CLEARING OUT INBOX: MLY comments on my “Apprentice” post:

The first season of the apprentice was much better. In part, this is due to casting. The first bunch was just more clever, and thus more interesting. (Perhaps the show’s original producer has become distracted with other projects.) But The Apprentice has also declined precisely because it has become more about competition and less about leadership. Less time in each episode is devoted to the task –- e.g., creating an advertising campaign for Pepsi, renovating and then selling an apartment –- and more is devoted to “the Boardroom,” the mostly silly session at the end where Trump interrogates the losing team and fires one of them. Also, the way people get eliminated from the show allows for bad team-players and leaders who are, nevertheless, good boardroom fighters, to survive far too long. Sadly, I believe this bug is a feature for the producers. Most of the show’s audience probably prefers the backstabbing. Why else would the producers add more of it? I liked the show because it was a flawed and silly but still provocative case-study in business leadership. And it was certainly more true-to-life than the romance reality shows. Does the Bachelor or the Bachelorette really desire love, or think that the show is the best way to get it? At the very least they have multiple motives. On The Apprentice, however, I do not doubt that these people genuinely desire the Trump lifestyle of fame and fortune. But now the show is about pettiness and scheming at worst, and competition at best. And I’m less interested in competition than leadership and business. Accordingly, I watched most of the first season, three episodes of the second, and two of the third. (The third season doesn’t think it’s over, but I do.)