Amazing Race And Apprentice, In A Nutshell—- 04.08.07

Posted Apr 9, 2007 by Chris Kuhn

Updated Apr 9, 2007 at 01:09 PM

It was a night of bad breaks, impulsive decisions and some surprising departures on tonight’s special Easter edition of Sunday night’s reality feast. Maybe you were busy watching Sopranos, gorging out on chocolate bunnies, looking up biographical info about the mysterious Masters winner on Wikipedia or just recovering from the day’s holiday family get-together. Whatever the case, I’ve got just the info you need to catch up on your favorite reality TV programming.

So let’s check in with our reality celebrities…

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AMAZING RACE: ALL-STARS

On Amazing Race: All-Stars (CBS), five teams continue to travel around the world. It’s time to leave Poland and head to Malaysia and two teams – Uchenna and Joyce and Oswald and Danny – discover a flight that will get them to Kuala Lumpur very early but with a risky connecting flight allowing only an hour between flights and little error or delay. Uchenna and Joyce decide to take the risk and boyfriends Oswald and Danny take a safer, later flight along with Eric and Danielle and Dustin and Kandice. In a surprising move, kooky cousins Charla and Myrna manage to locate an even earlier flight that would give them at least a two-hour jump on everyone else once in Malaysia – of course, they hog the only two available computers at the hotel, not allowing other teams to get online in their usual spirit of fairness. But I am amazed that none of the travel agents who help the teams mention the flight that arrives in Malaysia at 4:45 a.m. Hmm… I’m still convinced the producers want the world’s most annoying couple of cousins to stay in this game.

Tonight, teams got an opportunity to really mix with the locals of Kuala Lumpur. Whether stamping and painting fine linens, collecting old newspapers by bicycle or chomping thousands of cookies from 600+ boxes to find the one cookie with a licorice center, it was a race of absurdity tonight. Why would two seemingly intelligent people choose to fill up on cookies for what could be hours in a fruitless attempt to locate a needle in a haystack versus ironing on designs onto a piece of fabric and painting it? I don’t get it. Three different teams felt the cookie contest would be easiest (WHAT?!) though only one of them completed it.

In the end, Dustin and Kandice prevailed by hitting the pit stop pad first. Of course, now they have new enemies in Eric and Danielle who they “yielded” along the way, causing the always arguing couple to wait out a delay-in-game. If only the Beauty Queens had known how far behind other teams were compared to them, they might not have risked ticking off the other team. Charla and Myrna arrived at the pit stop second, Eric and Danielle placed third and Oswald and Danny showed up last after much bickering and indecision during this leg of the race. Poor Uchenna and Joyce. We didn’t get to see them do any of the challenges because they never made that connecting flight in Frankfort to Kuala Lumpur. Nope, they were directed straight to the pit stop so empathetic host Phil Keoghan could give them the bad news. They’re not only the last team to arrive, but this is also an elimination week, so the former season winners are officially given the boot.

But the most bizarre observation from tonight’s episode was not acknowledged one iota by CBS or the show’s producers. During one of the show’s challenges (a detour where teams chose to eat the millions of cookies or paint the tapestry), the clue clearly states that teams must travel by foot to either challenge. Yet on-air, two of the teams break this rule (Myrna and Charla and Eric and Danielle) and take taxis to the challenges. Heck, the goofy cousins even take a taxi twice as they try the cookies task and soon realize it’s futile, hopping in another taxi to the other task. Meanwhile, Dustin and Kandice follow the rules and jog their way to the task, and Oswald and Danny completely tire themselves out changing their minds and going back and forth between tasks but always on foot. I was positive that when the two “cheating” teams arrived at the pit stop, Phil would issue a time penalty that clearly wouldn’t impact the game given Uchenna and Joyce’s demise at a Frankfort airport. Still, they should have at least acknowledged this mistake adhering to the rules of the game. But they never did. Oswald and Danny were at a complete disadvantage by the time the last strenuous challenge began because they were exhausted whereas the other two teams competing at the same time were well-rested taking the cushy approach. This was so wrong!

Next week, four teams continue to duke it out and it’s down to two worthy teams (Dustin and Kandice and Oswald and Danny). Oh and those other two teams. I can’t take much more of Myrna and Charla. They are so condescending to the people they meet, horribly self-absorbed and inept. How are they staying in the game? I smell something foul. Producers?

THE APPRENTICE: LOS ANGELES

Then, there’s the Donald. The NBC show has been pretty predictable all season and I write less and less every week as my interest wanes. To shake things up, Trump dissolves the whole have and have-nots theme and invites Team Arrow to move into the mansion to join Team Kinetic. All team ties are formally dissolved. Candidates are instructed to team up with one other person and that will be their partner for this week. Not surprisingly, James picks Stephanie – he’s creative and she’s organized. It’s a match made in heaven. But previously, I would have easily guessed Nicole and Frank and Heidi and Christine as the other duos. Not so. It seems Christine would really like to take down Heidi (or so she admits to us) and feels that by teaming up with Nicole and sticking Heidi with hard-to-handle Frank, she’d have a good chance of doing just that. Be careful what you wish for, Christine…

The challenge this week is to promote the second Trump Tower being built in Las Vegas alongside its predecessor which has already sold out. Teams are flown out to Vegas on the company jet (prompting some really professional “woo-hoos” on the part of the players) and there they will gather the info, photos, video and other materials needed to build a marketing presentation. Teams would later present to the Donald and little Donald Jr. in the boardroom. Sounds simple enough, right?

I’m in marketing for a living. Have been for about 10 years. There’s definitely skills involved but to anyone who does this for a career, what they’re asked to do is not rocket science. It’s standard fare. My immediate thoughts are – okay, come up with a theme, build a PowerPoint or video, a brochure or handout for them to review and some kind of publicity plan or campaign to build awareness and interest. And that’s exactly what James and Stephanie did. And this dazzled the Donalds.

Then, there’s what the other teams presented. Or didn’t. Christine built a video and brochure while teammate Nicole caught up on sleep or complained that she didn’t a PowerPoint – she had it all up here (pointing to her head). Unfortunately, when the two delivered their presentation, Christine built a pretty but inaccurate brochure (wrong phone number – doh!) and Nicole stumbled over her words and said just about nothing of any real value in the boardroom. Okay, this firing is easy – these two. Right? Well, maybe not so fast.

Because then there’s what Frank and his partner Heidi I-can-do-no-wrong produce. They were early leaders and frontrunners in this interview process yet for some reason or another, this challenge completely stumps them. It soon becomes clear to me that Tim was completely right last week when he claimed that Frank is not the idea man - he’s the man of action. And I think Heidi has this in common with him. Yes, they can oversee, they are ballsy and will get the job done or get things happening. But when it comes to building imaginative campaigns or conceiving ideas, both of them are completely hopeless. In the boardroom, Heidi flounders with a mini-introduction to their video that Frank oversaw (a collection of shots of bathroom faucets, floor tile and walls with no real theme). Then she presents their brochure, a dark, very wordy glossy brochure with absolutely no images whatsoever. No problem. Frank will save the day – he’s a salesman and will know just what to say to earn his team a reprieve. And then he too says absolutely nada to show Trump why they should be spared. Could it be? Would the Donald really fire four candidates in one week when there’s still two weeks of the show left. And will he fire a whole team or possibly people across different teams? It’s unclear.

After spending much TV airtime making Heidi look like the non-committal politician that she is, contradicting herself left and right, it becomes clear that Donald will definitely fire her. And he does. Bye, bye, Heidi. But the next move is quite unexpected. Without a moment’s hesitation or any explanation given, he turns to the other horrible duo and says, “Christine, you’re fired.” She tries to rebut but he won’t have it and tells her that the wrong phone number is a completely unforgivable mistake. (Can you just imagine working for this guy?)

Heidi and Christine hit the pavement and there goes my original theory. I was convinced that the final two would be two women – either Heidi and Christine or Heidi and Stephanie and he knocked out two of the people I thought were frontrunners. Okay, new prediction: James and Stephanie? I really like James and though I know he gets a bit too excited and carried away, I love his enthusiasm and ability to see the whole picture (including when he lacks the skills to do a project). He’s never been afraid to compliment others for their contributions and point out where he trusts other experts with their specialties. That’s a really tough-to-find trait in a leader. But since I like him, that probably means Trump won’t.

Next week, the final four will begin a battle for the big prize. It’s not completely clear if that means they’ll all be competing in a final task unlike previous years where Trump whittles it down to two people first and then brings back old candidates to help the players with their big tasks. We’ll just have to see exactly what that final big job will be. Stay tuned…