke English with a Spanish or West Indian accent.
My only conclusion is that the finale of The Apprentice 2010 is merely the period on the argument being made by many people (most insistently by Calvin J. Adolph, a frequent commenter on my posts), namely, that it’s well past time for The Apprentice
to retire, and that the concept that was so groundbreaking back in 2004 has become, well, tired. They argue that this is the weakest pool of candidates compared to those of past editions of the reality show (not including the celebrity versions, which would be an unfair, apples-to-oranges comparison). The prizes for winning project managers, which were eye-popping during the first few seasons, were underwhelming at best this go round. Even the finale lacked the pomp and energy of previous seasons. Instead of the finalists being interviewed in front of a live audience including their respective friends, family and supporters, this year’s finale ended with basically just another boardroom scene. And the 2010 edition delivered the worst ratings in the 10-year history of The Apprentice.The next run of The Apprentice will be a return to the celebrity version of the reality show. But it seems as if Trump’s heart, and that of the show’s producers, just isn’t in it anymore. Despite the disappointments of this season, I still believe that The Apprentice, at it’s best, can be a business reality show that is both entertaining and truly instructive for business professionals and entrepreneurs. If it can’t return to that form, Brandy Kuentzel could have the distinction of being the last apprentice.
What do you think? Was Clint robbed, or did Brandy deserve to win? Can The Apprentice be saved? Should it be? How would you change or improve the show? Weigh in with your comments!