JUST when you thought that you’d about had it with “The Apprentice” and all its imitators and look-alikes, along comes this season’s “Apprentice” – and it’s the best one yet.
The Donald is in fine, full-blown mogul form – with wind-blown helicopter hair proving, he says, that “at least you know it’s real.”
He’s arrogant, he brooks no fools and his contestants are the most ambitious, vicious, good-looking contestants that Trump and producer Mark Burnett have produced yet.
Everyone on both of this year’s teams have that all-for-one, gung-ho win/win attitude. Unfortunately, the “one” is always themselves personally.
There’s Allie, a medical sales manager; Andrea, a sticker-company owner; Brent, an attorney; Bryce, a home-builder; Charmaine, a real-estate consultant; Dan, a clothing manufacturer; Lee, a Brooklyn business analyst; Lenny, a brutally honest trading-company owner from the former U.S.S.R.; Leslie, a real-estate agent; Michael, a management consultant; Roxanne, an appellate attorney; Sean, a recruitment consultant; Stacy, a New York criminal-defense attorney; Summer, a restaurant owner; Tammy, a wealth manager; Tarek, a high-tech manager; and Theresa, a psychotherapist.
Since most of them look like they escaped from the Ford modeling book and have achieved great success, you gotta wonder why someone like, say, Andrea – with a net worth of $8 million self-earned – would bother to go work for someone else.
Duh! Making a million in a sticker business isn’t going to get you on TV and give you your season in the sun.
Clearly, for this not particularly likable (or actually, not remotely likable) group, too much is never enough.
Unlike most of “The Apprentice” contestants in the past, this group doesn’t even pretend to be polite to one another. Right off, they all hate Brent, who is quite a hefty boy. In fact, he’s already lost nearly 100 pounds on a diet he devised. And he’s carrying the only extra poundage of unsightly fat in the whole obsessive/compulsive group.
Conversely, everyone immediately thinks that Tarek the gorgeous is tops. And why? Because he looks like Orlando Bloom – well, if Orlando Bloom looked like a guy, that is. Added to this year’s lineup is Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son Donald Jr. (who both work for Trump International) as well as original Apprentice Bill Rancic, who fill in for George and Carolyn when they are “away on business” – which must be a euphemism for “not young enough.”
While we don’t get to see Donald Jr. and Rancic much in the first two episodes, it’s Ivanka who is the shocker.
No, she’s not some gorgeous (and that she is), airhead, Paris Hilton-type. She’s a Wharton grad who is as smart and business savvy as her dad, albeit much more soft-spoken.
That doesn’t mean she isn’t carrying a big stick the size of a building, however. Love that kid.
Don’t miss it! You will love to hate almost all of this season’s wannabes.
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“THE APPRENTICE”
[*** 1/2] (Three and one-half stars)
Tonight at 9 on NBC/Ch. 4
