Teacher, Mother, Secret Lover

So many lessons from my hours in front of the TV this evening:

The Winner
The laugh track is still in use. The canned laughter on Rob Corddry’s new show about a 32-year-old virgin who lives with his parents was so overwhelming that it was almost hard to hear the sucking. Do directors believe that the sound of faux merriment will be so contagious that people will laugh along? Not if this show remains so painfully unfunny. Every joke fell flat, the premise was strained and the acting was stiff. I like Corddry’s work on The Daily Show, but this was just terrible. “There's no way I could live with myself if I missed that,” says a character at the end of the episode. Can’t say I agree. Watch it now if you so desire – it’s not long for primetime.

The Amazing Race
Lying and cheating doesn’t always pay off. This comes as a complete surprise to me as it is usually a prerequisite for reality TV success. Tonight professional reality TV contestants Rob and Amber Mariano were eliminated despite doing every little thing they could to get ahead of Charla and Mirna, including stealing their cab. The scheming pair, who won the first three legs of the race, blew it all by misspelling Philippines. Easy come easy go, I suppose. Many Amazing Race fans considered them interlopers but I liked their there-to-win-not-to-make-friends style. I’d guess this will be the final chapter of their TV run, but you never can tell.

The Apprentice
My PVR doesn’t’ like The Apprentice. For the past couple of weeks it has dropped Trump from my record schedule – perhaps I should take the hint. Actually I (no longer secretly) enjoy the bizknobs infomercial battle, though producer Mark Burnett has become too heavy handed in giving away the results with overly telegraphed music cues.

Zeroes
Turns out the Heroes parody was created by NBC - it did seem too good for a fan video. It was funny, I don't see why they needed to hide the source.

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

Donald Trump is a genius. I’ve been rolling my eyes ever since Rosie O’Donnell and The Donald started verbally clawing each other’s eyes out over which one of them was more of a loser. It’s a toss up, of course. Rosie used to be called “The Queen of Nice” when she was hosting her own show and running her own magazine and now she’s about as cuddly as a cactus. The Donald has made, lost and made hundreds of millions and is the most relentless self-promoters since P.T. Barnum.

Which made me realize what he was up to. The feud was nominally about Miss USA not losing her crown over some hard-partying. Rosie called him a “snake-oil salesman,” said he’s gone bankrupt and continued on with one of her charming impressions. The Donald fired back, calling her a “loser” and a “bully” among other things. The upshot of this pointless bickering was ratings for The View have spiked and every article chronicling the he said/she said comb-over pulling has referenced the new season of The Apprentice. And there it was – a healthy helping of free publicity.

Entertainment feuds have a long history – from Ernest Hemingway vs. Gertrude Stein, to Jon Stewart vs. Tucker Carlson to Notorious B.I.G. vs Tupac Shakur. This one isn’t quite as entertaining (or violent for that matter) but at least there is one upside – you can lay a beating on one of them as either Rosie or the Donald. Use his “killer comb-over” move or Rosie’s patented tongue lashing. I played as Trump and had my ass handed to me.

As for The Apprentice, the biggest change is that it is in L.A. this year, which doesn’t have the same sort of business go-go as New York. Too many shots of sun and surf instead of harried, stressed-out New Yorkers. I must admit, they get some powerhouse contestants. Is the lure of reality TV so strong that it draws such successful business people, lawyers and academics? Oh, right, silly question.

When Self Promoters Attack

Martha Stewart and Donald Trump have started up a monumental pissing match in the past couple of days. They are both incredibly rich, middle-aged and WASPy, so no bullets are flying but there is a lot of media bitch slapping.

Martha says the original plan for her version of The Apprentice was for her to fire The Donald on-air during the premiere. "Having two Apprentices was as unfair to him as it was unfair to me," she told Newsweek. "But Donald really wanted to stay on."

The Donald was having none of it. "I'm tired of Martha blaming me for her failure," he responded today. "It's about time you started taking responsibility for your failed version of The Apprentice. Your performance was terrible in that the show lacked mood, temperament and just about everything else a show needs for success. I knew it would fail as soon as I first saw it—and your low ratings bore me out."

Oh yeah, said Martha, who immediately penned (of course) a response: "The letter is so mean-spirited and reckless that I almost can’t believe my long-time friend Donald Trump wrote it. I am very proud of the work we did…” blah, blah, blah, sniffle.

It’s all very entertaining of course, but why now? The Apprentice: Martha Stewart was cancelled back in December and Randal stabbed Rebecca in the back months ago. Oh wait, the next edition of The Apprentice begins on Feb. 27 and now there are over 400 news articles on Google and all the entertainment shows are running the spat.

But Martha and The Donald wouldn’t have started a feud just to drum up some attention for the show, would they? Nah, that would just be cynical.