Trollheart

VOY
Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway)
Then


Now



Robert Beltran (Chakotay)
Then


Now



Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine)
Then


Now



Robert Duncan McNeill (Paris)
Then


Now

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Garrett Wang (Harry Kim)
Then


Now



Robert Picardo (The Doctor)
Then


Now



Ethan Philips (Neelix)
Then


Now



Roxann Dawson (Torres)
Then


Now

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Title: Progress
Series: DS9
Season: One
Writer(s): Peter Allan Fields
Main character(s): Kira
Plot: Kira tries to remove a stubborn farmer from a moon orbiting Bajor which is scheduled for development.

If any one episode ever typified how boring DS9 was, or could be, in its initial season, this is it. Progress? There's none. It's the slowest, most boring and dreary story which draws parallels to every homeowner or farmer or crazy uncle who's put his foot down and said “I'm stayin'!” when told they must evacuate their home. It seems that usually (and this was almost always the case) any episode focussing entirely on Kira was guaranteed to be slow and boring. This is no exception. We are not made feel sympathetic towards the farmer, who's a stubborn old bastard, nor Kira, who really does little and mostly refuses to grasp the nettle and just grab the guy the fuck off the planet. Hey girl! You're working for the Feds now. Time to put on your big girl knickers and face up to it. Even the subplot, with Nog and Jake trying to sell gear, is beyond poor.

Rating:

Title: Fair Haven
Series: VOY
Season: Six
Writer(s): Robin Burger
Main character(s): Janeway
Plot: Paris and Kim build a holographic representation of a “cute, quaint” Irish village on the holodeck. Why? God knows.

Oh, you knew this one was coming, didn't you? I'm known to be touchy, yes, but I always considered this to be the biggest insult to Irish people that Star Trek writers had ever written, since O'Brien was unbelievably mistakenly seen singing “Jerusalem” with Bashir in “The wounded” on TNG. Jesus! It's basically The Quiet Man in space. That's it. The whole episode takes place on the holodeck and everyone takes roles in the little Irish village. Of course, all of Ireland is like this you know --- Fuck! There goes another bloody leprechaun! Excuse me...

Ratign:

Title: I, Borg
Series: TNG
Season: Five
Writer(s): Rene Echevarria
Main character(s): Picard, Riker, Geordi
Plot: A lone Borg drone is “humanised” by the Enterprise crew. Ah, bless.

I almost needed a new telly after this. I swear, I came close to throwing something at it. Having successfully created the most implacable enemy Starfleet had ever faced, totally alien, deaf to logic or pleas or bargains, they decide to make them human. Oh look! They're just like us. No they fucking aren't! I never felt the same about the Borg again after this. And Picard, given the opportunity to wipe out the whole hive, all Borg everywhere, and save billions of lives, has a crisis of conscience and refuses to do so. Has he never listened to Spock?

Rating:

Title: The Omega Glory
Series: TOS
Season: Two
Writer(s): Gene Roddenberry
Main character(s): Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Plot: The Enterprise comes across two civilisations at war in which another Starfleet captain is helping one side. These two races are called --- wait for it --- Yangs and Comms. I can't go on...

Fuck you anyway Roddenberry, you bigoted, close-minded old cunt. This is without question the worst episode of any Star Trek series, Enterprise excluded as I haven't seen it all. But I'd almost rather watch “Fair Haven” than this! The nationalistic jingoism, the chest-beating, the speech that the “Constituition is for all men, not just Yangs” makes me sick to my stomach. Kirk's fond glance at the stars-and-stripes as he leaves made me grind my teeth: I almost expected him to salute. Luckily he doesn't, or I would definitely have needed a new TV set!

Worst. Episode. Ever.
Rating:

Title: Spock's brain
Series: TOS
Season: Three
Writer(s): Lee Cronin (Gene L. Coon)
Main character(s): Spock, Kirk, McCoy
Plot: Spock's brain is stolen by some female aliens. Yeah.

You can laugh, and we all did, but at least it's not “The Omega Glory”! Seriously though: you start a new season (which, unbeknownst to you, will be your last) with this tripe and don't expect to be cancelled? The plot is laughable and wafer thin. How can Spock's brain --- anyone's brain --- continue to fucntion after it's been removed from the cranium? Words just fail me. Perhaps one of the best lines though --- unintentionally, it is to be assumed --- comes from one of the sexy women who took Spock's thinking gear, when she snaps “Brain and brain! What is brain?” Indeed. Ask Mr. Coon where his was when he wrote this drivel. Still, I guess at least you can laugh at it, which is more than you can say for the other one.

Rating:

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Commander Sela, played by Denise Crosby

Alternate timelines are always so interesting aren't they? Although she died in “Skin of evil”, in another future opened up during “Yesterday's Enterprise”, Tasha Yar returned with the Enterprise-C in order to balance out the timelines. Seems she was not then killed, but captured by Romulans, one of whom fell in love with and married her. The union of that marriage was Sela, who looks just like her mother (well, she is played by Denise Crosby!) other than the Romulan ears. She is in fact almost a female Spock, half-Romulan and half-human. She tells Picard that her mother died when trying to escape with her, and due to the warning shouted out by Sela was recaptured and later executed. Sela does not evince any emotion at the death of her mother, and it is clear that she thinks of her as a traitor to what she now sees as her own people. She is first encountered in TNG when she captures Geordi LaForge and brainwashes him, turning him into a “Manchurian Candidate”-style assassin. Later she helps Lursa and B'Etor to stage a coup and seize control of the Klingon Empire, by gunrunning but the plan is foiled by Picard and particularly Data, who detects the cloaked ships trying to cross the Klingon/Romulan border.

Picard and his crew next encounter her when, in the process of tracking down the said Ambassador Spock on Romulus, they are both taken prisoner by her as she puts into action her plan to sneak Romulan shock troops into Vulcan as a prelude to invasion and conquest. She is of course defeated, but this does not stop her trying. This is the last we hear of her in the series, though apparently one of the novels has her committing suicide rather than be handed over to the Federation when she engineers the destruction of Deep Space 9. The little hussy!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

For almost a month now we've been counting down through

and now we have finally arrived at the very top. So what do we find in the coveted position of number

There could only be one choice really, and here it is.

Not only is it still the best, nearly thirty years later, of all the Star Trek movies in my (and most people's) opinion, but it has the best soundtrack. Young composer James Horner created a powerful yet somehow soothing backdrop to the adventures of the USS Enterprise that it had never had before. There's something magical, stirring and even pastoral about his music that mixes in nevertheless elements of military themes and conflict, embracing the main signature tune while updating it, and the soundtrack would go on to be associated more with the franchise almost than the original theme. A true masterwork, a case of improving vastly upon the original and classic theme, and a worthy winner in the end.
KHAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Chula Vista

Troll, you watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix? Kate Mulgrew plays a great character on that show. If you haven't seen it you should check it out. It's an excellent show.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Trollheart

And so we come to the end of Star Trek Month. It's been a blast, over the last thirty-one days trying to give you all an overall flavour of what the franchise is about, taking elements from each series and doing what I can to educate those of you who are unfamiliar with Star Trek as to why it is such a global phenomenon. As usual, time was our enemy and I didn't get to do everything I wanted, but then, there's only so much you can do within the limits of a month. I tried to keep it fresh and interesting, jumping between series and trying to cover the movies as well, and hopefully those of you who have never watched it now have an idea what to expect if and when you sit down to catch up on any of the series.

Our coverage was of course tinted with the sadness of the news of the passing of Leonard Nimoy just days before we opened, and with that in mind I'd like to render one final tribute to those who have passed on, but who made these series into the cult and then culturally recognised smash hit that it became. We will miss them all.

James Doohan, as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, 1920-2008.
James was with the original series from episode one to the end, and featured in the six “original” movies, as well as guest starring in the TNG episode, “Relics”. His Scottish charm (though he was Canadian in reality) and no-nonsense approach won him fans all over the world, with catchphrases like “Ye cannae change the laws of physics” becoming part of his legacy. Doohan died as a result of complications following Parkinson's Disease and Alzeheimer's Disease, at the age of 88. His ashes were flown into space, as befitted the beloved Chief Engineer aboard the USS Enterprise.


(Jackson) DeForest Kelley, as Doctor Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy, 1920-1999.

Kelley played the laconic southern doctor and friend of Captain Kirk in TOS, after the original doctor had been rejected in the first pilot. His character was a tough, outspoken man (as you would expect from a doctor) but capable of great compassion. Aside from Spock, he was probably Kirk's best friend. Like Scotty, he was in every episode of TOS plus all the movies, and made a very brief cameo in TNG's pilot. He too left catchphrases, the most famous being “Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a [insert other occupation here]". He died of stomach cancer and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.


Leonard Nimoy as Commander (later Captain) Spock, 1931-2015.

Perhaps the most loved character, not only on TOS but in the entire franchise, Spock was Kirk's right-hand man and friend, though as a Vulcan he seldom evinced any sort of emotion. As a character, Spock espoused the idea of logical thought being the impetus for actions, and created the idea of “The needs of the few”. He was in every single episode of the series, even the original aborted pilot, making him the only character to hold that distinction. He was also in more Star Trek movies than any other character, including the two most recent ones from the “reboot”, as well as a double episode of TNG, “Unification”. Our most recent loss, Nimoy died in February of complications from COPD.


Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, as Nurse Christine Chapel/Lwaxanna Troi, 1932-2008.

The only other actor to survive the original pilot (although she played a different character who was not brought forward into the actual series), Barrett has the distinction of having played a total of four “characters”, as it were, in the franchise. First she was the mannish “Number One” in the pilot, “The Cage”, then she spent three seasons as Dr. McCoy's nurse, Christine Chapel. In TNG she was Deanna Troi's annoying Betazoid mother, Lwaxanna, and in most if not all of the series she was also the voice of the computer, which meant she was in virtually every episode of every series, quite a feat. Originally Majel Barrett, she married Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1969. She died in 2008 as a result of leukemia.


Mark Lenard, as Sarek, 1924-1996.

We first meet Mark as an unnamed Romulan sub-commander in the TOS episode “Balance of terror”, but it is as Ambassador Sarek, in “Journey to Babel” and later in TNG and the third, fourth and sixth Star Trek movies that we learn to love him as Spock's father. In the TNG episode that sees the return of his son to the small screen, “Unification Part I”, Sarek the character dies, and in 1996, five years later, Mark Lenard succumbed to multiple myeloma and died at his home.

Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, 1921-1991.

Although his view of the future was certainly an idealised one, as portrayed in both TOS and initially in TNG, we owe Gene a great debt, as without him there would never have been a Star Trek. He fought hard for the series, even after its pilot had been declined, and struggled to keep it on the air in the closing season. He was eventually sidelined after the debacle that was the first Trek movie, as other, younger and fresher ideas were brought to bear, mostly to the franchise's benefit. He died in 1991, having been confined to a wheelchair since the previous year. His death was the result of a cardiopulmonary arrest, likely brought on by substance abuse and excessive smoking. His ashes, like those of James Doohan, were also taken into space, a tribute to the man who had put science-fiction on the television map and given birth to a worldwide legend.


Ricardo Montalban, as Khan Noonien Singh, 1920-2009

Famous as the evil genius Khan from both TOS's “Space seed” and its “sequel”, as it were, the most successful Star Trek movie ever, Montalban epitomised the idea that a bad guy could be intelligent and outwit even a favourite star of a show when he outmanoeuvred Kirk in the second movie, and almost brought about his death, had it not been for the intervention, at the cost of his own life, of Spock. Khan is still seen as the number one Star Trek villain. Montalban died at the age of 89 of congestive heart failure.


Jeffrey Hunter, as Captain Christopher Pike, 1926-1969

The original captain of the USS Enterprise, Hunter's shortcomings have been listed in detail in my review of that pilot episode so I will not go into them here. However it is sad perhaps to think that only four years after recording that doomed pilot Hunter was dead, having suffered a haemorrhage after falling on a flight of stairs. He was only forty-two.

Honourable mentions also to:
Jill Ireland (Leila, in TOS “This side of Paradise), died 1990.
Susan Oliver (Vena, from the TOS pilot “The Cage”), died 1990.
Persis Khambatta (Ilia, from Star Trek: The Motion Picture), died 1998.
Jane Wyatt (Amanda Grayson, Sarek's wife in Star Trek IV), died 2006.
Paul Winfield (Captain Terrell in Star Trek II), died 2004.
Merritt Butrick (David Marcus, Star Trek II and III), died 1989.

If there are other (and I'm sadly sure there are) actors who contributed to the series who have passed on, whom I have missed here, I offer my apologies but I did not want this to be a long, dour list, more a way of acknowledging those who made this series what it is. I hope I have not caused offence to anyone by omitting them, if so it was certainly not intended.

And that's all there is, folks. Thanks for being with me through this interesting and not always logical month. Over the next few years my coverage of Star Trek will continue here, though of course it will just be confined to episode and film reviews: this was a one-off that will not be repeated.

Thanks again and how else could I sign off?
Peace, and long life.
Live long, and prosper.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

__________________

Trollheart

I warned you! You thought I was kidding, didn't you? Just pulling your leg, huh? I'd never actually feature a reality show here? Me? Trollheart? The bane of the pander-to-the-lowest-common-denominator show? He who snarls, spits and fumes about shows like “X Factor”, “America's Next Top Model” and “Big Brother”? Yeah well, there are one or two --- only one or two mind --- of these type of shows that I can stand, even like, and this has always been one of them. Ever since I first caught it on late night reruns on BBC I was hooked, and quickly went about getting all previous seasons, then waiting with bated breath for the new one.

When it emerged there was also a UK version I was delighted, and have been a fan of that ever since. Even my own country had a go, managing four seasons before they eventually decided it was not something they wanted to keep doing, or everyone lost interest, or the mogul at the centre of it lost his fortune, or whatever. But essentially, for four years anyway, there were three different versions of “The Apprentice” running at different times. Oh, probably more: I know there was an Australian and a New Zealand version (Hi Vanilla!) but I never managed to track them down. There are probably others too, but the ones I'm concentrating on are the ones that I've seen, and they break down into three: the Irish, UK and original US versions, of which this is the first I'm looking at.

As there were three concurrent shows running for a while, my intention is to do the same, for as long as they last. So here I'll have episode one of season one of the US show, followed by episode season one of the UK and then Ireland, before moving on to season two of each. Naturally, after four years the Irish one will fall away and we'll be left with just the two, but for now there'll be three running concurrently.

These reviews, for those who care, will be slightly different to my normal format. Oh, there's be the usual “Trollhearting” for sure, but the actual review will be sectioned up. Because of the nature of the show, each article will begin with “The Task”, which will outline what the teams have to do and how they go about it. Then there'll be “The Boardroom”, wherein both teams, having completed the task, will return to Trump's office to have their performance evaluated, with “And then there were three” being the second Boardroom, ie when the losing team is called back in and someone is chosen to be fired. Not that there won't be subdivisions of these sections, of course; you know me by now!

With all that in mind, let's go.

Season One, Episode One: “Meet the billionaire”

Sixteen hopefuls, supposedly the best American business has to offer, come to the imposing opulence of the Trump Tower to be introduced to Donald Trump, who will, at the end of this process, award one of them with a high-flying, high-paying job with one of his many companies. For fifteen of them, it will be the door out of the Boardroom and the taxi home, for one it will be the beginning of a life and a career that they could only dream about. But the candidates will, initially, have to learn to work together if they want to win each task. Split into two teams, they will compete and vie for the top prize, and each week one person in the losing team will be sent home.

Each team picks a Project Manager (PM) who is responsible for the task, for getting people to work together, and for all decisions taken regarding that task, good or bad. If that team wins, the PM stands to be rewarded and praised, but if it fails, more often than not he or she will be in Trump's firing line. It doesn't necessarily follow that every time a task is lost the PM will get the bullet, but he or she will have to bring in two of their team whom they feel did not contribute well or even at all to the project, or who perhaps they believe or wish to impress upon Trump are in fact responsible for the loss. He or she will have to fight their corner though, as nobody is going to go down easily here, and two people brought in together may very well decide to gang up on what they may see as a weak PM, perhaps resulting in his or her being fired.

Shadowing each team every week will be one of Trump's two closest advisors, George Ross and Carolyn Kepcher, who will observe how the teams work, what they do on the task (or don't do) and report back to the boss. Should someone make a claim that is untrue, whoever has been following them --- George or Carolyn --- may tell Trump they are lying, or that it did not quite happen that way, so there is not too much room for flim-flam or bullshit. Before they can be told their first task the teams have a look at where they're going to be staying for thirteen weeks, at the resplendent Trump Tower, and are told to choose a name. They have been split up already into men versus women, so the men choose Versacorp (what?) and the women Protege (well, makes a little more sense anyway).

THE TASK

The first task is, on the face of it, a simple, even childish one: to sell lemonade on the streets of New York City. Each team is given $250 seed money, with which they can buy what they need, and whoever makes the biggest profit at the end of the day will be declared the winner. The Project Managers are selected: for the men, Troy McClure, sorry McClain, and for the ladies Ereka Vetrini. I'll be going more into their details and qualifications later.

In charge of the boys, Troy sets Kwame to suss out the location, as no matter what they do it is not going to matter if they choose a bad place to pitch. Using their charm and persuasion, the boys manage to get some items free --- cups, ice, a cart --- by promising to bring people to the establishments that have helped them out. All this helps, because the less they use of their seed capital, the more it will add to their profits but they need to be careful, as sometimes people doing this throughout the series have been undone by being too clever.

By contrast, the girls seem to have little idea about what they want to do. Someone is shouting about getting a table, Ereka is talking about investing in the project, and Omarosa wants to split up the teams (probably the most sensible thing anyone has said in these early stages; the boys have already realised this is important). She has much to say about Ereka's leadership, or lack of it, none of it complimentary. While the boys are getting organised, the girls are still bickering and nothing seems to be getting done. They even seem not to know east from west, and end up in the wrong location! They are not impressed then when Tammy takes a break to go get some food, while they are all still out on the street trying to sell. She then has it out with the rest of the team, despite having had a pep talk from Omarosa only minutes before.

The men, despite their better organisation, are faring as poorly. Trump, hovering above their location in his personal helicopter, is aghast to see they have chosen to sell (or try to) outside what he calls “a smelly fish market!” Unsurprisingly, they're not having much luck. They decide, perhaps a little late, to move. The girls begin to fare better when they break out the charm and some slight sexual innuendo, kissing guys, hugging them, promising them their phone numbers. Perhaps realising this, Sam has an idea and gets a girl off the street to start selling for them. Not sure if that's allowed. Bill and Troy have a mini-meeting where they admit this new location they've moved to is not much better. Sam's next idea, however, goes beyond bizarre.

He tries to convince some guys to pay --- wait for it --- a thousand dollars for one cup of lemonade, promising them that if they do they will “experience the American Dream”. Where do they get these guys from? Taxi for Sam, methinks, as Carol looks on with a look half of bemusement and half of disbelief. To nobody's surprise, the guys decline to pay that.

THE BOARDROOM

The task is over, the two teams are back in Trump Tower the next morning to file into the Boardroom and see how they did. Unflatteringly, Trump tells them he's in a hurry – "I'm very busy today so we're going to go fast” --- and he is told by Carol that Versacorp doubled their money, while George announces that the ladies of Protege, despite their slow start and bickering, have pulled in over four times their seed capital. They are therefore the winners, and Trump is impressed.

This is a very short, low-key version of the Boardroom. In future episodes and seasons, this will be dragged out a lot longer, as people are questioned on what they did or didn't do, called out on any mistakes or bad decisions, and the announcement as to who won is dragged out more. For a first episode, this is quite disappointing but in future thre will be real tension, fire and tears in the Boardroom, as well as metaphorical blood on the carpet.

Return to the Boardroom
Having lost the contest, Versacorp have to return to the Boardroom the next day. Before that, they each give their opinion to the camera on how and why the task failed. Not surprisingly, nobody blames themselves. Even Kwame, who chose the disastrous location, glosses over this and just says they did everything they could. It's clear he doesn't see himself as at fault, though Trump (and indeed his PM) is likely to take a far different view. As it happens, in the Boardroom it's first David, then Jason who come under fire. David makes the mistake of telling Trump “selling is not my forte.” Um, what are you doing here then? Jason's crime is far more serious: he's rude when Trump interrupts him, and the big man does not like that, and says so. But as it always will, it comes back to the PM, who is put on the spot about the decisions he made, the way he delegated and why, ultimately, the task failed. Carol basically drops to her knees and sucks Trump's knob (not really, that would make great TV though wouldn't it?) when she says she is not a fan of Troy's management style and Trump suggests she is calling him a selective leader. She clicks her fingers and smiles and says “He's a selective leader.” Christ!

However when Trump asks the boys who was the weakest member of the team, they are all but unanimous in throwing Sam (remember him? He of the “thousand dollars for a cup of lemonade” stunt?) under the bus. Sam fights back by saying David is the worst choice for leader, but when Troy is asked who is coming back with him into the Boardroom, surprise surprise! It's Sam. And David.

Behind the Boardroom Door
This is a mostly short piece where I let you know what the two advisors have to say to Trump about the remaining three candidates. Sometimes their opinion can point you in the direction of seeing who is likely to get fired, sometimes not. Trump listens to them, respects them, but he always has the final say and will often go completely against their advice.

George thinks Sam is “a risk taker”. He likes him, while Carol admits that when Trump asked the other candidates, including David, if Sam “crossed the line” legally, and David certainly said he did, she believes he did not. That is surely going to count against David. Carol also thinks that Troy is an “inconsistent leader”, though in fairness this is nothing new: she said as much in the Boardroom when he was there.

And then there were three...
The second part of “Return to the Boardroom" is when those who have managed, by dint of hard work, alliances or just pure luck to escape for another week are allowed to go back to the suite and the PM plus his two chosen candidates face Trump to see who will end up being fired.

So this first week we have Troy, David and Sam. Sam is already skating on very thin ice, having been virtually disowned by all of his teammates, but David hasn't exactly covered himself in glory either. Mind you, there's always danger for the PM, because it is technically with him that the buck stops and he is always in the firing line.

Asked why he brought David back in (it's obvious why Sam is here) Troy says that he thinks David “would make a great right-hand man”, but not a leader. But when he is asked if he would trust Sam with his bank account, and admits he would not, Sam is incensed. He says this indicates that Troy is calling him dishonest; David tries to play peacemaker. Silly really: if these two start going at it he could be in the clear. But in the event, though Trump tells Troy he did a “lousy job as a leader”, he admits he has potential and is also impressed that he had the stones to stand up on task one, so he is told he will be remaining in the process. One down.

Trump calls Sam “a wild man” and tells him he needs to be careful, which surely gives a hint that he may, despite all the negativity from his comrades earlier, be about to give the guy another chance. Turning to David, he admits he is unimpressed that this particular candidate admitted he would not be a good leader, a fatal mistake when talking to the Big T. It proves his undoing: that and his virtual invisibilty on the task, and David becomes the first candidate to be fired from the process. Sam, somewhat relieved, actually bows to all three as they leave!

Oops!
Entranced by a crowd of dogs being walked (and probably hoping to ingratiate herself with their owners) Heidi goes to pet one, which does not take kindly to the sudden attention and barks and jumps at her.

Open mouth, insert foot
The best of the best? You wouldn't know it, from some of the things these candidates say. Here I'll be pointing out what are perhaps the stupidest comments made by candidates, from one fine pair of girls in a later season who ask in consternation “What century are we living in?” to another luckless guy who talks about being “White trash”. Oh dear.

Anyway, this week's one goes to Tammy, who earlier complained bitterly about her feet hurting, not surprising as she was wearing pretty high heels! She goes one better here though. On being conducted around Trump's lavisher-than-lavish apartment and meeting his girlfriend, she asks her “How do you clean a place like this?” Yeah, sure: Trump's lady does her own cleaning! What an idiot!

Mind you, Heidi isn't much more tactful when she tells her “You're very very lucky” and she, with a smile of ice, returns “And he isn't lucky?” Arrrggghh!

There's also Jason who, in the crucible of the Boardroom, and before he knows whether or not he's being called back in, asks Trump not to interrupt him, resulting in this rebuke from his potential new employer: “When you're trying to be chosen by someone, you don't say let me finish!”

Thoughts in the cab
Each person fired gets their chance to make some final comments on the ride away from Trump Tower. Quite often it's a frank admission that they weren't good enough, sometimes it's a belief that Trump was wrong to fire them but it can also be an opportunity for cheap shots at those left in the process, especially if there are any feuds or rivalries to be addressed.

David: “My experience in the suite was okay. Too quick of a time interval to fully judge it. I thought Sam's song and dance routine was absolutely ludicrous. Trump acknowledged that Sam might be a disaster; I think that's probably the pretty likely outcome. I also have the higher IQ than all the other contestants, which just goes to show you that there's little correlation between high IQ and lemonade sales!”

Our man David is here having a go at the other contestants. He basically says he is smarter than them all, then goes on to sigh that you apparently you don't have to necessarily be intelligent to work on these tasks. Translation: I was too brainy for this job and I realise now I would have been wasting my talents. Easy to say, of course, when you're sitting back in the taxi on the ride back to the airport...

Weeding out the weaklings

As the weeks go on, it gets easier to see who is going to thrive and who is likely to fall by the wayside. Sometimes there are clues to this from the start, sometimes people's weaknesses will only become apparent later in the process. Here I'll be singling out the ones I consider weak and seeing how long they last. Admittedly, I've seen the show and know how it ends, but it was years ago and though I remember the overall winner I couldn't tell you how the rest did.

Versacorp

Sam: With his unorthodox approach to business (a thousand dollars for a cup of coffee? Trump will be SO impressed! Yes, he would, if you had cornered some celebrity and convinced them, Sam, but an ordinary guy in the street and you think he's gonna hand over that sort of cash to someone he doesn't even know? Get real man!) and his idiosyncrasies (crawling around outside the Boardroom, unexpectedly standing up in the Boardroom) he's a loose cannon who looks like one of his shots are going to go way off-target and send him out the door, and sooner rather than later.

David: Well David was the first to go, but he was always an early candidate for firing. He did little on the task, did not stand out to his teammates (a sure way of drawing blame down upon yourself --- “I didn't see where you contributed to the task” etc ) and basically did not seem to make any friends. He seemed full of himself but on the task had no idea how to sell (as he admitted to Trump), his ideas being to pursue and badger people (one guy was on a bike and he basically chased him and blocked him off; the guy could have crashed!) until he got someone to take notice. Nobody did. David was never going to last.

Jason: He's something of a late entry to this section. I didn't see him do much, but he certainly distinguished --- if that's the appropriate word --- himself in the Boardroom when Trump questioned him about leadership and seemed unhappy with the answers. Depending on how he does on the next task, Jason could be another early exit.

Protege
To be honest, none of the girls have really stood out in the way the guys did, but I see one person edging towards the door...

Tammy: Had Protege lost I feel she would have been definitely coming back into the Boardroom. From her unscheduled and unsanctioned lunch break to her complaints about her feet, her mini-flare-up with her colleagues and her foot-in-mouth at Trump' apartment, I think Tammy needs to step it up if she wants to remain. From the beginning, she has displayed a cold, almost haughty disinterest in her teammates. She was incredulous in the first scenes when she saw everyone “making non-verbal contact” (smiles, nods) and sneered “The only person I need to be friendly with is Trump!” Not so. If you alienate yourself from your team you can expect to find yourself in the hot seat, and Trump has a history of seeing a weak link and breaking it.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

May the best team win?
Sometimes you can tell who's going to win, sometimes it's up in the air. A simple mistake, a few dollars or a bad decision can change what should have been a winning team into the one who returns to the Boardroom to face Trump. Here I'll pore over whether the team that won should have, in my opinion, if I could have predicted they would win and if they deserved to.

Protege: No fucking way. From the total chaos and disorganisation they displayed from the very start, right from picking their name to finding their location, I could not have believed the women would win. They bickered, they argued, they got lost; while the guys were out selling they were still buying their ingredients. But they picked a good location and, in the end, as even George admitted, who would you rather buy a lemonade from? So in my opinion Protege won this one pretty much on the twin tenets of using their sexuality to sell and the fact that the men picked a terrible location and basically let them win.

Take me to your leader
In this section I'll look at whether the leader of each team did a good job, should have been in charge, or whether they made a mistake in stepping up and in so doing, in the losing team, threw the task.

Protege/Ereka
To be honest, though they won Ereka had little to do with their victory. She seemed a very unsure leader, unwilling to make decisions and happy to be led by others. In fact, Omarosa stepped up as far as I can see and took over in all but name the Project Management of the task, and it is probably more due to her “shadow leadership” that they came in winners.

Versacorp/Troy
I didn't see Troy as a bad leader. I actually thought he delegated well, and was surprised to see that he did not bring Kwame back in to the Boardroom. After all, it was the location that let them down and Kwame was tasked with sorting that out. Troy I found to be very personable, a good talker, a friendly guy who sold easily, didn't buckle under pressure and was prepared to listen to others like Bill when things were not going well. I really thought his team was going to win.

The Front Runners
Sure, at this point it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, but as time goes on the cream will rise to the top (sorry for the mixed metaphors) and it will be easy to see who is going to be in the latter stages and who will be going home.

Troy I feel has a good chance of making it. I liked his leadership style. He's a good listener and peopel seem to like him, plus that “country boy” charm is going to take him far.

Bill, though he hasn't stood out too much, was the one who conferred with Troy about how the location didn't seem to be working, and took an active role as a kind of sub-leader at times. I see him doing well, though again, one slip and he could be gone.

Omarosa seems to have good leadership qualities and I could see her going far, though she does display a certain sense of arrogance that may rub her teammates up the wrong way and scupper her chances.

You're Fired!
Here I'll be looking at the candidate who was fired, telling you what I know or can find out about them, and referring to anything they did in the task(s) on which they worked before being shown the door.

David Gould
Age: 34
City: New York
Occupation: Venture capitalist

David is a doctor but says to his teammates “What can I do with an MD? Treat patients? I want more.” So after managing to insult and alienate everyone in that profession, he then tells us he went on to Harvard to get an MBA and now works as a venture capitalist in the field of medicine. Perhaps he feels the first task was beneath his selling skills, but hey, if you can't sell bloody lemonade how can you sell companies and mergers? Anyway there's not a whole lot I can write about him as we did not get to meet him for long, but he was always a candidate to be fired, given his lack of fire, drive and really interest in the task.

Sight adjustment?
Although he says he always decides with his head, sometimes Trump will allow his heart to rule his decisions. If he sees something in the candidate that perhaps nobody else sees, especially if he says he sees something of himself in them, he may allow them a pass. Similarly, if they have done well up to then but just let themselves down this week, he may decide not to fire them. Sometimes I agree with these “stays of execution”, sometimes not. Here is where I'll examine whether the candidate who was fired deserved to be, whether Trump made, in my opinion, the right decision, or whether someone else escaped who should really have been walking out the door.

In the context of the losing team (as this will always be; Trump has no power over who wins or loses and it's only in the losing team --- with one or two really big exceptions --- that he can fire anyone) there was only really ever going to be two possibilities, and both of them came back with Troy. I don't feel Troy was in that much danger; he led the team well and did his best, and it was after all the first task. It will be rare that Trump will fire the PM on the first task, as he admires those who have the courage to stand up so early, so unless they do a really lousy job --- and even here, where he tells Troy that he did, though I disagree --- they're usually not automatically in the firing line.

But one thing he does not like is what Alan Sugar will later call “hiding in the long grass”, which is a tactic adopted by many candidates, as they hang back and wait for some of the weaker ones to be picked off, keeping themselves safe and avoid the Boardroom. He can usually see through this though, and will call out anyone he thinks is flying under the radar, letting them know they had better step up or they will be in trouble. David was one such I feel: he didn't do much and what he did was pretty ineffectual. Sam could have gone too, but his eccentricity and I guess his passion seemed to chime with Trump, and even if the things he did were a bit mad and out of the box, at least he tried, so I would say really, the decision was almost a foregone conclusion and here Trump made the right one.

Adjustment required: 0%

The one that got away?
Even in a winning team there may be those who escaped by the skin of their teeth, the sort of person whom you know, had their team lost, would have been in the hot seat. Of course, there are “the ones that got away” in the losing team also: only three members in total can be called back in, one of which is the PM, so in the ones that remain, is it possible someone has dodged a bullet?

Kwame: A definite lucky escape for the man who chose the location for Versacorp. The opening segment for the task was titled “Location, location, location”, and he picked the wrong one, something even picked up on by Trump as he overflew the area, and again remarked upon in the Boardroom. In fact, I'm unsure why Troy did not call him back in with David, apart from perhaps the fact that he had something personal against Sam and most of the team had identified him as being the weak link, so it might perhaps have looked strange if he had not been brought back in. But Kwame was definitely a contender to be going home.

Tammy: Did nothing but complain, went for a lunch that nobody else took, fought with her teammates and seemed to do little selling. Got on the wrong side of Omarosa and seemed more concerned with herself than the team. Had Protege lost, she would almost certainly have been liable to be kicked out the door.

Ch-ch-ch-changes
In the first season Trump speaks relatively calmly, but whether he was asked or advised to change that, or decided to do so himself, from season two onwards he shouts at us as if we were deaf. I preferred the old Trump.

Trump talks about a choice for the candidates: "We have", he says, "two elevators. One goes up to the suite and one goes down to the street." The idea of the “Suite or the street” was quickly dropped too.

As the series wound on, the Boardroom sections got longer and more involved, with a lot more drama. Here, they're short and more or less functional.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018