The Apprentice: Los Angeles Weekly Performance Review, Episode 9

Whatever possessed Kristine to leave the video shoot to go shopping was inexplicable, as Angela certainly could have purchased those paper towels and lipstick unescorted. Although it was apparently only for two scenes, this absence corresponded with when the Dial execs came by. This almost got Kristine fired, as the Dial execs named her as the one responsible for the loss. Yes, it isn’t fair but timing and perception can be everything.

When Kristine returned and took on the director role, she made several good suggestions. One was about making sure the product label was always visible, and another was making sure the shot was framed properly. However, this merely underscores the enormity of her bad decision to go shopping and have the early scenes filmed unsupervised.

It’s one thing to notice on a daily basis that Muna has a strong accent, but what got recorded accentuated Muna’s verbal nuances and left Kinetic with a near-useless audio track. Was it foreseeable that there would be recording problems? Probably not. Although in the Boardroom Kristine implied to James that she checked the tapes on her return, I don’t think she did. The whole team seemed equally surprised when they reviewed the video with their engineer.

Changing topics, it’s apparent Kristine has an image recognition problem with Trump. Again this week, Trump stumbled identifying her as the PM. I don’t really know why that is. In the early days of this series, Trump used to visit the tasks himself. Maybe that’s a factor?

Knowing how religious Muna is, Kristine was somewhere past bad taste making her religion jokes. I will say that I thought her decision to review Trump’s book before the Boardroom was a smart move, though. One of the Yahoo clips calls this scene “Good Books: The Deity vs. The Donald.”

In the Boardroom, Kristine got, eventually, support from Angela and Heidi, and that’s what saved her. Considering the poor job she did, I’m rather amazed that so little Boardroom was directed at Kristine.

Last week I wrote that I was afraid Kristine wouldn’t be a strong leader, and this episode bore me out. Her rating is UNSATISFACTORY, because with only three teammates, proper resource allocation is a big factor.

Muna:
Muna sure had trouble understanding the plot of their webisode. Not only during the planning session, but as it was filming. Despite requesting an acting role, the Yahoo webisode shows she was over her head as an actress. One funny bit shows her either starting a scene before the director calls, “Action!” or else he says it and she doesn’t respond. It also shows that several retakes were required to get the first couple of scenes filmed as she messed up the lines or was positioning herself improperly.

Muna’s lack of enthusiasm for a behind-the-scenes role is clarified somewhat in the Yahoo webisode when she explains that she didn’t want to be known as a one-dimensional details person. She may have given the final choice to Kristine, but it was apparent she clearly wanted to be on camera. Perhaps Muna’s biggest sin was putting Kristine in the no-win position that resulted when she unenthusiastically said she’d take either role.

Enough has already been said about Muna’s poor audio results, but she made it worse by speaking too quickly and enunciating poorly.

In the Boardroom, Muna called herself “a lamb” and Trump jumped on it. In actual fact, Muna was so busy fending off that aside that she never finished making her original point about comparing herself to a lamb.

In a moment that I think expressed the confusion of this Boardroom so well, even as she was being fired for taking a risk, Muna was unsuccessfully trying to explain that she doesn’t take risks.

In large part, Muna was fired because she couldn’t act on film. But it was the role she dogmatically fought for, so she has to take much of the blame when it didn’t work out. Her rating is NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.

In Conclusion:
Did Trump make the right decision? Yes and no. Kristine let someone bully her into giving them a wrong assignment. Kristine then left at a critical time, and Muna’s shortcomings never came to light until it was too late to refilm the scenes.

But the last two weeks, Muna showed us she is not easy to work with. Firing both would have made perfect sense this week.

A Correction:
Last week, I made reference to the week that wedding salon owner Sandy not winning a wedding task in season two. Doh! That’s what I get for trying to remember four years ago and not looking it up. In actual fact, she wasn’t even PM on that task, but they won largely due to her efforts and the absolute failure of the other team. Reader Patrick came up with two better examples from earlier seasons. Thanks, Patrick!

That’s all for this week, so please feel free to let me know what your thoughts are at the eAddress below.

Brian lives in Toronto, where he can be reached at uncle_bto@rogers.com. He spent a couple of decades working in middle management at The Prudential, primarily hiding behind the coffee machine to avoid his pointy-haired bosses. He’d like to hear your opinions and promises to respond to all serious email!

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