January 15, 2007
"Cracked-Out Shark-Jumping Awesome"... or not?
After giving the opening episode an A and saying "This Show Is Going To Be Cracked-Out Shark-Jumping Awesome," Jacob at Television Without Pity gives the second episode an F and says "Well, that was a new low... the worst ***damn show on television." I TiVo'd but didn't watch it. My TV time yesterday was limited to "Meet the Press" and an episode of an ancient season of "Survivor." I was going to decide whether to watch the new "Apprentice" episode based on Jacob's grade, and F is so bad you just have to look, right? I'm not quite sure what's going on with Jacob's wild mood swings, but it is clear that he's very deeply offended by the Playboy Mansion. And somehow juxtaposition with Hugh Hefner makes Donald Trump seem more loathsome than usual.
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Jacob has become completely unreadable, IMO. It's really a shame, too, because he's recapping one of my all-time favorites, Farscape, and one the best shows now on TV, Battlestar Galactica. Maybe he's better with the reality shows, but for these two at least, there's too much Jacob and not enough show.
I'm just happy that Keckler recaps Top Chef and Drunken Bee handles Friday Night Lights. Both have perfected the art of recapping; you know exactly what happened, and what they think of it, without having to wade through a pile of literary allusions and tortured references.
I don't usually watch "The Apprentice," but I imagine this is what happened:
"Hugh, I've always enjoyed the Playboy Mansion, you're an icon of American culture, and, as a bonus, I know this is the one place in America that is 100 percent safe from Rosie O'Donnell."
It wasn't _that_ bad. I think a big part of his disappointment has to do with the high expectations that one could have taken away from episode 1.
If you look at the overall ratings by other readers there, it appears that episode 1 was given a C+ whereas episode 2 has been given a C-.
I accidentally missed this episode while on the phone talking to a young female friend of mine.
She happens to be a fan of little shirts, handbags, and other items that carry the Playboy logo. In fact, in my travels around on the bus, I have seen more than a few misguided female souls in a certain age bracket and income class who feel like the bunny somehow makes them more desirable.
So the fact Jacob can lash out due to the trashy direction of the show, to me, is a good thing. While Hef's and Trump's own daughters do the business thing, scores of young women across the country are walking about with no thoughts deeper in their heads than whether a Coach purse (that they cannot afford) will clash with their new tight pink Playboy logoized t-shirt.
Had I been a female on the show, I would have been annoyed.
Must Miss TV!
I'm glad you brought up Playboy. Isn't it time that you spearheaded a "The babes of blogging" contest, or something. I'd even vote for YOU.
I know. How politically incorrect can I get? Oh, I've been worse.
Althouse Althouse Althouse, every where I go; I run into Althouse, or someone's link. The web is no small thing, so the fact that I can't seem to escape from the wisdom of the great Althouse is pretty impressive!
"Cracked-out..."
Observation #1: Maybe Jacob was on crack during the first episode.
Observation #2: When did 'cracked-out' become a compliment?
I have seen more than a few misguided female souls in a certain age bracket and income class who feel like the bunny somehow makes them more desirable
They're right. So how are they misguided? Is the fact that they want to seem sexually desirable itself misguided?
Sure, I suppose not all men are attracted by that sort of thing, but I'd guess the women in question don't *want* to attract men who, like Jacob, react to harmless sexiness by saying "Gross? To the max. Tits and whores and social diseases!"
I greatly prefer Jacob to Keckler. His recaps are all over the place, as opposed to Keckler's laser-precision snottiness.
Jacob's review didn't surprise me--in some ways he's the TV recapper version of Andrew Sullivan, particularly the gay obsession. So when the episode (correctly) focuses on the fact that the team lost because the gay guy was put in charge of the designs, and designed bathing suits for only the most flaming and in shape gay men in America, what do you expect Jacob to say? Carey wasn't fired for being gay, he was fired for letting his homosexuality seriously impair his judgment. And quite frankly, I'd be handling that very tight suit of Carey's very gingerly myself in Trump's situation.
Nothing wrong with the Playboy mansion as a reward, I think, though it would have been nice if the team that won the reward had a few more people who might enjoy it. Most rewards on this show aren't appealing to everyone, suck it up.
Revenant said, in response to my comments:
They're right. So how are they misguided? Is the fact that they want to seem sexually desirable itself misguided?
Sure, I suppose not all men are attracted by that sort of thing, but I'd guess the women in question don't *want* to attract men who, like Jacob, react to harmless sexiness by saying "Gross?...
I probably did not express my point too well. There is nothing wrong with harmless sexiness. As to whether Hef's harem represents harmless sexiness is open to debate.
Also, I am thinking about people who idolize certain lifestyle types at the expense of doing the daily things that will enable them to have better lives themselves.
It's fine if you have "Juicy" on your bum, and a bunny on your boobs, and a $500 glasses and handbags, but if you don't know how to do a resume, or dress for a job, or get the males you encounter to take you seriously, then one needs to redirect the focus of one's brain a bit. Smart women, trivial pursuits.
It kind of goes beyond keeping the "Revenant" parts of us visually entertained with T & A. And on a show about business, Hef is hardly the apex of achievement or the height of sexiness.
The idea that Trump was being homophobic when he acted like he didn't wanna touch the bathing suit is absurd. People gotta chill on that. He didn't wanna touch 'em for the same reason he wouldn't wanna touch some dude's underwear, straight or gay. Remember that Trump is germ-phobic and wishes he never had to shake hands with people.
The episode was kinda lame, but they're usually lame in the early going on these type of shows.
Once again it was, if I remember right, Ivanka who summed up the point of the exercise that both teams missed, but especially the losing team; you aren't selling to customers, you're selling to buyers.
The first thing the teams should have done was to find out who the buyer was and who they buy for and so forth.
I totally agree with Edghopper that Casey let his homosexuality overrule his business sense. At the end of the show he denied other team members told him it was a bad idea--they did, but then he played the gay card and they shut up. It was a perfect example of political correctness. I'm no fan of Donald Trump, but I found his refusal to be PC quite refreshing.
The Playboy Mansion thing was an extension of Trump thumbing his nose at the PC idiots of the world.
(Incidentally, I gave up reading Jacob's site a long time ago. Our tastes don't overlap much and when they do, it's clear that he has some serious axes to grind and that bores me.)
It's fine if you have "Juicy" on your bum, and a bunny on your boobs, and a $500 glasses and handbags, but if you don't know how to do a resume, or dress for a job, or get the males you encounter to take you seriously, then one needs to redirect the focus of one's brain a bit. Smart women, trivial pursuits.
The fact that you judge a woman's depth by the way she dresses says a lot about you and nothing about the woman. It is pretty obvious that, like Jacob, you've got a lot of emotional problems where attractive women are concerned.
It kind of goes beyond keeping the "Revenant" parts of us visually entertained with T & A.
You're the one with the inability to see past the T&A, not me. Just because I don't share your revulsion for women who dress sexily or Jacob's belief that women who pose naked are diseased whores doesn't mean I can't see past a nice pair of breasts and judge their owner impartially.
And on a show about business, Hef is hardly the apex of achievement or the height of sexiness.
He built a $10,000 investment into a $350,000,000 company. Claiming that that isn't an impressive business achievement is simply irrational. It is safe to say that if Heffner isn't a success, nobody in this thread qualifies as anything more than a dismal failure.
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