Mon, September 20, 2004

The Benefactor

Golly, that Mark Cuban is a wacko. (More about The Benefactor in this week's review of new TV shows.)

The Amazing Race

Oh, boy. Colin is surely going to catch hell for his behavior in this week's episode. (Not least from CBS, who actually characterizes last week's map dispute as "a fight over directions" – they love for him to look evil.) He goes a little nuts. But I still love him. (And he still loves me. I swear, I fell down the stairs. [...into a jazz club Hee!]) I'm famous for my ability to rationalize pretty much anything when I like someone, so allow me to try here.

I think the reason I like Colin so much (and give him so much leeway) is that he and I are a lot alike. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he's got a little Irish blood in him; and I understand the Irish temper. (Well, not so much "understand" – it's entirely irrational – let's say "know from experience.") If you look at the actual "meltdown" (CBS's term), it's a matter of extreme frustration and not having a way to manage it. I know how he feels. He's stuck in this situation (literally, up to his knees) that's going horribly awry and he's got no control over it. He's furious that he can't get it to go the way he knows he's supposed to get it to go, and there's really nobody to blame – it's not like there's a taxi driver whose fault it is. He can't start kicking the ox, because the ox handler is right there, so he vents his rage by screaming, stomping around, and yelling at Christie. She's another strong personality, so she can take it – and, in fact, yell back. But here's the key: they love each other very much. 90% of my biggest screaming blow-ups have been directed at my mom or my family (not these days, of course; I'm talking about high school) because they're not going to stop loving me, so it's safer to bottle up a day's worth of frustration and then when the breaking point comes, yell at family. Not exceedingly healthy, I grant you, but safer. That's what Colin does at the ox challenge and because, like my mom, Christie also has a strong temper, they scream at each other for a while. I think it's a meaningless catharsis that neither takes personally. I don't know if Christie is realizing as she's bickering with him that this is his way, and not taking it personally, or if she's just as caught up in the heat of the moment, but after it's over, I think they (like my mom and I) make up rather quickly, because they both know it's just nerves. (And, under the intense pressure of a race which they're suddenly losing, I completely understand how their tempers might flare.)

So, is he a monster? Well, in this clip, yes. But we all have our bad sides. Watching the ox challenge, I think he seems more pathetic than mean. He's so completely drained by the futility of the challenge – I can identify the moment when he'd break down and cry if he could, but he can't, so he has to scream and yell. It's very difficult for me not to empathize. I truly wish that he and Christie would learn to stop and take a breath when things get overwhelming – I think it would abate their tempers and clarify their focus – but that's a hard, slow lesson to learn. As it is, I'm impressed by the strength of their relationship and its ability to weather such clashes.

The teams depart sunny New Zealand rather quickly, after completing a Roadblock in which they climb a shaky rope ladder up to a bridge and then jump off. If you look closely at the background, you can see a boat carrying Joe Rogan and a giant sack of tempting horse rectums, right next to a barge bringing crates of Lord of the Rings Oscars in from America. (Just two more shiploads to go!) Rogan is unable to entice any of the contestants into his own follow-up challenge, so they're off to the airport.

As usual, Colin and Christie's lead enables them to book flights that will get them to their destination far ahead of the other teams. And, as usual, some combination of bunching and airport delays puts them right back in the mix with the rest. Whenever my flight has been delayed and runs the risk of making me miss a connecting flight, the airport personnel have been kind enough to radio ahead and hold the connecting flight. For whatever reason, this doesn't happen for C&C, so they're forced onto the later flight to Manila with everyone else. This is important, because it equalizes the starting times of all the teams, allowing other teams to break into the lead just long enough to Yield Colin and Christie. Which Chip and Kim do; and it's absolutely positively the right strategic choice. It's not "the ultimate betrayal."

But that doesn't mean Colin and Christie have to like it, either. They have every right to be disappointed. After all, now they have to wait for the hourglass (deceptively small, by the way) to run out – that's disappointing, especially in a race. Colin decides (out of strategy or possibly disappointment) to stare at Chip and Kim as they complete the Pimp My Ride challenge. I think this makes good sense because a) it's clearly making Chip feel really guilty, proving two can play at this "I'll make you self-destruct" game – although Colin plays it better than Chip; and b) it's valuable to learn how the challenge works and what the possible gotchas are – just like watching the professional brickmaker at the brick making Roadblock. Good racers!

Chip continues to feel really bad as all the teams depart and Colin and Christie get started on the challenge. "I feel so ashamed," he says. From a racing standpoint, he absolutely shouldn't. Colin and Christie have never Yielded anyone, but it was out of strategy as much as good sportsmanship – they need to save the Yield for later, in case they ever really need it, and sure there's a chance that other teams will feel like, "Hey, they never Yielded us, let's not Yield them." (Which, like Chip's Yield-based hijinks with the Twinkies, would be pure stupidity.) Chip and Kim took one for all the other teams: not only have the other teams avoided C&C's displeasure, they've also still got their Yields left.

Colin and Christie, meanwhile, are making the best of it. As their driver speeds them toward the next clue box, Christie regales him with stories of how the other teams betrayed them with unfair play. She never says anything like this to Colin or the other teams, so I have to believe she's exaggerating for the driver's benefit, to give him more reasons to speed up, which – to me – is perfectly legal. Of course it isn't unfair for Chip and Kim to Yield them, but I don't think she thinks so either. She just figures if she says "they didn't play fair" it might read to the driver as "we should be farther ahead by now," and maybe he'll do his best to get them to their destination more quickly. It certainly can't hurt. ("It's okay, just run [random local pedestrians] over," however, is a little strange. With an English-speaking driver who could be relied upon to understand hyperbolic sarcasm, I'd say that's okay. But saying it to this guy who may not know that you're joking around out of desperation is a tad weird.)

Then it's the ox Detour, and for some reason neither Colin nor Christie lands upon the idea of having Christie lead the ox while Colin pushes the plow. If they had arrived even a few minutes earlier, they could have seen the other teams do it, and made quick work of this challenge. But they just never think of it, and it leads to a very aggravating situation. After the ordeal is over, editing makes it seem like their smart choice of taking the bus to the nearest available taxi might gain them some time, but the other teams are having the same idea (at some point), and so any time gained by C&C is negligible. They're saved by another random non-elim, and I'm ecstatic. They seem to be, too. I can't wait to see the "mingling" footage, although I hope they'll keep a level head. Tempting as it may be to mingle Colin's boot with Chip's ass, I really hope cooler heads will prevail and everyone will remember it's a race: nothing personal.

The scenes indicate that Colin and Christie are last to arrive for at least one challenge next week. I hope desperately that it's the first one, because if it's the second one, they're rather likely to be eliminated before the final three. What's more, if they can't get ahead of at least Brandon and Nicole and the Bowling Moms pretty early, they run the serious risk of being Yielded again, which would just suck.

Dream Job

Haven't seen this one yet because nobody told me it was coming back! I've set TiVo to grab the first two episodes on Tuesday, though, and you should too. In related news, Zach Selwyn (of last year's Dream Job) is hosting Extreme Dodgeball on GSN, so don't miss that!

The Apprentice

The only fun here is in the boardroom, so I'm skipping ahead. All that happens in the first 40 minutes is that the teams make ice cream and try to sell it. Stacie continues to be a nuisance, and gets blamed for some bad directions. Raj spreads bow tie joy to all, outfitting his team like a flotilla of Good Humor men in short pants. The Mosaic team (you'd think their name was Menstruation from all the girly-girl comments they get about that name) outsells the Apex team despite throwing money at every Dunkin Donuts "in a 1.8 mile radius" (someone is getting way too specific) and hoarding doughnuts which they then squish up and whip into their ice cream. The Apexians manage to get lost a few blocks apart from each other despite the fact that usually everyone on this show has at least four cell phones in her hand at any one time. We learn that Pamela is really, really terrible at face-to-face sales on the sidewalk. (Which is admittedly a grueling thing to do, but still – she's awful at it.) The ladies seem to have a really great day, selling to restaurants and street customers alike, but in the end the guys' consistency wins out.

When Trump announces in the boardroom that the Apex team sold $2472 in ice cream, I think, "Yay! They did it!" because we saw the guys counting out $150 to donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I just assumed they'd donate 10% minimum. But I guess they were worried that they hadn't done well enough, because they only donated a little over five percent of their $2857 in sales. (The gross is actually slightly higher considering an unspecified outlay for the doughnut shopping spree.) Turns out they could've donated 10% and still won, but in the end Trump allows them to donate 100%, which is cute. (And God is it ever a delight to hear percentages tossed around on a reality show that actually relate to actual one-hundredths of an actual amount of something.) Apparently, the time Apex spent moving (and losing) their carts really cost them. I wonder what would've happened if they'd stayed at the TKTS booth next to the bullyish hot dog vendor.

Once the outcome is decided, the Mosaics are dispatched to a swanky caviar bar, where the guys get silly and Pamela spends a lot of time rolling her eyes. (Relax, honey, you're not on the Survivor jury. Yet.) And the Ladies of Apex convene in the boardroom – along with their mascot, Bradford – for some charged verbal sparring.

Trump or Monkey (I can't help referring to him by the name of the quiz segment that bears his name on Letterman's show) is very stubborn in the boardroom. From Miss Alli's accounts, it's apparent that this isn't actually his boardroom, but a set they've built for the show. Still, he rules it like a king and it's clear that he feels like he's in his element, so he isn't polite or tactful – he's all business. I love his helpers, George and Carolyn, more and more. She's very fetching in a professional kind of way, and she doesn't take any shit. At one point, she grows so exasperated with Ivana (I'm sure that's happened before – zing!) that she answers her own question: "I'll tell you why the men beat you, 'cause I'm afraid I'm going to get a winded answer, so hold on." Yes! Love her! And George is all "name names!" whenever the contestants start to equivocate. Get this man on a chopper to Vanuatu – Probst could use some pointers!

In the boardroom, Ivana effectively implodes. She's clearly way too political for this game, so she winds up chasing herself around the circles in her logic and getting tied in knots by the spin she tries to put on various topics. For example, it turns out that when we saw Stacie on her cell phone talking to a temp agency from under the boardroom table at Ciao Bella, she wasn't going off on her own. She was actually carrying out a task that Ivana had authorized. This makes her look considerably less crazy (although enough other evidence has accrued to show that she's a clear liability to Apex). So Stacie tells Trump or Monkey that Ivana gave her the okay to do that, and Ivana says she just gave Stacie that task to get her out of the way. So Stacie accuses her of squandering team resources on a meaningless assignment. The boardroom is full of such verbal traps for Ivana. She should lay out the truth, ugly as it may be, rather than trying to bend it to fit the agenda she has for herself and Stacie. All the spin just makes her look crafty, dishonest, and indecisive. (And, indecisive is the worst thing a leader can be, just ask John Kerry.)

It's clear that Stacie is a wack job and doesn't play well with others. (Which is fine if she's the boss, as she apparently is at her restaurant. Not so good on a task like The Apprentice, though.) Stacy (the adorable Maggie-clone and therefore my favorite – also the only woman on the team who doesn't have those artificially chiseled facial features) turns out to be a bit weak, playing CYA and trying not to say anything bad about anyone... or really say anything at all. Power Tie Maria continues to creep me way the fuck out. The other ladies are utterly unmemorable.

Then Bradford does something that causes all sorts of fuss. You'll recall that, as last week's Project Manager of the winning team, he is exempt from firing in this week's boardroom. When the talk starts heating up about who did what and when, he's afraid that he may sound like he's hiding behind that immunity and sniping unfairly at his teammates. He knows he performed magnificently this week, especially in the all-important sales portion of the challenge, where he kept the energy up and maintained a "buzz" around the Apex ice cream carts to keep buyers interested. ("Buzz" was clearly the deciding factor in the contest, because the Mosaic team kept a constant level of buzz going on at their carts, while Apex was largely buzzless except for Brad.) So, he's confident in his status within the team and he offers to waive his immunity in order to stand behind his words. Trump or Monkey thinks this is a ridiculously stupid move, and in the end he decides to fire Brad for it.

I disagree.

What the Simian Don sees as a flippant mistake, I think is a rather considered move by Brad to garner the respect of his team and also allow his words to carry more weight with Trump, unencumbered by the doubt that he may only be saying them because he's exempt. As one of the more active and involved team members, he has a lot to contribute to the discussion of who did what, and who helped or hurt the team. It amounts to a personal guarantee. "I am so sure that Ivana did a bad job leading us, I'd stake my immunity on it." I think Trump feels like you should never yield an advantage, but I think he's just being stubborn and not thinking it through. Sometimes, the appearance of yielding an advantage creates a greater advantage. Trust is a commodity as well, and the way Brad sees it, giving away the immunity in order to gain Trump's trust and Apex's respect is a worthwhile trade. Especially since everyone knows his performance in the challenge is beyond reproach, so there's no way Ivana would bring him back to the boardroom for the firing. Here, Brad's judgment is slightly off – he fails to consider that Trump will browbeat Ivana into bringing him back in, and he has no way of predicting that Trump or Monkey will go apeshit about the decision and fire him because of it. Which I think is an honest miscalculation. Trump is really crazy about this mistake, calling it "stupid" dozens of times; it's clear that he yielded an advantage at some point in the past and it didn't go his way so he's still mad about it. Because really Brad's mistake isn't worth getting so worked up about. I'm sure Trump has also been in plenty of situations where it made sense to clarify his impartiality by putting something important on the line. He just can't think of it that way because he's so blinded by his outrage over Brad's mistake.

Which is a shame, because he admits that he knows Brad is the best member of the team, and certainly better suited to The Apprentice than Ivana or Stacie. (Another reason I think Brad felt safe in his calculated risk.) He has nothing good to say about Ivana ("lousy leader") or Stacie ("hated by all") but he spares them so he can teach Brad a lesson. Too bad.

Ivana knows she's made a horrible mistake bringing Brad back into the boardroom. She recoils in shock as soon as Trump fires him. Trump and his cohorts think she's surprised she wasn't fired, but that's not it. She knows that the rest of the team will roast her alive for putting Brad on the line when she didn't have to. If she and Stacie and Jennifer had gone back into the boardroom without Bradford, Stacie would be gone. And they need Brad almost as much as they need to be rid of Stacie. Ivana's move doesn't make any sense in any context. As Miss Alli says, bringing three people to the boardroom instead of two is only a smart choice if you think Trump picks randomly, which we know he doesn't. It doesn't save Ivana, because Stacie is a much more obvious target by the rest of the team, and so the only reason I can think of that she brings Brad back in is that she thinks it'll curry some favor with Trump, who so obviously wants her to do it. I can't understand why she brings Jennifer either; I can only guess that it relates to something that happened this week but we didn't see. (Though once she's there, Jennifer sure does get on my nerves, as well as Trump's. She really needs to be quiet, and saying, "I won't speak up again" is not being quiet.)

It's interesting because the additional Apprentice footage that they give us on the weekend rarely reveals anything completely new, but usually adds some depth to the remarks that they give us on Thursday. It's clear that there's a lot of boardroom footage for them to edit, and it reveals the complex nature of the boardroom part of the challenge. You really have to assert yourself and speak in strong, clear sound bites in order to get Trump's attention or appear on the show. It's a fascinating element to have in a reality show, and it makes Survivor's Tribal Council look like a student film.

Survivor

Islands of Fire! (Look for the full story later this week.)

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