The trouble with Martha

You probably heard by now that Martha Stewart's version of "The Apprentice" will not be coming back for another season. I'm neither surprised nor saddened by the news (just being honest). I've been watching both Martha's and Donald's versions and to say that Martha's show unraveled would imply that it was raveled to begin with (and I don't think it was). Anyway, easy for me to say what went wrong but here's what I think:

1) People have heard rumors of Martha being tough on her employees. I believe that many people tuned in hoping to see some fireworks or uncover that Martha is horribly misunderstood. Unfortunately, the show gave us neither of these. We really didn't get to see much of Martha's real personality. Martha was the big draw here...people are curious about her and they got nothing.

2) The novelty of her appearance on the show in light of recent legal troubles kind of wore off after the first few episodes. She mentioned her troubles briefly, but seeing that she wasn't going into much more detail, the curious may have changed the channel.

3) People tuning in to Martha's show were likely already fans of the Donald version. Having both shows run at the same time was just confusing. Way too many people...I still don't know all of their names and I stopped caring.

4) Feels like they made things up as they went along. Everything from the tag line ("You just don't fit in" to "I'll say goodbye" to whatever else she said) to the team alignment. It seemed off the cuff and not too interesting. Doesn't pack nearly the punch of "You're fired!" and the formal letter at the end added nothing.

5) I'm sure the sidekicks (Alexis and Charles is it?) are really nice people (OK, well I am just assuming...I don't know them, but chances are they are nice), but they did not make for interesting TV. Alexis isn't nearly as cutting as Carolyn (love it when Carolyn calls someone out) and Charles seems to be a more buttoned up version of George. One significant personality sitting on that side of the conference room table would have made a big difference. They may have them, but they certainly did not come across on screen.

6) At some point, it became ridiculous that Jim was still there. Conflict makes for good TV, but annoying the audience does not. Where's Supernanny? Someone needs to sit on the naughty spot.

7) I don't know about anyone else, but it's been really hard for me to find someone on the show that I want to win. Nobody I particularly identify with, no interesting back story. So at the end of the day, I don't really care who wins (as opposed to Donald's...go, Randall, go!).

Interesting experiment, timely too. Let's not do this again. ; )