Celebrity Apprentice 7 – Episode 1 Recap

Hey, everyone! It’s me, Pops Ross E. I’m the news columnist for Reality TV Guide, but today, I’m making my recapping debut as I cover the new season of NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice.

It’s tough to turn a reality show into a hit in its first season. It’s even tougher to turn a reality show into a hit after it’s been off the air for a while. Almost every reality show that has taken a hiatus had that problem. Some of these shows start out strong, and then after their decline, they go off the air indefinitely. Then after a while, they return with a new season and try to get everyone hyped up again. 99% of the time, those new seasons become their last. Some of the time, it’s an experiment gone wrong. Other times, it’s not as fresh and exciting as it was in the past. Other times, the fans have moved on to a newer, current show. Whatever the case may be, reality shows that return after a long hiatus tend to fail in capturing their glory days. Even with those statistics, the moment I heard that Celebrity Apprentice was returning for its first season in two years, I steered myself for the worst.

I was never a fan of Celebrity Apprentice. (It wasn’t even called Celebrity Apprentice when it first premiered in 2004. The original Apprentice doesn’t even exist anymore.) At the same time, I can acknowledge that those shows did have their good moments. The problem I’ve always had is with the host Donald Trump. He’s always been an egotistical, greedy, outspoken snob that gets way too much luck than he deserves. He loves to talk other people down in the most mean-spirited manner possible, and the majority sides with him all the time. He also talks about himself as the highest degree when there are more important people than him. And he is allowed to do so many things that come across as ridiculous to me. Even the most previous season, All-Star Celebrity Apprentice, had “EGO” written all over it. Donald Trump was a polarizing person for decades, and after he premiered his show, we’re supposed to like him. I’ve had a hard time with that.

Yet, I put the Kardashians’ off-screen hijinks aside when I watch their shows, and looking back on everything, it’s a miracle that the Apprentice franchise has lasted longer than it was supposed to.