It seems like The Apprentice is popular down under. I watched bits of it at a friend’s in NZ and Tony prompted me to watch it again last night – so I did, for about 10 minutes.
This review is based on fairly limited watching, but boy this show is weird.
First off, what exactly is the role of the two creatures either side of Donald? You know, the glamourous woman in red and the severe looking older guy? Their job description seems to be: “Sit very still and stare ominously into the middle distance. Act like your face is paralysed with botox.” They hardly speak at all, and when they do, it’s a bit like one of those old-fashioned Talking Barbies, where you pull a string. Words come out, but they seem oddly devoid of the spark of life. Maybe they’re androids left over from the last series of Star Trek?
On the other hand, the contestants have lots to say, which seems to consist largely of anxious shouting, a bit of slightly-implausible cameraderie and an awful lot of slagging each other off, usually dressed up in management-speak. They do seem to get very energised about important tasks like… er… introducing us to vanilla flavoured toothpaste. Just as well there are no more pressing needs in the world for them to deal with.
Still, Donald is a nice guy, after all he uses everyone’s first name. Whilst he remains “Mr Trump”. Hmm, they must really respect him.
I wonder what a visitor from Mars would say? “Forgive me earthlings, my command of your vocabulary is not yet complete. So this mixture of ominous staring and being nasty to other people, this is what you humans call ‘work’? We used to do what you call this ‘work’ on Mars in ancient times. But when we were down to our last few hundred survivors, we thought it would be wiser instead to create useful things together and explore the mysteries of the cosmos.”
Mind you, every contestant looks beautiful and they seem to have some very expensive clothes, so that’s good isn’t it?
I think I’ve learnt to see the beauty within people who may not look so great, but I guess I need to do some more therapy to get better at seeing the beauty within these beautiful-looking people.
Here’s my puzzle: with all this largesse in terms of clothes and living quarters, and all this attention they get… how do these people manage to be so completely… joyless?
Or am I missing something? Regular addicts please let me know.
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