Here's my continuing analysis of each of The Apprentice candidates so far.

The task was almost irrelevant this week except to set up the women losing and StacieJ's ouster as all the women ganged up on her. I was literally laughing out loud as all the women described how terrified they were at StacieJ's behavior. Clearly, they edited this for entertainment purposes. But StacieJ had to go. You can't lead if everyone hates you. But even still, the remaining women look completely dysfunctional. StacieJ's final comment about how they'll now have to go after each other will likely be prophetic.

I've broken them down into three groups: positive, neutral, and negative. Of course, this is all my opinion, so feel free to feel differently. Big movers this week were:

Movin' On Up: Kevin (led the win), Andy (yet another idea gets used), Jenn M (astute comments), Stacy (by process of elimination?)

Goin' Down: Maria (OMG, fails at a marketing task!), Liz (lousy leader)


Positive - these are the candidates who have stepped up (so far) and look to be strong contenders for the top prize. In descending order...

• Kelly - no change from last week
• Raj - no change from last week
• Kevin - with his previous positive scenes, Kevin moves up the ladder with the project leadership victory in Ep 3
• Andy - he maybe "young and inexperienced," but they sure keep going with his ideas. He's already got a lot things to point back to as major contributions to the team if some fool PM (read: Wes) tries to bring him into the boardroom. I'm moving him up to +
• Jenn M - while she has had almost no airtime at all, when she has been on she has made particularly intelligent comments (view the extended boardroom scene where she calls StacieJ a "scapegoat" for Liz's poor leadership). I'm going to go out on a limb and bump her up to +

Neutral - these are candidates who either have not stood out yet, or have had both positive and negative exposures. In descending order...

• Stacy - she's too short, and there is some negative stuff on the web videos, even though we haven't seen any of it yet on TV, but I am going to move her up to neutral. She seems to be one of the more stable women on a wildly unstable team.
• Jenn C - continues to be an enigma. She's providing some of the early color for the show with her exchanges with some of the other women, but I'll call her chances even.
• Chris - one of the unremarkable guys on the team. We haven't seen him do too much so far, except gripe about Pam's interrogation of the ice cream guy.
• John - another one of the unremarkable guys.
• Sandy - I become less impressed with her every comment she makes, oh great one, Mr. Trump, sir!
• Maria - despite being one of the better women so far, her gross error in negotiating the printing deal single-handedly caused her team's loss in Ep 3. Concern that she "can't handle money" is almost a death knell.

Negative - these are candidates about whom I would be shocked if they made it to the final four. In descending order...

• Pam - Pam's "very, very hard edge," her snooty attitude, numerous questions at the ice cream plant, and her lethargic sales technique make her an unlikable character. Add to that the negative web video of her on the sweepstakes (even though she was right on) sets her up as the men's next fall guy. If the men ever lose again. Given how disarrayed the women appear, we could see a reversal of last year, where the women won everything.
• Wes - no change from last week, although I might reinforce his position down here for arguing with Pamela about the sweepstakes, she was right and he was wrong.
• Liz - her blathering in Ep 2 during the boardroom typified the ditzy, but attractive, stereotype. Otherise, not enough evidence. Oops! We sure got a lot of evidence now! Didn't know you were overbudget until the P&G execs pointed it out to you?! Hmmm. Another "lousy leader." One rung above Ivana...
• Ivana - LOL. Even Trump was asking for Ivana's head: How come you chose StacieJ over Ivana?
• StacieJ - as we called it. The bottom of the list got lopped off.

posted by Tim at 1:22 PM