‘Apprentice 3’ Finale Cut to an Hour, Viewers Breathe Sigh of Relief

Last season’s Apprentice finale was so long and drawn-out that it came close to “winning” the 2004 Reality TV Hall of Shame Award for “Worst Finale” (the only reason it didn’t was because of the horrible way NBC treated Last Comic Standing’s finale). It seems that NBC and Apprentice producers learned from that catastrophe, because they announced yesterday that this season’s finale will only be one hour long.

Donald Trump is quoted as saying, “I was very insistent on having a one-hour finale this season. Viewers want the live boardroom and they want to witness the excitement of the hiring. And that will be our focus this season-the completion of the task and the final live boardroom showdown.” Gosh, really? You mean viewers didn’t want to see Trump pretending not to know who he was going to hire for two hours? Viewers didn’t want to hear the same answers from a bunch of people about who they thought would win? That’s hard to believe.

This season’s finale will be broadcast live from NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at 9/8 Central on Thursday, May 19. In that hour, viewers will still see the “culmination of the final two tasks,” according to NBC, and of course the actual hiring.

The one downside of a one-hour finale is that there will apparently be little time to talk to the previously-fired contestants. Then again, last year many of the contestants didn’t really have a chance to say much anyway.

Survivor went through similar growing pains with its finale in the early seasons. After a successful finale and live show in the first season, Survivor waited until the Final Three for the Australian Outback two-hour finale, leaving many viewers bored. The following season, they went back to a Final Four situation, which is where it’s been since then.

The most important part of the shortened finale is that we might be able to make it through without hearing from Omarosa. Unfortunately, though, she will have plenty of TV time all too soon as part of the next Surreal Life cast.

At this point, of course, it’s unclear which of the contestants will still be in the running at the finale. It seems fairly clear that Chris will be fired by then – and if by some chance he’s actually one of the final two, his recent arrest for disorderly conduct would likely put the nail in his coffin. Many viewers are picking Tana to be at least in the finals, if not the actual winner. Others are pointing to Kendra as possible competition (I must admit, I’m firmly in the Tana camp and don’t understand what people see in Kendra). We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see, though. Thankfully, once we find out who the finalists are and how they do in their last tasks, we won’t have to wait hours to see who actually wins.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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