Territorial Bloggings

I haven’t written about the Fall TV season’s reality shows. I’ve enjoyed them all, but I just haven’t felt the need to express my opinions about what was happening. That was in spite of the fact that there was a whole lot of good & fun to watch stuff happening on Survivor: Guatemala, The Amazing Race: Family Edition, and The Apprentice 4. There were people/teams to love (the Linzes & Bransens on TAR), and villains aplenty (the Weavers on TAR, Judd on Survivor, and Alla on The Apprentice). Just nothing that made me feel like writing.

That continued through the finales of Survivor, where Danni’s win was a deserved one (even though I think Stephenie played a slightly better game), and TAR where the Linzes were fabulously deserving winners (though I would’ve been quite ok with the Bransens winning - just so long as the horridly hypocritical Weavers didn’t win!). In fact, I was looking forward to a relatively easy/pleasant viewing of the Apprentice finale last night, mainly because both Randal and Rebecca were such likable & worth finalists.

Little did I know that the Apprentice finale would be the one that caused me to finally write…
At this point, let me defer to one of my favorite reality recappers, over at Reality News Online, Betsy Wasser, who concluded her recap of the finale thusly:

Randal is hired.

Randal jumps out of his chair in triumph and goes to shake hands with the other candidates. But wait! There’s more! Trump asks Randal to sit back down, and the music stops just in time, leading me to believe Trump had this trick up his sleeve before this moment. This would be the point that many of my readers predicted. In a season marked by multiple firings, Trump will end with a multiple hiring, offering a job to Rebecca as well.

Trump says that he’s thinking about hiring Rebecca too, and wants Randal’s opinion. Randal says that while she’s good, the name of the show is The Apprentice, not The Apprentii, so there should be only one. Okay, Trump says. He was thinking about hiring Rebecca, but now he won’t. Randal continues to celebrate as the credits roll.

What the hell was that? Randal has been saying all along that Rebecca is a worthy oppontent, and that he respects her and thinks she’s talented. But he doesn’t want Trump to give her a job. Not because she’s not good enough, but because he doesn’t want to share the glory? And Trump decides to take the advice from someone who has worked for him for less time than it takes to pour a cup of coffee? That’s pitiful. This doesn’t have to be a zero sum “I win, you lose” game for Randal. He’d still have the job he wanted, and he’d still be Trump’s first choice, but Rebecca would have a great opportunity as well. Yet Randal refuses to share even a little bit of the glory. In that very quick moment, I was no longer able to feel as happy for Randal. This really ended things on a sour note, and I’m disappointed.

I agree. I was aghast at how selfishly & gracelessly Randal handled that opportunity. IMO, he took all the goodwill that he had banked over the course of the season, including his rep as a truly nice guy, and flushed it right down the crapper. He acted like a selfish, cutthroat, arrogant prick.

He had already won. Trump made the choice — Randal was the best. The first choice got job of his choice. He was then given an opportunity to be gracious — in a way that would have only burnished his status, and IN NO WAY would’ve EVER diminished his status as the “Apprentice.”

If the goal of the show/job-interview was truly to get to work for Trump, then Randal achieved that goal. Now, if the goal is to hog all the glory to yourself, no matter how classlessly you have to act to do it… well, then I guess Randal achieved that goal too. During a process in which Randal had consistently raised himself above the fray, he ultimately sullied his accomplishment by lowering himself to Alla’s petty, vindictive level.

And that’s sad.

-ghp