Money, money, money, money. Monay!
No longer just the catchy background music to one of television's hottest reality shows, the O'Jay's "For the Love of Money" has become the overriding mantra in season three of NBC's Thursday night classic, "The Apprentice."
"Yeah, so, what else is new?" you may be wondering. Hasn't "The Apprentice" always been about the glorification of capitalist greed? Wasn't the competition always driven by the lure of financial success? Isn't it just stating the obvious to insinuate that there is a correlation between series co-creator Donald Trump and a tendency toward excess and overindulgence?
The answer to all of these is yes, of course. After all, "The Apprentice" was never a show about subtlety, as Trump so humbly reminded us each and every time he landed on the set via personal helicopter. However, in this latest installment of Donald Trump's vainglorious brainchild, the Donald plumbs new depths of arrogance while simultaneously managing to alienate and insult his audience.
See, the way television usually works is that advertisers pay networks big bucks to come up with entertaining shows with which to frame the advertisers' product endorsements. In exchange, you as the viewer are treated to an hour of small-screen diversion that should be worthwhile enough to make up for the constant commercial bombardment. It is a delicate balance, but one not impossible to achieve.
In fact, Trump himself struck gold in past seasons by combining a fresh reality premise (at least "The Apprentice" isn't another dating show) with mildly intelligent plotlines. The result was overwhelming; audiences responded spectacularly to a show that didn't treat them like drooling Neanderthals.
And then came the finale of season two. The three-hour (no, that's not a misprint) wrap-up, a tacky ratings stunt, came complete with celebrity guests, a reconstructed set at Lincoln Center, and a live rendition of "For the Love of Money." Overkill was the word of the day, and Trump capped off the evening's fanfare with a characteristically gluttonous announcement: instead of contenting himself with a half-season run like most other reality competitions, the Trumpster would be back in our living rooms barely one month later, with a whole new crew.
Flash forward six weeks to the present time, where we find ourselves in the third week of Trump's newest competition. At first glance, it would appear that not much has changed. Two teams of entrepreneurs still compete for the ultimate prize of an executive position in the Trump organization. The tasks set before them each week are still business-oriented, even if they are devoid of any resemblance to real-world business situations. And the Trumpster's comb-over is still as unsettling as the icy glare of Carolyn's critical blue eyes. In these respects, at least, the show still retains some of its former dignity.
Unfortunately, "The Apprentice" has followed most of its reality peers into the depths of Gimmick Hell, probably never to return again. Pitting "book smarts" (college grads) against "street smarts" (high school grads), Trump doesn't even let viewers get past the theme song without making them aware of the fact that he considers them too stupid to catch on to his shtick. And then the show starts.
In the two episodes that have aired this year, there has already been more profanity, more catfights, and more boardroom melodrama than in the past two seasons combined. Selective editing reigns unchecked, portraying the two teams in the most exaggerated light possible: the book smarts team is depicted as a bunch of prissy neo-hippie snobs, while members of the street smarts group are made to look like bumbling morons. In a show that was once heavier on content than on cheap laughs, plot now takes a backseat to the unruly candidates' Springer-esque antics. The end result is that the premise is hokey, the action is blatantly scripted, and every aspect of the show is awkwardly forced into a pre-conceived mold strategically designed to garner the highest ratings possible.
So much for striking that precious network-viewer balance. Even a bankrupt former billionaire should be able to give a little back to his audience, but Donald Trump has obviously chosen to trade benevolence for bankrolls. The choice has not paid off so far; "The Apprentice" has dropped four places in the Nielsen Media Research Ratings since last year. Even an ego the size of Trump's can't argue with numbers like that, and if enough advertisers begin to pull their funding, maybe Trump can be persuaded to repent. Yet some vestiges of the show's glory days still remain, and the series is young enough for a comeback. As the Donald told a discouraged contestant last week, "there's nothing better than a good comeback."
