Month: March 2013

All Star Celebrity Apprentice Episode 1 was a waste of time. Before the season started, Trump could not figure out why Bret Michaels would return again after having won already, which made Bret his easy target when his team lost to Trace’s money making machine. At least it was just one wasted episode, not like the year Joan Rivers was the pre-determined winner and the whole season was a farce. That said, Bret did make what will perhaps be the dumbest move of the season: he not only chose Omarosa to be on his team but actually picked her first.

Trace booked a cruise with Blake Shelton, so he will not be here this week.

Trump tells them that the task will involve Universal in Florida. Not knowing the task, Dee Snider quickly volunteers to be the project manager, and Omarosa will be in charge of her team, none of whom should trust her after her terrible job of keeping track of the money last week.

Their task will be to create a 3D photo experience to be judged based on creativity, integration of the marketing campaign, and guest experience.

Dennis Rodman asks a question about whether celebrities should be involved in the pictures. The response is that the characters are the stars. Not having asked that question, the other team will be featuring themselves.

Omarosa sends her team out to find stuff for Harry Potter, Despicable Me, and some unnamed third brand that she may or may not think of later.

Gary Busey says he’s good with a camera, but this one with three buttons is too advanced.

When Omarosa meets with the fabricators, she gives them specs for her design. Their response lets her know that she’s pushing the envelope too far with this vision, but she’s okay with that. She has, though, decided on a third character, Spider-Man, unbeknownst to her team.

As they run out of time, Dee decides to go with cutouts of the celebrities, abandoning Penn’s vision for incorporating magic.

The fabricator tells Omarosa the 3D stuff probably isn’t going to get done. If that’s the centerpiece, they’ll get it done, but they have to cut time elsewhere. How about the exterior? No, she wants to keep that as is, too. This guy is surprisingly calm considering she’s being such a bitch to him.

At least Omarosa has a vision, no matter how overcomplicated it may be. Dee’s team does not seem to know how they are going to fill in the space.

The Orlando portion of Omarosa’s sign is hidden, but she doesn’t care. The Spider-Man portion of her booth is deliberately left barren, which La Toya fears is setting her up in case they lose. La Toya’s not alone. Everybody expects Omarosa to take all the credit and accept no blame.

Marilu says the weakest player is Gary. Lisa loved Dee as the project manager, Penn says he was the star, and Stephen agrees.

Omarosa says Dennis was not a creative contributor, but on the other hand Lil Jon was very creative. Brande did not like the tense atmosphere Omarosa brought to the task.

The executives like that Dee’s team identified the family fun that lasts forever, and the celebrities wore outfits that fit the characters. However, the design was a bit simple, lacked stying power, and the park guests were more interested in the celebrities than the characters.

Omarosa’s team was more creative and interactive, and they featured the entire resort on a filmstrip (which hid the word Orlando).

Not surprisingly, Omarosa’s team won easily. They took away a lot from the meeting with the executives, avoiding the fatal pitfall of overusing celebrity thanks to Dennis’ question, but regardless the other team was just too simplistic.

A crying Omarosa has won $40,000 for her charity. After seeing this meltdown, Dennis asks Gary about his Oscar.

Penn states the fault is always that of the project manager. After Penn explains his idea, which Trump likes, he fake fires him for not backing it up enough.

Dee says that Gary is the weakest due to his limited skill set. But he does not trust Stephen Baldwin after the first task in which he withheld his money. Those are his two picks, though Trump tries to talk him out of both of them.

When they are in the hallway, Dee says he does not want to risk a second person being fired, which Trump has done before for no reason other than to prove a point and create shock in attempt to boost the ratings. He acknowledges he should be fired if they lost because of the concept. Dee has been fired.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of All Star Celebrity Apprentice Episode 3, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.

The All Star Celebrity Apprentice cast consists of 14 returning contestants, most of whom were terrible during their first appearance. Aside from Bret Michaels (who shouldn’t have won) participating again in the same capacity as last time, the other winners (at least two of whom shouldn’t have won) will serve as advisers.

Trump tells Bret he doesn’t understand why he came back because there’s a good chance he’ll lose. I’d argue he won on a sympathy vote last time, but regardless, he still should be good enough that he can at least last for several episodes, raising money for his charity in the process. Of course, there’s always the chance he’ll bomb and get fired tonight.

Rather than the typical men against women, the teams will be selected in a schoolyard pick ’em with Bret Michaels and Trace Adkins (who was the runner up in his last season, losing to Piers) as captains.

Bret: Omarosa, Lil Jon, Brande Roderick, La Toya Jackson, Claudia Jordan, Dennis Rodman
Trace: Penn Gillette, Dee Snider, Marilu Henner, Stephen Baldwin, Lisa Rinna, Gary Busey

Did Bret really just select Omarosa as his first choice?

Bret’s team chooses the name Power based on Omarosa rapping. The other team chooses Plan B, which Gary informs us is also a birth control device.

When he mentions the name of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, Trace is chosen as the project manager for his team. Omarosa nominates Bret as PM for their team, since he is the only winner competing this year. Brande, who was picked by Bret/Omarosa specifically for her fundraising ability, gets down on her hands and knees to secure the position for herself instead.

Piers Morgan, a clearly deserving winner who Donald Trump takes full credit for being successful since appearing on this show, will join Ivanka as an adviser this week. After throwing Bret under the bus for not being the first project manager, Omarosa starts talking about Piers’ mama.

They will be making meatballs for charity.

Bret has decided after the boardroom that he made a big mistake not taking this first one and also of selecting someone specifically because she’s evil. Speaking of Omarosa being evil, La Toya doesn’t like her either.

As his team starts to talk meatballs, Trace says it doesn’t matter. He’s not sure it even needs to be open to the public.

Omarosa says in no uncertain terms that her main goal is to be personally responsible for taking out the only winner.

Brande does not trust Dennis to do anything, so he’s going to have to find something on his own.

Stephen has decided to withhold his fundraising abilities until he’s project manger. This is a high risk strategy because if you don’t raise anything, you become an easy target.

Brande’s team already has a long line before they even open. Trace’s restaurant is deliberately left closed, and he puts signs on the windows letting people know it’s a private event. Of course, this does not stop Gary from yelling outside for people to come in.

Trace’s biggest donor shows up with $100,000 as the clock winds down. Brande, however, is not so lucky because all her donors show up, except for the largest one.

Bret has attacks coming from all sides. First Donald and Piers give him a hard time because he shouldn’t have come back (then Trump shouldn’t have offered), then Omarosa weighs in about how he sucked at fundraising.

La Toya was not overly impressed by Brande as a manager.

Trace finds difficulty getting support for closing the restaurant to the public, even if his logic that the big donors are all that matters is sound.

Stephen’s strategy to not try was not lost on Trace, who does not think anybody came in because he called them, and Stephen acknowleges he did not raise a penny. In a hectic atmosphere, he may have gotten away with this, but when you’ve only got a few dozen people coming down to a closed door event, it allows you to greet every person that enters the door.

Omarosa and Piers have their tiff dating back from the first Celebrity Apprentice season when she insulted him and his family. Dennis and Claudia for some reason choose to come to her rescue and go after Piers, an adviser who may have input into who gets fired. In doing this, Dennis just asks a question and bows out after hearing the answer, but Claudia goes on a rant in which she offends Ivanka by talking about Piers whining like a woman.

Kelly & Michael, whoever the hell they are (I guess they replaced Regis & Kathy Lee), must pick a winning dish. They have chosen Brande’s team to win the $20,000 bonus prize.

More money was raised by both teams than any first episode in the history of the show. Brande’s team raised $230,533 for a grand total of $250,533, which Brande considers a disappointing result relative to the input she had received from her team. Trace’s team raised $419,539, easily winning over $670,000 for his charity, American Red Cross. I’m not sure his risky strategy either hurt or help… he just fundraised better. He feels like he owes them for what they did for his family when their house burned last year.

Omarosa was in charge of the team’s accounting. Brande says she will be taking the two people who raised the least amount of money, and she will defer to her cashier for that. Omarosa does not want to answer. She should be brought back then. Granted, Brande should know more about what her team did than she seems to know.

La Toya blames Brande, but Piers counters that you can’t blame the person who raised most of the money.

As we go down the line, almost everybody falls around the 25,000 range, so there’s really no clear loser here. The only stand outs separated from the rest of the group are Lil Jon and Brande. After hearing all these numbers, Trump says that they must have won if they really raised that much.

Omarosa says that Bret brought in $15,000 while La Toya was around $18-20,000, putting them just shy of a few others. Omarosa’s numbers are closer, but there is still a $30,000 discrepancy. Surely Trump should know the real answer to this question, but he’s not revealing it if he does know.

Brande will bring back La Toya and Bret based on Omarosa’s numbers. None of the judges can figure out why she would believe Omarosa, but Trace says that she is doing the right thing because Trump won’t fire Omarosa (and he won’t, not for at least a few more weeks).

La Toya reiterates that she would fire Brande.

Brande repeats what Trace just said. She truthfully does not believe Trump would fire Omarosa. Trump claims he’s worried about his credibility if he doesn’t fire the worst person. He says this with a straight face.

Trump has already said he has no idea why La Toya has been brought back into the boardroom. For all the back and forth for the next few minutes, it becomes obvious that it really does not matter what anyone else says at this point. Trump can’t fire Brande either. She raised too much money. Bret Michaels, who Trump did not want to come back in the first place, is the first one fired this time.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of All Star Celebrity Apprentice Episode 2, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.