When Mark Burnett premiered The Apprentice just over two years ago, the parallels with his hit Survivor were obvious: two groups of contestants, competing in immunity challenges on a hostile island (in this case Manhattan). In the first episodes, host Donald Trump made a big point of comparing the business world to "the jungle." Survivor, by then, was an established hit, which had proved it could change casts every season without significantly fading in the ratings.
For the first couple seasons, it seemed The Apprentice would do the same, but soon it started languishing, bleeding viewers on Thursday night and now shunted off to Monday nights, a near-forgotten, vestigial thing–the appendix of reality TV. There have been plenty of theories why: diluting the brand with Martha Stewart’s unsuccessful spinoff; the fact that there are fewer excuses to run around in bikinis during a business meeting; less-than-exciting casts. But it’s time to point the finger at the head of the corporation. The Apprentice has faded for the same reason it became a hit: Donald Trump.
The beauty of Survivor is that it has no real, permanent star. (Sorry, Jeff.) Each season it changes casts and twists, but the reasons to watch–the game and strategy–stay the same and don’t get boring. But from the beginning, The Apprentice put host/star/producer Trump front and center because, well, that’s the only way of doing business with Donald Trump. And for a while it worked spectacularly: the eccentricity, the boasting, the grand lifestyle, the hair–how could you look away?
The problem is, in reality TV, formats last; personalities don’t. (Ask Ozzy Osbourne.) It didn’t take long before Trump’s shtick became old and his vanity grating rather than amusing. And while the catchphrase "You’re fired!" became the show’s rocket to pop-icon status, Trump’s role in the boardroom ultimately hurt the show. Sometimes he would fire players for objectively bad performance. But more and more often, he would suddenly fire someone in a fit of pique: because they interrupted him or because he thought they were showing poor boardroom strategy (e.g., defending rivals instead of cutting them down).
Because Trump is also a producer of the show, his random firings can make you suspicious that he was just keeping people around for entertainment value. But worse, they make The Apprentice difficult and frustrating to follow as a game, because his batty, fire-from-the-hip unpredictability meant the game had no real strategy. How a contestant did in a challenge has little bearing on whether he or she will be fired; the challenge is just half an hour of throat-clearing for the real game, learning how best to flatter (or at least not tick off) Trump in the boardroom. Ingratiating yourself to a nutty boss is probably a good reflection of many offices, but it makes for bad TV.
Clearly, The Apprentice is not a format that could do well no matter whom you put in Trump’s role–Martha Stewart proved that. But Burnett and Trump turned The Apprentice from a game show into a personality show, and that personality has overstayed its welcome. The Apprentice might be able to find a second life if Donald Trump were to put his ego aside and let someone else–Carolyn?–host for a while.
Yes, I realize I just wrote the words "Donald Trump" and "put his ego aside" in the same sentence. But if Trump is the pragmatic corporate leader he says he is, it may soon be time for him to sit down in the boardroom, pull out a mirror, gaze into it and say: "You’re fired."