February 27, 2004

The height of informercialism. The Apprentice reached a new summit in loathsome informercialism last night as the entire show served to introduce the entirely ridiculous product Trump Ice. It's just water, but somehow it's ice, even though it's not frozen, because ice is at least a type of water, though not the type found in the bottle, and ice is a slang term for diamonds, and, you know, diamonds are expensive and Trump is very rich, so it all makes some kind of sense, doesn't it? Who wants to drink water from a bottle with a picture of Donald Trump on it? His face doesn't exactly convey the idea of clean and refreshing.

But aside from that, it was a pretty good show last night. I marvel at the photography and the editing. I used TiVo to go back and study the key scenes of the two characters who were in the running for getting fired and these were beautifully done, with the chess pieces looming in the foreground in front of the calculating Nick and the People Mural suggesting the emotionalism of Ereka. Carefully watch the segment of the show where the contestants are performing the task. The editors know who the bottom three will be and who will lose and will craftily present key scenes to demonstrate the problem Trump will ultimately base his decision on. It will not jump out at you on first viewing, but if you go back, knowing who's going to be fired, you will see all the information was right there in the edit. So, watching the show is like reading a mystery novel.

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