Deep Green Crystals

« A reader knows Raj | Main | More Kerry distortions exposed by Factcheck.org »

October 28, 2004

The Apprentice 2: The no Brainer

(i screwed up this previous post by editing it, so I am reposting it)

OK, I have been out of my head on narcotics after sinus surgery Tuesday, so I wasn't sure if I would be on my game tonight. luckily I didn't need to have all my marbles, the course was set from the get-go when Elizabeth got the nod as project manager. Some may remember that I had thought of her as an early favorite, but after her melt-down last time, there was no where to go but down. So here I am faced with Andy and Elizabeth as project managers, both people I pick to be fired sooner rather than later. This is going to be a no-brainer.

Staying with his over the top style, The Donald calls in this task on videophone from his jet flying to Buenas Aries for Miss Universe (give me a break). The task this time is to create a recruiting commercial for the NYPD and pitch it to Donnie Deutsch (from last year's Apprentice). This could be a bit of a brand tie-in as Dcorralut of the room when he came back from the boardroom last time, no-one expected him to live another day (but of course I did). Maria the advertising executive immediately tries to start riding herd on poor old Andy, but to his credit, he doesn't allow her too much room. This is his task as PM and he is going to run it. After a little too much planning, they have a shot list and Andy starts driving the troops (literally) against impending storm clouds. Maria wants more sex appeal. That seems to be her solution to everything. I am still distracted by those earrings! After shooting, Andy has a little tussle with Kelly over who makes the pitch to Deutsch, but does the right thing by letting Kelly pitch since Kelly has a personal story around service. During the whole filming of Mosaic's campaign, the producers never tell us the team message or their ad theme. That would have made it too easy. In the pitch to Deutsch, Andy and Kelly get Donnie (wow, they could be a 70s rock band) nodding which is a good thing. Their whole campaign is tied together with the question "when was the last time you..." Very cohesive and "to the heart" just as Donnie had suggested. Winner, Winner, chicken Dinner. Donnie says "it was not even close".

For Apex, Elizabeth gets the nod. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Unfortunately Elizabeth just doesn't have any strength of conviction and it becomes obvious from minute one. The team is throwing out all sorts of ideas for campaign themes and Elizabeth is just listening, repeating them and then moving on. She is doing nothing to corral the process. Nothing to lead the group through some process toward a solution. She even goes so far as to act like she likes one idea, gets the team half pregnant, then drops it. Finally Raj pushes a heavy military idea through. He went a little Stacey J. (whacko) on us for a minute there, but got things back under control. Elizabeth didn't like the military theme and wanted something "softer", but didn't have the where with all to convince the team and submitted to their will (the only option on the table actually). So they do all their shots with this military idea and Kevin and Elizabeth are in the conference room at 11:30 when she confesses she just can't go with the military idea. Kevin pitches in and works on ideas until they have one they like by 2:00am. In the morning Elizabeth pitches the total 180 to the team and the barf on it (of course). So what does she do? Back down! Start over! Now the team is in full on revolt. I think they should fire her right there and take over the team themselves. A coup is in order. For some reason it doesn't happen though and they let Liz finish the editing of a military campaign that she hates. At the pitch it shows that she doesn't really like what she is selling. Deutsch and his lieutenants cringe during the whole thing. He says "Now NYC is a police state?" Just doesn't make any sense.

The Boardroom. I predict Liz, Liz and Liz. There is really no-one else who deserves to go. Maybe Liz will try to blame Raj and Chris for the military idea, but The Donald should be smarter than that. Of course he is. He doesn't even let her choose people to bring back to the boardroom! He fires her immediately to "save time". "You let your team change your mind? Stupid." The Donald is 100% right. Another one of my predictions came to pass.

So I am 5 for 7 , batting .714. (thanks to Tom for correcting my baseball stats) Up this week!

Ivana, Chris, or Andy should be one of the next to go (although Andy got a free ride this week).

My choices for top finalists are still:

Raj
Jennifer

My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:

Andy - On Donald's shit list and will mess up again.
Chris - He is a boisterous blowhard.

Moving up on my scale:

Kevin - he really did his team a solid trying to help the struggling Elizabeth. Showed great strength.
Kelly - Solid organized guy with passion.

Posted by Martin at October 28, 2004 9:07 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.nwventurevoice.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/1538

Comments

Post a comment