"Celebrity Apprentice" brought back an old friend on Sunday night, and I'm sure half of America is off somewhere groaning in disgust: Kodak. Really, it's not that anyone dislikes the product -- but haven't we already seen this before? Nothing is ever really going to trump Gene Simmons trying to convince an entire company that he is smarter and knows business better than any of them. As that was one of the most memorable challenges in this celebrity version's three-year history, it was a shock to see it come back.
It was also a shock to see who Tenacity (the women's team) decided to name as their project manager: former WWE star Maria Kanellis. I'm not trying to diss Maria, but on the surface she looked like one of those people who was brought on the show for filler after they casted some of the big names. (Boy, do I love being wrong.)
For the men (a.k.a. Rock Solid), they used conventional wisdom and chose a guy know was creative, outgoing, and supposedly already had a decent knowledge of the industry: Sinbad. It was at that moment that things started to unravel. For some reason or another, Sinbad could not figure out how to wrangle a group of guys into doing an individual task. There was no clear guidance on how to set up a Kodak showroom, and Bret Michaels ended up getting extremely frustrated as a result.
As someone with some reality-show experience, allow me to offer an insider perspective. Bret is probably sitting at home somewhere throwing Chee-tos at his TV over this edit. When he said that the show was setting him up to be a fool by focusing on him walking away from the group, he was right. It was Sinbad's job to delegate, and Bret had a right be frustrated as that job wasn't entirely getting done. Did he handle it in the right way? No -- he should have jumped in there regardless, but he gets a little bit of a raw deal in this episode since he wasn't really given anything to do.
The women, meanwhile, acted more like a well-oiled machine with one exception: Cyndi Lauper. The pop legend had plenty of her own ideas, and some of them were so out of left field that nobody could really understand what she was saying. While it was hard to cheer for some of the women (Holly Robinson Peete) after they were laughing at Lauper's antics, she wasn't really helping the team get on track.
By the end of the day one, it was obvious which team was winning -- but the editors tried to make things interesting the next day. The men managed to salvage most of their mess and came up with a fairly decent presentation of Kodak's software. The problem? They just didn't incorporate Kodak's products. Rather, we got to see a bunch of celebrities pose with normal people. The end result was a good time, but not a worthwhile business campaign.
On the other side of the coin, Summer Sanders owned her spot on Tenacity even better than she owned the Secret Slime Action on "Figure It Out." She was brilliant selling Kodak's products, and her talents (along with Maria's fantastic leadership) helped to overshadow some issues with crowd control and frequent power outages.
Neither team was perfect, but the men clearly didn't sell the product enough to win this task. One of their best ideas (having customers print out photos on their own via the web) wasn't implemented properly, and many "secret shoppers" sent in by Kodak never got their photos.
Before the winning team was announced, it was obvious who the weak links were -- Sinbad and Bret for the boys, Cyndi and Sharon Osbourne (only because she was sick) for the girls. With Tenacity winning, the only question left for Trump was if Bret's temper was a bigger problem than Sinbad's poor leadership. Since the guy (as PM) had to bring two people back in with him to the boardroom, he took Bret and Rod Blagojevich.
I don't understand why Trump acted shocked by Sinbad's decision to bring in Rod. Sure, the guy didn't necessarily do anything wrong, but he has yet to fully answer a question on the show! If the former Governor could actually let go of the part of him that wants to be a politician, then he could do really well on this show.
There was a decent argument to get rid of Bret this week (since I see a Tom Green / Dennis Rodman situation happening if he keeps showing up to tasks late), but with a task like this you have to get rid of the project manager for mismanaging so much of what happened. This show is about leadership, and Sinbad wasn't a good enough leader.
So who is looking strong looking forward? My money is on Michael Johnson and Curtis Stone for the guys and Sharon and Maria (based on this night alone) for the girls.
Who are you rooting for? Feel free to share your thoughts below and stay tuned for more of the latest TV news. Also, check back Monday for exclusive thoughts with Sinbad following his elimination.
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