THE CONSERVATIVE HIPSTERS

Raj Against the Machine

The Apprentice just got a lot less colourful. My man Raj has been fired. No longer will we have his wild-eyed schemes, bright slacks (I figure he calls them slacks) or shameless flirtation with the ladies to kick around anymore. Ding dong the Raj is dead. I don;t think Raj's real estate practice will be taking off considering that he went from 4 rooms to 3--intentionally. Not exactly a firm grasp on housing market fundamentals there, Raj. I think he just wanted the opportunity to knock down a wall with his bare hands.

While he put too much faith in the contractor, letting him eat his tacos while his chances of winning slipped away, he did totally redeem himself by asking Trump receptionist Robin for her phone number before he took his "elevator ride of shame". Well done, my boy. Well done.

So, Raj got fired, Apex lost--again, and I'm bored.

I'm just not as enthralled with this season as I was last. What's the problem? I think I've narrowed it down to a few things. Firstly, the tasks are basically the same thing. They're asked to produce something, they get a team of "experts" to do it for them and then they are judged on the results. Sometimes the person choosen means all the difference (i.e. the crazy designer Ivanka or whatever her name was). Unfortunately, it just puts the teams in a management role and the outcome is based on one particular mistake, etc. That's all fair--evaluating mistakes is probably a good basis for deciding whether to fire someone--but it makes for boring TV.

Secondly, there are so many people on each team who contribute NOTHING to each task. They vary from each episode, but the issues in the BOREDroom are always about one particular person or event. Not the team as a whole. When they list off the candidates who weren't picked in the Boardroom to go back up to the suite, there's always one or two who I didn't even know were there! I think a lot of them are just plain subpar and boring to watch.

Thirdly, I'm getting repetitive stress disorder from the way each episode goes down:

• Project Manager (PM) is choosen.
• PM talks to team--gives ideas.
• Team criticizes PM for their ideas, think direction is wrong.
• (Losing) team put in lackluster effort, loses.
• Team members state "if they only did it my way..."
• Team goes in Boardroom, decries PM's "lack of leadership"
• PM is fired.

I know, there were a few exceptions to that rule (Bradford, Stacie J, etc), but it is the norm. Most team members, regardless of the validity of the PM's ideas or leadership style, just talk about how "everything is drifting". It gets tired after a while. Being a good candidate also means working well in a team environment--not just being a contrarian.

Anyway, I thought Apex deserved to lose, and Chris is obviously not reading this blog. He was in the clear, was being asked to go backup to the suite when he HAD to open his mouth and badmouth his team. Big mistake. DT hates disloyalty and he hates people who talk for no reason. As he's the PM next time around, I'm assuming the Bronx mouthpiece will be punted. No big loss.

I'm hoping things pick up, becuase I don't want to have to resort to watch "Desperate Housewives" for my fill of exciting TV.