I think it's fair to say that if not overwhelming, there is at least a little ripple of UK interest in the US Apprentice - but as a warm up for the coming BBC series - which will be liveblogged here every week, of course - and in advance of the British Comic Relief celebrity edition, and because we really do have some US readers (honest!) ... we thought I might as well liveblog the US (Celebrity) Apprentice.
Just for the hell of it.
So last week was the first episode, when I spent the whole thing trying to work out who everyone is. This week: I've stopped caring, pretty much, who everyone is: and decided to take them for what they are: Apprentice candidates.
And thus I felt the unerring compulsion to liveblog their every move (it's a nasty habit, what can I say?)
For American viewers finding this liveblog of The (US) Celebrity Apprentice, please bear in mind it's a British take on the US show, so not only might I be referencing strange and mythical beings by the name of Surallun - (Sir Alan Sugar - our version of Donald Trump), and Saint Nick and the Blessed Margaret (his right and left hand associates - the chairs which, in your lovely US version are filled with Trump-seed: Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka) - but other than that, let us now turn entirely to The Apprentice US style: and liveblog it.
9.05pm, somewhere: For now - by the way, we're doing this on Pacific Time, because that's where I live. In a few weeks we'll start doing it on EST. Sorry, I'll stop faffing about and get on with it.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS] - say my subtitles, and they're not kidding.
Donald Trump is in a helicopter, explaining why they're all there. To raise money for charity. Well, that's what he says, but I think we all know the real reason we're here: to laugh at celebrities (while they raise money for charity on our behalf).
"16 Celebrities are fighting to meet the challenge ... Any Way they can. Managers: GONE. Assistants: GONE. They're on their own ... in the toughest challenge of their careers."
Says the voiceover, which rumbles on in epic movie trailer style: and lasts for at least the first three minutes.
"LAST WEEK ON THE APPRENTICE!" continues the deep booming voice of ... well, quite possibly God himself. There is a recap. It lasts three more minutes. Here is my version:
They sold cupcakes, the girls won, a man by the name of Andrew Dice Clay got fired. Further investigation discovered him to be a filthy comedian last famous twety years ago. And after that, he slipped quickly out of our consciousness once more to the extent I now can't remember what he looked like, except something about it being quite like a melted Elvis.
9.10pm: Last week Joan Rivers was project manager when the girls won, as as such, all the money raised by the team that week goes to her charity of choice. We see her taking a helpful meal to a single mother with cancer - one of the beneficiaries of God's Love We Deliver, the charity she's working with. And then we see her delivering a $125,000 cheque to the woman who runs the charity. And it is very lovely, but we do not cry, because it is far too early in the series for that kind of behaviour.
Besides, if we cry, we might miss out on catching sight of the wonder that is Donald Trump's hair. Which surely must be coming up ... after this break.
9.15pm: In the hall of some grand building, Donald Trump arrives with his children (sorry, trusted advisors) a stranger, and his hair.
The teams, in order to publicise his online shopping site, explains the stranger, will work with artists, editors, writers and other such wishy-washy creative types to create a comic book character to help publicise the fact that his site sells ... comic books? No. Toys? No. Anything else to do with comic book characters? You'd think so, but ... well ... no. They sell clothes and shoes.
This of course makes sense - I just don't understand it because I'm not a marketing guru. I'm also slightly unclear on why you'd ask a bunch of ex-sports stars, comedians and reality show stars.
Team managers: Khloe Kardashian (reality show star and 'celebutante') for Team Athena ...
Scott Hamilton tiny person and Figure Skating Champion.
9.20pm: We've been through the initial meetings and know nothing more about what the point of this comic book character might be (mind working overtime trying to imagine it though: "Ha-HA! I am Captain Shoeseller! I have come not to save the world, but to sell shoes! Would you like some shoes? SHOES!" - I sense Spiderman will not be quaking in his tights)
We know the women seem to want to talk a lot, and all at the same time. And that if we don't get to see Joan 'Suckerface' Rivers the Elder (for Suckerface Rivers the elder AND her daughter Suckerface Jr are both in this season) in that leopardprint monstrosity she's carrying around under her arm some time this episode, I will complain. We also know that Khloe has been chosen as project manager because she nominally owns a fashion boutique. We sense this will not actually help in the long run.
We know that the boys team are already grumpy with each other, and it's only first thing in the morning. Tom Green (a 'comedian' - he used to be married to Drew Barrymore too, if that helps) and Scott look like they might be kicking off. Dennis Rodman, by far the most famous of the group, looks like he'll be doing nothing. Again.
9.30pm: I was wrong about Dennis. Coming back into the brainstorming meeting, he's storming ahead with ideas. Well, an idea: "We need a transvestite! A superhero transvestite, he fights in women's clothing, and shoes! And it's ALL about the gay people, and it's great, because he's a hero - and, you know, he's in a dress, he wants to have sex, and ..." and he goes on for quite a while.
Scott sits, nodding and smiling, and saying in cutaway scenes that as a family shopping site, he wasn't quite sure Dennis's vision was the way to go. But in the room? Not so much. Whether this is because Dennis could actually wear Scott as a tie pin or not, it is hard to say.
After a while, it all descends into chaos. By the time the comic book guys arrive, everyone's just shouting at each other. Mainly Dennis and Country star Clint Black. Shouting at each other, and, when that fails to do anything constructive, just generally shouting.
On team Athena, Khloe is proving to be a fairly strong leader after all. At least they've come up with a decision. Their comic book character should be a girl. Well done them!
9.40pm: Scandal on team Athena! Claudia - a model who opens boxes on Deal or No Deal by trade, comes up with a brilliant idea, Melissa 'Suckface' Rivers, claims the idea as her own when Donald Trump Jr arrives to 'observe' (they seem to do it for arounf two minutes per day, here).
Still, by the time the comic book geek focus group arrive, they at least have some idea to present to them. And this makes the focus geeks very happy.
"I never thought I would be discussing comic books with a Playboy Playmate. Or talking to a Playboy Playmate period." or, for that matter, ANY girl, shouts the subtext. Meanies.
This is better than Team KOTU - the boys who present the focus group with ... nothing. Well, with Tom Green rambling about nothing. This does not bode well for them.
9.50: The return from the break brings a whole new layer of surprise: Natalie Gulbis comes up with an idea for the costume and needing to deal with the model when she arrives: Joan suggests that Natalie, beautiful as she is, just BE the model. Meanwhile, after an episode and a half, I swear that this is the first time I've heard Natalie speak. In fact, the moment she did was the first time I realised she was in the show. So, you know, way to play the game, Ninja Apprentice!
Joan Rivers, we discovered, is silently seething about not being asked to be a writer on the project by Annie Duke, the woman leading the writing on the team. Luckily, she has something else to deal with: negotations with the costume designer. "Scott? Are you straight or gay?!" she yells into a speakerphone. "Gay! I love you Joan!" he replies. She's going to breeze through this competition. Surely.
10.00pm: Meanwhile the boys still have ... nothing. Pretty much. While the girls have a fully formed concept and a name - Mizz Z - the boys have nothing. No name. Tom Green sits at the computer shouting out names that begin with a Z - the website begins with a Z, though as they're seemingly under obligation to mention it in full every two minutes, I feel no obligation to do the same.
Scott, project manager, is mainly concentrating on ignoring Tom. As part of this, he names his character. He names her EEE. Which is not strictly a name. It's a little comuter, it's a bra size. It's not really a name.
Tom is going out of his way to derail Scott, says Scott. No, well, to be fair, Tom seems to have had nine extra buckets of coffee this morning, but Scott doesn't really need that much help derailing the project.
He is managing that fine on his own.
By the end of the night, Claudia has gone home sick (early, much to the chagrin of Bulldozer Annie Duke), and in the boys camp, it's looking quite likely that there will be blood on the boardroom table before this show is out.
10.10pm: Clint Black - someone I admit I've never heard of but behaves like the biggest star on the planet. So either I'm wrong or he's going to turn out to be a complete arsehole.
And I'm never wrong.
Tom's going to do the presentation, he says he wishes he could have helped write the script, or do anything at all. Herschel - last week's team leader - calls him a liar. Tom says he doesn't like being called a liar. Herschel says he IS a liar. Tom asks Dennis Rodman out for a beer.
This is a model of conflict resolution I can get behind.
a) Be plain-speaking
b) Say how you feel, and state your position clearly
c) If all fails, invite Dennis Rodman out for a beer.
Brilliant!
10.20pm: The presentations happen. The men's team ended up with a better presentation, Tom Green bringing his overbearing talkativeness to a purposeful point in displaying their EEE idea.
Claudia stumbles with the presentation, keeps calling the company by the wrong name, and presents Natalie in her costume.
"Natalie, would you wear this at the US Open?" asks Donald (she's a golfer, this isn't a completely random question)
"I wouldn't wear this in the corridor." She replies.
Way to go, my little ninja.
The director of the company they're working with says he didn't like 'EEE', he didn't like the fact that Athena seemed to change his company's name. He really wasn't that hot on that. At all.
10.30pm: In the boardroom, the boys tear each other apart. Scott didn't think Tom was a very good team member, Tom doesn't think Scott was a very good team leader. The audience doesn't think this is new information.
The women don't tear each other to shreds, but the tensions all bubble away under the surface: Suckface Joan gets at Domineering Annie, Melissa tries to claim Claudia's idea once more.
The most interesting thing we learn from this segment is why CNBC anchorwoman Erin Burnett was hanging round the boys team earlier. I had thought it was just random happenstance but no, it seems for this week, Erin Burnett is playing the part of trusted advisor Ivanka Trump. Because turning up for two minutes during the task and sitting in the boardroom is clearly a very time-consuming process otehrwise.
Also interesting: Donald Hairdo admits to once trying to pick up Playboy playmate Brande. "But that was before I was Trump" he says.
One of the things unlimited buckets of money can buy you: the right to refer to yourself in third person as a brand.
None of these fools on the other side of the table have that right. In fact, before too long, one of them won't have a job.
And it'll be one of the ... Boys. The boys will come back to the boardroom:
Team Athena - the ladylebrities - have won the task
10.40: In the boardroom, the battle of Tom and Scott rages on. Though quiet murmurs are made about Clint being a negative influence and a bit of a destructive force in the team, it's really all about the powerless midget vs the most annoying man on the planet. I don't think there's any way out of this. We may just have to put them both in a soundproof room and ... no, that's just about it. We could also give them guns.
When asked who's coming back into the room, Scott tries to only bring back Tom, but is advised that that's a stupid idea. He elects to bring back Tom and Herschel.
Poor Herschel, apart from being a little bit whiny for a big man, hasn't actually done anything wrong. Scott just things he'll say mean things about Tom for him, and therefore make up numbers. Or at least body mass.
10.50: Herschel lasts a few minutes and several bad words about Tom before being allowed to leave. Scott gets to say more bad things about Tom, and refuses to acknowledge he should really have brought Clint Black into the room. Tom was coughing during his backswing, he says, metaphorically - he wanted to be a good project manager, did Scott; he honestly did. But Tom stopped him being so.
Tom suddenly turns on the charm and, far beyond the call of 'answering any question anyone actually asked him' starts talking about the fact that they both are cancer survivors, that they do, because of this, they only have one testicle each. Which is both really powerful, and admirable.
What it has to do with one of them being an annoying little hairball and the other being basically as fun to be around as a two-legged version of herpes, however, I cannot say.
Whatever happens - no matter how badly Tom represented himself during the task or Scott is representing himself here, the fact remains that only one of them came up with the woeful label 'EEE'.
Bye bye, Scott Hamilton. Survivor; Champion; Angry Midget.
11.00pm: And then it is done.
Tom goes back to the holding room of candidates, where he's met with a wholehearted lack of any reaction whatsoever.
And Scott gets driven off in a big car.
"I'm bitterly disappointed" he says. "But I can get back to my family, and of course my mission to cure cancer in my own lifetime"
Gosh! Right. Yes! We should leave it there too, and let him get on with that. Because that's a laudable mission. And also quite large and possibly time-consuming: it is a jolly good thing he does not have to waste too much time with the silly Apprentice anymore.
Unlike us! For we will be back, this time next week - or a couple of hours this way or the other. But otherwise, same bat time, same bat channel (and in the meantime, before that, I'll be back on Thursday for the UK/Comic Relief Celebrity Apprentice, hurrah!). And when I say 'we' I clearly mean
'I' will be back.
Organ Grinder: Liveblogging all the Apprentices - Whether you read it or not.
