Are the ratings for The Apprenctice dropping?

You have to realize generally I don't watch a regular schedule of TV. Right now I'm watching ER for the second week in a row which is a personal record for the year.

Anyway, I caught the end of this week's Apprentice and I have to say that it's getting old. I've probably only seen maybe a dozen of them in the 3 or seasons that it's been on, but after a while seeing the contestants talk about how great they are and then crumble at the sight of "The Donald" gets old.

The only reason why I liked the show to begin with was that they had cool tasks to do. However, that got old because it seems like they have these monumental tasks like creating an advertising brochure for Pontiac with a turn around of about 48 hours. That included a photo shoot, design, printing and any over the top creative super high dollar junk.

And then the team that won that particular challenge put together a decent brochure, but it only had about 5 words in it creatively placed with some nice photos lacking any info on the car. And the car is a performance 2-seat convertible. Actually only a single person of the 3 person team did any work, but the brochure design made you want to know more about the car without actually telling you a stinkin' thing.

It was all one big tease. Which worked for the nitwits at Pontiac, but then again they only had 2 designs to choose from. My guess is that they found a decent starting spot and then scavenged the good ideas for themselves.

Either way, the tasks are the fun part and all they do is concentrate on the bickering and not the details of the task which is the interesting part.

Really the worst part about the whole thing is Donald Trump. He waltzes into the board room as if he's been watching their every move like a hawk. When he probably just gets there 5 minutes before filming starts and asks his henchmen who sucks. And half of the time he lets the contestants hang themselves in the board room by constantly talking and then makes a snap judgment.

It would have been better if they let the henchmen decide who gets fired in every show but the final 2 when Trump would be there in all his Donald-ness raking in the ratings. One of the draws of the show was Trump to begin with so instead of just teasing the viewers with the big payoff at the end, they show him every week with his barely there hair and the "Blue Steel" look on his face.

Now NBC is pulling a Millionaire and showing the Apprentice whenever they can and is killing the show.

The good news is that they'll have to replace it with something and it might be interesting. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

ER is almost as frustrating as a soap opera. If it wasn't for their previews, it would have been cancelled before Eric LaSalle left and we were all spared the torture of watching him weekly.