The Apprentice LA, with it’s new format of awarding the winning team the luxury of making a lush mansion their home, and forcing the losing team to “rough” it out in tents on the green grass in the backyard of said mansion brings an interesting and new competitive twist to the show in its sixth season with Donald Trump at it’s helm. Along with the changes in habitats based on winners and losers, the winning teams’ project manager will continue to be the P.M. for that team until they lose a task—smart move by Mr. Trump, allowing him to weed out the weak from the group by keeping the strongest players in the running as long as they stay up to par.

Also new to the rules, the winning P.M. is awarded a seat next to The Donald, along with his daughter Ivanka Trump in the boardroom, helping to determine who should go home from the opposing team. This allows the P.M. a strategic spot on the panel, as he or she can try to sway Mr. Trump’s vote to fire someone other than the weakest player on the opposing team thus allowing their own team to keep the advantage. This is the strategy that the P.M. for the winning team, Heidi “The Hottie”, went into the boardroom with. Unfortunately for her, in my opinion the weakest player was fired, true to the nature of the game. Although the two on the chopping block were both bad candidates, again in my opinion. One talked so slow and methodically—the same way he moved, I thought he would put me to sleep with his soliloquies full of nonsense, while the other talked so loud and fast it was like watching a baby bunny on speed. 

The task at hand was to run a Car Wash in L.A. and whichever team accrued the most revenue at the end was the winning team. The team led by Frank “The Mouth” (appropriately nicknamed) got off to a hectic start trying to affix a price-point then coming up with the low price of $10 for a regular car-wash with plans to upsell. Frank takes another team member with him to waste an hour printing up flyers to announce the car wash…what the heck was he thinking? The flyers were a waste of time and money, and he left his team stranded to come up with a game plan of their own. It took them a few hours to figure out that hey, they need bigger signs that people can actually read while driving by at 35 miles per hour. They try to scream at drivers who have their windows rolled up about a $10 car wash. How idiotic is that.

The P.M. Frank is waving the letter size flyers at the cars zooming past, thinking he is doing an excellent job at marketing, while the “slow as molasses” Martin is complaining about how tired he is…please…all he did was carry a receipt book around “trying” to convince people to upsell and purchase detailing for their cars. He drove me crazy with his lazy attitude and the way he carried himself. He actually asked Mr. Trump if he could use the bathroom during introductions. Faux pas. Ivanka said it best, “you should have waited”.

I love to watch Ivanka Trump, she is fascinating to me as she is such a smart woman and carries herself with class at all times. She will be a great addition to the show as well as her brother, Donald Jr. Ivanka took a turn to rip into Martin and let him know her true feelings for him. She did not like his pompous attitude, did not like the way he talked and wanted him fired. Seems Daddy agreed as he was the first to go home after Donald told him he was better off as a Professor.

Heidi’s team fared a hundred times better as they all got along well as she was a true leader from the start—I have high hopes for her. They took no time to make signs out of cardboard and black markers so they could start getting a steady stream of customers as quickly as possible. The whole team dug in and got dirty scrubbing and drying cars, not wasting time trying to sell expensive detail packages, rather working on getting a large quantity of low end sales. It was a move that paid off as they outsold the other team by the skin of their teeth and was rewarded with a dinner at Spago with Mr. Trump, Melania his wife, and Wolfgang Puck as host and chef. The losing team spent the night in tents, showering and eating outside, all the while coveting the other teams rewards.

My pick as the first person who should be fired came to fruition, as Martin was chosen—but if I was in The Donald’s seat, I would have fired Martin and Frank. The tortoise and the hare. Stay tuned to NBC on Sundays at 9 P.M., the shows regular time slot, and pick your favorites from the so called “cream of the crop”.