The Apprentice is Back

Donald Trump's The Apprentice is back with a new season filmed in Los Angeles. Somehow seeing The Donald wearing sunglasses, zipping around among the palm trees and sunlight in a convertible and, gasp, not wearing a tie isn't the same as seeing him among the skyscrapers in Manhattan. He looks and seems awkward in L.A. Nevertheless, it looks like it will be a good season. The big twist this season, as I previously reported, is that the losing team will live in two large tents in the yard outside the mansion where the winning team stays.

by the idea of such menial work, and the editing made him look like a terrible salesman who could not The show began with Trump instructing the candidates to build a tent. Tim tried to take charge, yelling loudly in a shrill voice. Martin does not seem like the type who enjoys manual labor and ended up standing on a rock and doing essentially nothing. Tim and Heidi were selected project managers. The weekly tasks are typically determined by product placement, but this week, the competition was a simple car wash. Tim immediately disappeared to go to Kinko's and make letter-sized copies of promotional ads. That may work in New York where you can hand out flyers to walkers on the street, but this is L.A. and you're trying to lure drivers into a car wash. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that big signs will work better for this. Heidi's team seemed to be a lot more hands on and hard working. Martin seemed frazzled, and the editing made it look like he couldn't upsell anyone to the more expensive detailing services.

In the end, Heidi's team won, though not by much. Her team got to stay in the mansion, though they all had to sleep in one round room. They lounge around the pool sipping cocktails and hot tubbed at night. Meanwhile, the losing team slept in the tents, showered in portable showers, used port-a-potties, etc. The producers seem to be going for an Apprentice meets Survivor feel. Taking these high strung eager beavers and forcing them to sleep outside and not have adequate mirror and makeup space is great.

In the board room, the winning project manager joins Donald and Ivanka. Surprisingly, Heidi kept opening her piehole and spouting off as if she were George or some long time and respected employee of Trump's. It's bad enough when a former winner like Bill Rancic is in the board room and tries to pretend that he's somebody, but it's even worse when a week one contestant tries to pretend she's The Donald. In the end, it was project manager Tim and prima donna Martin standing, and Trump fired Martin.