Instead of “You’re fired,” America’s newest catch phrase this season will be, “You just don’t fit in.” Not only is Donald Trump doing another season of “The Apprentice,” but now Martha Stewart is jumping on the bandwagon by starting her new show “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.” The premise of the show is much like Trump’s “Apprentice.” There are 16 candidates that will compete for 13 weeks. There are two teams, Matchstick Corporation and Primarius Corporation, competing each week on a designated task. The winning team gets to stay in the loft that they all live in, which is located down the hall from Stewart’s office, while the losing team must meet Stewart in the conference room. One person is then eliminated. The person left standing after those 13 weeks will become Stewart’s apprentice.
In the series premiere, the first task for the 16 apprentice wannabes was to work for Random House publishing and adapt, design and establish a fairy tale and change it so it could relate to parents and children of today. They then had to present their fairy tale to first-graders with Stewart’s sidekicks observing, and whoever did a better job won the task. The key to the task was to connect to the target audience because “making a connection with the customer is essential to the success of a business,” Stewart said on the episode. Primarius Corporation is known as the “corporates,” because they are the ones who are self starters when it comes to business.
Their project manager was Dawna, a magazine publisher from St. Petersburg, Fla., and their team decided to revamp the classic tale, “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Matchstick Corporation is known as the “creatives” for having creative type of jobs. Matchstick’s project manager was Jeff, a creative director from New York City, and they decided to go with an updated version of “Hansel and Gretel” but with an urban setting. Once both teams had their stories designed and published, they both presented their tales to the group of first-graders. After both teams presented, Stewart’s side-kicks made a decision and the winner of the task was Primarius.
Matchstick was sent to the conference room, while Primarius was able to enjoy a nice dinner with Stewart provided by a sushi chef Once in the conference room, Stewart told Jeff that the team ruined the story of “Hansel and Gretel,” one of her personal favorite stories. She did not like the story and felt that it sent out the wrong message to children.
Stewart then asked different team members who they felt should go into the conference room. Majority of the team chose Dawn, the writer of the story, because she had a negative attitude during the whole task and was constantly arguing with Jeff. Stewart chose Jeff to come back into the conference room and asked him to bring two other members with him, and he chose Dawn and Jim, the only member who was campaigning to have Jeff leave the team.
When the three members of Matchstick returned after Stewart deliberated with her sidekicks, she let them speak for themselves as to why they shouldn’t leave. Ultimately, Stewart decided that the product wasn’t of a quality standard, and since Jeff was the project manager, he was responsible for that. Jeff “just didn’t fit in” and was eliminated from the game. While watching this show, I noticed that the set-up was the similiar to Trump’s “Apprentice,” but with some slight differences.
Trump has George and Carolyn as his sidekicks, whereas Stewart has her daughter, Alexis, and Charles Koppelman, Chairman of the Board. Instead of going to the “board room” with Trump, the competitors go to the “conference room.” And, instead of letting Robin know to let the competitors into the board room, Julia lets the teams into the conference room.
I myself have been a Trump “Apprentice” girl, and after watching Stewart’s version, I can’t help but think that it’s just a publicity stunt to make herself look good after all of the drama she has been through within the past two years. After watching this show, it made me look forward to Trump’s “Apprentice” even more, which premiered the next night. In my opinion, do not do a spinoff, always stick with the original.