The Apprentice: Martha Stewart Reviews Roundup

What’s the best thing about The Apprentice? In Britain, it’s the squat gruff man jabbing his finger at people and shouting about rubbish telephones. In America, it’s the bizarro-haired man bellowing to himself about leadership from inside a diamond-encrusted helicopter.

So when it was announced that poncho-loving home-making ex-con Martha Stewart was to have her own series of The Apprentice, we were a little bit hesitant. After all, most of the fun of The Apprentice comes from watching all the ridiculous strutting machismo, doesn’t it?

We haven’t seen the show yet, so we don’t know how good it was. But plenty of other people have a good idea…

Before we go into the reviews, there are a couple of things that
we’d like to get off our chests. Firstly, they’ve messed around with
"You’re fired" - the perfect dismissal phrase, instead making Martha
say "You just don’t fit in." That’s not a dismissal - that’s an excuse.
It’s like firing someone by saying "I don’t like your shoes very much".
Even our suggestion of "BLEAURGH! These cakes are SHIT! Get out of my sight, shitty cakes!" was better than "You just don’t fit in".

And secondly, Martha Stewart writes a letter of apology to the fired
candidate after the dismissal. A letter of apology! You get the
impression that Alan Sugar or Donald Trump would only want to send the
fired candidate a box full of dog turds and broken glass and anthrax,
not a letter of apology.

But what did the critics think of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart?

Verne Gay from Newsday thinks the show is too touchy-feely - "There is no fear in this show or any of the doom, shame, ignominy or
flat-out reprobation that comes with getting one’s head handed to one
by the Donald. This show’s light (his is dark.) This one’s happy (his
threatening.) Martha laughs (he scowls.)"

Joanna Weiss from The Boston Globe is similarly unimpressed with Martha’s catchphrases, saying that they’re "generally disappointing. ‘Somebody will be fired,’ delivered with the
signature Trump hand-jab, inspires more fear than Stewart’s halting ‘One of you . . . will be asked . . . to go home.’"

But Jon Bonne from MSNBC
thinks that, despite her wishy-washy dismissals, Martha will be OK -
"If The Donald’s view of business is hardcore, Martha’s is somewhat
more
refined — but with stakes that are just as high. And she has
cigar-chomping Charles Koppelman at her side, clearly the hardball
player, to bring that Trumpian edge into her conference-room sessions."

And what of the contestants? Diane Brady from Business Week thinks that they’ll be a good counterpoint to the new, sensitive Martha - "Stewart and producer
Mark Burnett have assembled a colourful cast of what appear to be
conniving, self-centred upstarts who immediately rip into each other
like toasty baguettes."

Let’s hope Delia’s taking note. It can only be a matter of time, surely.

[story by Stuart Heritage]