This was posted on Monday, January 16, 2017 by Rodney Ho on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
I totally under-estimated "Real Housewives of Atlanta" castmate Porsha Williams entering "The New Celebrity Apprentice."
On "Real Housewives," she comes off as a bit flighty, a bit dopey, sometimes crazy angry. Her business smarts are not highlighted.
But on the Arnold Schwarzenegger edition of this NBC reality competition show, Williams has been a spitfire, an aggressive and smart player to date. She defends herself stoutly in the boardroom and is active during the challenges.
Yet she has been in a position to get terminated three times already. That's not a great track record.
Over the first five challenges, she was on a women's team that lacked great concepts and didn't execute as well as the men, who had a better knack for highlighting their team's personalities. In the end, the female Prima team lost four of those five challenges, including the first one Porsha led as project manager.
Good news for Porsha: when the teams were gender-integrated, she ended up winning the See's Candies fundraising challenge in Monday's second hour led by Vince Neil.
Has Arnold been a good replacement for Donald Trump as host? So far, he's been a bit stiff at times and doesn't do a particularly good jobs probing the contestants about problems during the challenges. Nonetheless, his anecdotes about his business successes and strategies can be amusing at times.
Who could win at this point? Carson Kressley is looking strong, showing creativity and verve. Heck, he went all nude (tucked in) on the Kawasaki motorcycle, egged on by Boy George. Boy George led the first win and is fun to watch. He's held up well. Ricky Williams is boring but likable. Matt Iseman has managed bigger personalities well and could quip his way to victory. Chael Sonnen? I still don't really know much about him and he lost his only project manager challenge. I also can't quite see Vince Neil going all the way although he was able to raise an impressive amount of money for the fundraising challenge.
Among the women, Laila Ali might have a shot to get to the final three or four. Lisa Leslie seems too unpleasant. Brooke Burke-Charvet seems way too passive so far. Porsha needs to lead a challenge and win some money for her grandfather Hosea Williams' charity to have a shot at making the finals.
The last four celebrities who were cut were:
- Eric Dickerson He clearly didn't care whether he was there or not. The minute he said that during the third challenge, he was a goner. Whatever competitive fire he had on the football field was not on display during this show.
- Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi. She was not cut out for this show. She came on meek and even when she took over as project manager, her leadership skills were negligible. Then she fell apart in the boardroom. Next!
- Kyle Richards. She came up with a lot of the ideas but they seemed to fall flat. That may be more the team's problems than her per se but she was the project manager on the losing end here over the bolder men's magazine shoot.
- Jon Lovitz. Does Jon have any friends? His fundraising ability was inexplicably abysmal ($500???) Of course, he's one of the few celebrities having diva moments so losing him for the show's entertainment value is a big deal.
