What could be the most odd reality television series Australia has seen since, well, 2008 at least, celebrities will begin to pit themselves together for the sake of money and fortune, most of which is going to charity fortunately. Tonight, I believe a carwash is in order! If anything, it will be nice to see the always bubbly Polly Porter back at 7PM!
We’re given some sort of preview of the ups and downs we can expect and I already like Deni and Julia!
We head straight to a fancy room where the celebrities ‘meet for the first time’. There are a lot of bold statements being made here. Some of the comments, like those made by Pauline, seemed a bit contrived.
In walks Mark Bouris who welcomes them to the first ever Celebrity Apprentice. He tells them that this game is all about raising money. He goes to Max and asks him who he doesn’t want in his team. He goes for Jesinta straight away; telling them to fire her. Lisa doesn’t want Warwick, and neither does Pauline. I have just this second realised that these two went up against each other for a seat in the last election!
For their first challenge, Mark tells them it will be boys v. girls. He then introduces Brad Seymour who tells them that this challenge will see them starting a car washing business. He then introduces Deborah Thomas who tells them that they will have to think smart in this challenge; wash a thousand cars for $1 each; or one car for $1,000?
These two are his executives.
Mark tells them that the team, who makes the most money, wins. He tells them to utilise social media for their challenge. From the losing team, one will be fired.
The next morning, the girls get together and Polly wants to name the team ‘Caritas’ as it means charity in Latin (she doesn’t know any Latin). They shut it down straight away.
Julia goes for ‘Bouris’ babes’ which they all like; except Pauline who does not consider herself a babe. She doesn’t have a say in the end.
The boys get together and Jason believes alpha could be good, but Warwick wants ‘team Capper’. Wendell goes for ‘team unity’ which is accepted.
Both teams then elect PM’s with Jesinta designated the girl’s leader who goes for a ‘six star’ business model.
For the boys, Max wants to put his hand up and Jason thinks he should be saved for somewhere down the line. Does this mean that you can’t have the PM title more than one time? He is elected regardless and his strategy is to ring people for their money!
The boys want to utilise media such as Zoo magazine to market their company, but the girls want to use social media like Twitter. Pauline is a bit confuzzled with all the Twitter talk and just simply wants a ‘Please Explain’ poster on display. She also can’t pronounce ‘Resonate’ properly (‘it’s a term that ‘resonitate’s well with me’ she says).
With that, they are off and Jesinta has hired some of her Miss Universe colleagues to help out, so her and Polly go and get them dresses. Back at the board room, people are a bit angry that the project manager has left them; and they are frantically calling her every second they get.
Julia hopes they aren’t out having a good time; but as we see, they are simply having a ball trying dresses.
At Team Unity, they are booking in thousand dollar clients for their deal. Max is going mental with the news; so Shane decides to pull a prank and pretend to be a client wanting a $25,000 car wash. He doesn’t get that it is Shane until Shane actually has to take the phone away from his ear and TELL him!
The Bouris’ Babes are also raking in money, hoping to beat Max.
After the break, the contestants head out into the field and they organize people’s delegation of jobs. The girls aren’t so happy with how Jesinta handled the designation but they all seem to listen in the interest of washing cars!
Warwick and Wendell are out purchasing shirts for the team and they are happy to have been given to them for free. They have had to change the design and colour scheme, which annoys Didier. Warwick threatens to punch the aggravated model who leaves the confrontational situation with two fingers up!
To the girls and a sign they have put up isn’t getting Pauline’s seal of approval who calls it tacky. Who cares; the sign stays.
At the boy’s team, they are all getting annoyed that Max isn’t listening to them. Didier puts forth an idea, and they all agree on it (it is a job delegation idea) but Didier isn’t happy at all by the way the situation was dealt with.
Pauline is out sporting the ‘Please Explain’ banners for her team’s car wash and she seems very proud of herself. The team captains then get their teams pumped for the challenge as it begins. A big bus is first up for the boy’s and Didier is already a bit puffed out.
Next car is a Vittoria lager dressed car (product placement aplenty). Everything seems to be moving smoothly.
The girls are also getting their first customers, but Jesinta wants Julia to go out and spruik. From promising ‘international stars’ servicing cars; she is resorted to promising ‘to go nude’ with the lack of hits she is getting.
The boy’s are going out of control as Warwick begins to disobey orders and gets a bit niffy with Didier and his directions; opting for a massage from some models rather than help. Max is inside entertaining a baby.
Russell Crowe comes to the girl’s as a client and has promised a tweet promotion for them. The girls seem to be having fun washing these cars, especially the always funny Julia; a stark contrast to the trouble-stricken Team Unity.
Some guy brings in a forklift which he needs cleaning for $10,000! The girls are happy, but there’s another task needed to be complete. The pap has arrived and it is time for Jesinta to strip to her bikinis. Deni seems a bit jealous, but Jesinta seems a little embarrassed by the fact that these paps aren’t letting her do her real job (which in this case is car washing).
After the break, Team Unity has got their act together and Max is happy with all the business they are finally getting. Zoo babes have turned up and they were able to get $25,000 from donations. Jason has invited some dancers down to get the mood going and all the teams got in on the performance.
Meanwhile, back at the girls, Polly is putting her retail skills to good use at the cash register. Still, her slow moving work gets to Julia and Deni, who keeps calling her Poppy. Deni apparently makes a quip about not watching The Block; but Polly reminds her that 4 million other people did.
At the boy’s carwash, more clients are coming in, including a truck. Warwick still isn’t doing work and Shane dumps a batch of soapy water over the 80’s icon. He doesn’t seem to care. Surely they are doing this to increase content. It looked so scripted.
All of a sudden, the cars behind the truck that needs to be washed are getting impatient, and the contestants who are actually working are going their hardest while they bitch about him. Wendell, Jason and Didier are amongst the most vocal.
Max goes to look for him, but the team has decided he is not a team player.
Soon enough, the truck is done, but a customer has already become fed up, deciding to leave; costing the team $5,000. The team aint happy with Max, hoping that doesn’t lose them the game.
They actually travel to the girl’s carwash and as a fan of Pauline Hansen; the owner will give $50,000 to her if she washes his car in his underwear. Despite this being completely staged, I wonder if she will actually do it.
With 30 minutes remaining, the boy’s business is dwindling. Deborah arrives as business becomes stagnant. She interviews Max who is now just relying on people just turning up. He can’t see the team getting much more money.
Didier tells Jason that they better not chase the general public because the $50 they will pay won’t make any difference. Jason does not agree and Didier thinks it is poor form on Max’s behalf considering this is for charity.
Talking about doing things for charity, Pauline decides to get in the man’s underwear and wash the man’s car for the money and go ahead with the dare in the name of charity. And hey, she doesn’t look that bad in the attire! A clean and easy $50,000 I reckon!
Deni thanks her at least and even helps her out by singing the Australian National Anthem per request for the segment.
With fifteen minutes to go, both teams make a final push for sales. Jason pressures Max to get more cars and he accepts. The celebrities then go out to get more cars and soon enough, people come in. Didier says they made $500 out of their haul.
The girls are also cramming for last minute sales and Jesinta yet again has her shirt off. Pauline doesn’t want the contestants to bully people into doing it; like Polly (or Poppy as Deni says) who uses a megaphone to call people out of their apartments.
Jesinta pressures Pauline to stay out and spruik for the last few minutes, but having been outside for the best part of the day, she wants to go inside, feeling bullied by Jesinta.
Jesinta is annoyed that people are giving up a few minutes before the end. Soon enough; that time ends, and only the results remain to be revealed.
After the break, the celebrities head to the board room for those results. Max is happy to be in a boardroom!
Mark welcomes them to the room and he turns to Max who tells him their team was named Unity. Jesinta tells him about their name and Pauline tells Mark why she doesn’t like it (she doesn’t consider herself a babe). Mark then tells them that he thinks the name is entirely inappropriate and for the girls to never use his name in their name again, ever. It was actually quite tense to watch.
Deborah backs up his sentiments, saying they sound like suck ups.
Max thinks he has nailed the job but Shane brings up the concerns they had with his leadership and how he didn’t listen to anyone. Jason backs this up; saying he was able to provide the clients, but not the leadership.
Max says his goal was to win and he thinks he has been able to do this. He even challenges Mark, which doesn’t go down well.
Jesinta goes through their progress and Deni says they were aiming for a mixed market; washing cars for free and for thousands from big corporate magnates. Max was just interested in running the world’s most expensive car wash.
Deborah wonders if Max was able to get all of his celebrities on the red carpet at once but Max says that wasn’t his focus; he just wanted to get the money in.
Mark asks who on the female team got the biggest donation; and Pauline and Deni talk about the man who gave them $60,000 for Deni singing the anthem and Pauline washing the car in the given attire.
The boys are not happy; considering this was the guy they lost due to their slowness.
Jesinta thinks she has raised $17,000 for stripping down, but tells Mark she wouldn’t do that in a more professional setting. As the celebrities back up her decision to do this, she begins to cry.
Brad knows it didn’t start off well and Mark wants to know who she thinks didn’t pull her wait. She tells him twice that she thinks they all did well, but he doesn’t like that answer and asks her again! This is not a pageant, who didn’t pull their weight.
Jesinta says Polly & Julia just because they didn’t bring in as much money. Julia is annoyed as she believes she brought in the most people that day. Polly doesn’t know that many people but thinks she did pull in people.
Mark asks who on the other team would she fire and she says Max without a second thought. He begins to laugh and she wonders why he is laughing because he thinks the only people who can give to charity are those who can afford it.
She thinks he is arrogant and didn’t like how he dealt with it.
Max would fire Polly and Polly puts this down to her not having any contacts.
Mark tells them that this challenge was successful either way and tells them that between them, they raised $166,000+, but there can only be one winner.
The winning team was Bouris’ babes, landing the boy’s in elimination number one. The money will be going to Jim Synes Reach,
Mark tells Jesinta she did brilliantly, and they head into the green room where the fake secretary awaits.
That’s the end of the episode and how did it go? Well, like any Nine series. Full of product placements, a little bit fake, but good to watch. It was interesting seeing these celebrities compete in this challenge, but the product placement used when the cars with various logos pulled up was just cheesy.
Mark tries a little hard to be a big boss; he seems to have a grin on his face the entire way through his scenes. Sometimes, conflict seems a bit staged. Despite Warwick’s weird ways, I doubt he would attempt to get into a fist fight with a contestant like Didier on a small issue regarding shirts in the first episode. Didn’t buy it at all.
Because this blog is going up late enough, I will spare the details, and we will continue this discussion tonight.
Courtney’s Verdict: 7.7/10
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