The Apprentice: Martha Stewart

After watching every episode hoping to learn something... I did.-The Show is a Fraud!! Dawna was probably chosen before the series even began...

Martha Stewart's available position is at a sports/health magazine. How ironic that Dawna is the publisher of the same type of magazine.

It's a win-win for Martha and she'll make millions off Dawna's hire.

1. She kills off a competing publication and steals their lead talent

2. She increases her publication's advertising by adding Dawna's advertisers to her book

3. She increases her publication's circulation by combining her subscription list with that from Dawna's magazine

How lame to have fooled us all

Martha Stewart's Apprentice has a charm and a class way beyond the Donald's version IMO. I've been watching The Apprentice since the first season and the show has steadily gone down each season, though this current one has gotten better. I just think Donald Trump's enormous ego is the big star of The Apprentice now and there is WAY too much product placement as well. Martha's product placement is much more subtle and her cast have a demeanor that I personally like more than Trump's cast. I wish it were coming back next season but mediocre ratings came into the scene. I wish more people would have given her version a chance because I think they would have liked it. It's my favorite show. Martha totally rocks and each week instead of the catchphrase "You're fired" she writes the fired contestant a charming letter. There's only one Martha and this was a great show.

Martha stewart is a great business woman, but this apprentice spin up to a highly successful reality show is a disaster from the start, the hosting is terrible, the writing is a mess, the teleplay is idiotic, the players are obnioxus, the camera-work is useless, This is yet another reality show gone stale after the success of the rest, Martha can be a good business woman, but she is wasted in this one. Now I Occasionally criticized reality shows for dumbing down television and American culture, but this is a reality show, that's not nearly as entertaining as a lot of reality shows, including the original apprentice itself, this is one of the worst shows of the decade.

Before going any further, I have to admit that I only saw the first episode of this show. If I had the time, I might have considered watching it every week, if only to see how the season played out. However, it was very clear to me from the beginning that Martha Stewart's version of "The Apprentice" just doesn't "fit in." Martha Stewart made a career of being a happy homemaker, a domestic diva of the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Julia Child. It was only since her scandalous legal troubles and subsequent incarceration that her public image began to reflect the true roughness of her character. Sure, she was compelling for a while, and this entire series poses the interesting question of what it means to be a woman in business. Does she have to come off as cold and tough? Shouldn't she?

But the truth was, by the time Stewart came out of prison, her attempts for a public comeback, though certainly warranted, were never going to seize viewers' interest for very long. Perhaps a true comeback would have worked had she returned home peacefully and waited a year or so after her often mocked ankle bracelet was removed. Instead, she frantically dove into overkill with 2 series at once, the other being her syndicated daytime series Martha, much like her old show, but more mainstream, with famous guests like Bette Midler. Of course, even at her peak Stewart was never mainstream, so it's too much to ask that American audiences immediately accept her foray into reality TV. Maybe America wants Stewart to make a comeback on her own rather than be the basis for it.

The show was basically a tired retread of Trump's "Apprentice," which still holds my interest, depending on the tasks, the cast, and Trump's firing decisions (often controversial - likely for that reason). The letter bit was certainly not cliché but obnoxious in the least. The fact that Stewart never says, "You're fired!" - mentioned in the message board on this site - is particularly distressing. Producer Mark Burnett should be admired for dealing with Stewart's jail time honestly while trying to make her a hero, but the truth is that anyone watching can tell that she's basically trying to put on a show of being this nice businesswoman. Again never mainstream, Stewart lacks the agreeability and identifiability of Oprah Winfrey and the admirable, charismatic "toughness" of Donald Trump. Yes, this can be a gender-biased assessment of her character, but I mean it to be more about the nature of her business.

It comes as no shock that Stewart has been fired, but I wonder if they really always intended it to only last for one season?

I understand that Donald is concerned that there has been an audience split between the original Apprentice and Martha's new show. I also understand that he is part owner of Martha's version. I think I may have a suggestion for a win/win. Perhaps The Donald and Martha could advertise a "final showdown" between the 2 winners from each of their shows. This might boost ratings for both shows. I have been a long term fan of the original Apprentice and have high hopes for the success of Marha's new version. I think there is definitely room for both to be successful. The Donald and Martha are both such good "promotors". I am sure they could have a lot of fun with some "battle of the sexes" type advertisements.