Oh, dear Martha....

I've never been a big fan of Martha Stewart, but I do think she handled the situation surrounding her conviction and prison sentence with as much grace as could be expected. And, of course, longtime readers know that one of my two 'reality TV' vices is The Apprentice (the other being American Idol). So yeah, I'm watching Martha Stewart's version of the show.

It's about five minutes into the show, so I don't have anything to say about it yet, except to note that I think the Eurythmic's "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" as the theme song is a nifty touch.

UPDATE: OK, this is a first for me: I'm going to live-blog this damned thing. Some folks live-blog major speeches by the President of the United States; I live-blog episodes of The Apprentice. I'm sure there's a statement in there, somewhere....

1. Some male contestant whose name I forgot already: "You don't control my actions. I control your actions. Let's get that straight." Haven't people watched enough reality shows by now to know that when you say something like that on national television, you only look like a complete ass?

2. The contestants have named their companies "Matchstick" (staffed by "creative types") and "Primarius" (staffed by "corporate" types). God, those are horrible names. One sounds like a company that makes toys from balsa wood, and the other sounds like the bad guy in an old episode of The Transformers.

3. The companies' first task: to create a children's book based on a fairy tale they select, using a designer and illustrator. And then they'll have to read their children's book to actual children. And they're all nodding and grinning, because you know, creating a good children's book is just that easy. Yee-haw.

4. They're in the Random House building, where one conference room is apparently called the "Rudyard Kipling Room". The other team's in the "Dr. Seuss Room". Ick.

5. Some woman whose background is in publishing is the obvious choice to write a children's book. Well, duh.

6. "Hansel and Gretel" in an urban setting could really work. I can think of a thousand ways this could work. Neil Gaiman could do wonders with that; so could Charles de Lint. (Hell, for all I know, de Lint's already done this story, as prolific as he is.) These folks? I doubt it. All of the contestants are whining that it's too dark a story, which tells me that these folks don't know shit about fairy tales or children's lit, which can be very dark stuff indeed.

7. OK, I've just now decided that this "Jeff" guy (tall, bald, glasses) needs to be beaten with a large stick.

8. Everyone's saying "Kids aren't gonna understand this." Assuming the stupidity of kids is never the path to creating a good children's book.

9. Awww, Martha doesn't use "You're fired". She said, "You just don't fit in. Goodbye." But now she's writing a personal letter to the loser? "It sucks that you had to leave. But somebody had to go, and it was you." Wow...rub it in a bit. And according to the next-week-preview, she's writing letters to each loser.

OK, interesting premiere. I'll probably watch the damn thing every week. It's my curse.