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Sep 10, 2004

Rob, NBC's Apprentice (not)
Rob was a Texan. I had high hopes for him. Not only that, but Rob was from Plano...He most likely even went to to Plano Sr. High, my alma mater. And to make it even better (or worse depending on your vantage point) he went to the University of Texas at Austin, again, my alma mater. And then, AND THEN, he LOST! On the very first Apprentice episode. How could he?? He didn't even have a good reason to lose. Here's what happened:

Trump split the group into two teams--girls vs. Boys--again, but this time they had to swap one member permanently. This means there is one guy and eight girls, and one girl and eight guys on each team. And the person of the opposite sex on each team is the project manager for the first task. Ouch. This is either your moment to shine or your moment to fail miserably.

The two candidates who switched were Pamela and Bradford. They both volunteered. This was a weird spot on the show. Both sides were discussing how to kick a member off and the guys really saw it as a punishment. They were going to pull names from a hat. Why would this be a punishment? If you can prove yourself, you are way ahead being the only guy or girl on a team because you automatically stand out, and you have now proven you can work well with people very different from yourself even if you are the minority.

Then Bradford stepped up and volunteered. Pamela also volunteered but more out of not knowing anyone yet and not caring than stepping up to the plate and seeing this as an opportunity. Both leaders had a terrible time leading their teams. They seemed to just get swallowed up by the respective hormones. Neither set parameters for their respective teams or gave them any direction. They just let everyone go pretty much willy nilly. (Isn't EVERYONE on this show supposed to be really good at being a leader??) Pamela also had a hard time bonding with her team. As she lives on the girl side of the house, she spends most of her time with the enemy, as she noted on the show. The guys play basketball to bond but she is no where to be seen. If I were her, I would be right in there. I might even start a poker game or go on a beer run or something for the guys. But for god's sake ya gotta get involved with them or they will just hate you! Pamela's lack of bonding ability should be interesting to watch.

The task was to build a toy for Mattel. The team who's toy was the most marketable would be the winner. "Most marketable" seemed to rely heavily on the focus groups they did with children.

The guys' team, pathetically named, Mosaic, came up with an equally pathetic Crustacean Nation toy line which consisted of sea creatures with interchangeable parts. Bor-ing! The teams spent some time brainstorming which was where our Texan Rob got slammed. For some reason he decided to be less than vocal about his opinions. He didn't say much and seemed to wait to be told what to do. Why would you EVER do that on this show? Step UP! This is what lost him the game. He didn't jump in. But on almost as shaky ground was the team leader, Pamela. She was a bit bitchy and had the gall to say one of the children in the focus groups had a "Dumb and Dumber" hair cut! WOW! With Carolyn, Trump's sidekick, in the room! And then she reiterated this point when confronted about her rudeness in the boardroom!

On the other side, the girls, masculinely named Apex, started out with a flurry doing a brain dump, and came up with a laundry list of toy ideas but leader Brad shot them all down with his own idea. He wanted to created a remote controlled car with a football head on top. The girls were strongly against this, but crunched for time, they had to present the ideas to a group of Mattel toy designers. The toy designers immediately shot down the decapitated head car, and the idea transformed into what many of the girls had originally wanted which was a remote control car that had interchangeable parts. This toy was a huge success with the kid panel.

The girls won. No question.

Pamela took Rob and Andy to the boardroom. The only real reason she took Andy was that he is young. He really didn't do anything that bad. He did come up with the terrible name Crustacean Nation, though. After duking it out in the board room, complete with Trump telling Pamela that she had a "hard edge" that he didn't think she would ever lose, Rob was fired because he never stepped up. A sad moment for any outspoken Texan.

Another notable moment was the crazed breakdown by Stacie J. She completely went off on her teammates when they weren't listening to her talk during some down time. I mean COMPLETELY went off. She should be interesting to watch. She seems to have a split personality.

posted by Ty @ 9/10/2004 | 0 comments