Why Martha Stewart Is Not in the Hall of Shame for Firing Shawn

So none of these cases is clear-cut. We can look to other reality shows for times when they “changed the rules” too:

• Survivor had the Outcast tribe, bringing back two people who had been voted out and going against the “rules” that said once you were voted out, you were gone.
• Prior to that, way back in the third series, Survivor had a swap of several members of each tribe. At the time, it was seen as unfair – now it’s expected.
• Big Brother also has brought back evicted contestants – twice now.

The list could continue, but I think the point has been made – certain “rules” are fluid in reality TV competitions. The main rules remain – people are voted out on Survivor and Big Brother, people are fired by the boss on The Apprentice.

That is a key point here. After Shawn’s behavior, there was no way Stewart would hire her as the Apprentice. If she had gone along with precedent, Stewart would have had to fire somebody who was not really responsible for the loss (most likely David, for making poor decisions) and keep Shawn. Then Stewart would have had to wait until Shawn was selected to go to the final Conference Room session in another task and fired her then for something that happened previously – even if Shawn had not done anything wrong in that particular task!

So Stewart cut to the chase and simply fired the person who deserved it the most.

And we need to remember that The Apprentice is more than just a game show. The winner does not just get a chunk of cash, but a job working for Martha Stewart. Obviously, Stewart did not want somebody like Shawn working for her, and the decision on fire – and hiring – is ultimately hers. Perhaps she believes David, Marcela, and Dawn have some potential and wants to see more of them. Why fire one of them and potentially hurt her chance of getting the right person in the end when she could just get rid of the person who so obviously needed to be fired?

With this said, Stewart’s action does raise the question of whether there is any point in a Project Manager bringing two people with him or her to the final Conference Room if Stewart can simply override that action at will. I suspect that this will be the only time Stewart does it, so it’s not like it will become a regular feature of the show (if she does it again, we will revisit the Hall of Shame decision). She did it in one particular clear-cut case when a number of factors pointed to there truly being only one possible decision and the Project Manager didn’t see it. If nothing else, it tells the players that making alliances like in Survivor won’t necessarily save them – which, as Stewart might say, is a good thing.

Let me be clear – the fact that the Hall of Shame is not “recognizing” Stewart should not be taken as a sign that the judges agree with what she did. Most of us indicated that we didn’t like her choice, and indeed are afraid it might set a bad precedent. However, the Hall of Shame judges felt that the decision was hers to make or that this one decision alone was not shameful enough to be recognized here.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Shame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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