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

In the third episode of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, Stewart did something unprecedented in four seasons of Donald Trump’s version of the show: She fired a candidate who had not been brought back to the final decision by the Project Manager. When it happened, it set off a flurry of debate among the judges of the Reality TV Hall of Shame. Should Martha Stewart be given a Hall of Shame Moment for breaking the rules of the game? Or should she be let off the hook because she is the one who makes the final decision anyway?

After many hours of discussion and the closest Hall of Shame vote ever, the decision was made that Stewart did not deserve the dishonor of a Hall of Shame Moment. Following in the pattern laid out for previous cases of debatable offenses (such as for Amazing Race 7’s Kelly and Survivor: Palau’s Janu), we’d like to share the debate with readers so everybody understands why the decision was made.

Let’s start with the situation at hand. Shawn (who is getting her own Hall of Shame Moment, I might add) vowed to win the task; she told Stewart’s “eyes and ears” Charles that if her team didn’t win, he could fire her; she then retracted the statement in the Conference Room and uttered her “fake it ‘til you make it” line. None of these things impressed Stewart.

But what was worse was that Shawn was a key part of the sales team for the wedding cake – and that team sold zero cakes. None. Nada. Zilch. Zip. This was a first in Apprentice history. She was the one who told the bakers to make the cake pink, and then complained that she couldn’t sell a pink cake.

David, the Project Manager, seemed to have missed the point of the challenge and brought in the bakers to the final Conference Room session rather than bringing the non-sellers (though Dawn was brought in more because the team’s mantra that she weakens them). If this had been Trump’s version of the show, David would have been lambasted for making a poor decision and would have almost certainly been summarily fired.

But Stewart didn’t do that. From what we saw, she barely even criticized David before letting him and his choices off the hook. Instead, she called back the non-sellers and pointed out that this was a sales task, not a baking task, and those who failed to sell the cake were the ones who really needed to get their comeuppance. Considering Shawn’s major role and her even more major big mouth, she was sent packing.

The first criticism of this decision was that Stewart broke the rules. To this we must ask, “What rules?” Where are these rules written? Like it or not, viewers have no copy of such rules and we must go with what the producers provide us.

There have been previous examples of Trump going against what could be termed “the rules” of the game as well. This season he has allowed Project Managers to bring just one person into the Boardroom rather than two. In an earlier season he fired Elizabeth without even letting her pick people to join her in the final Boardroom session. And in the second season, he took away Bradford’s exemption and then fired him.

Mind you, none of these are quite the same as what Stewart did:

• It could be argued that allowing the Project Manager to only bring one person to the Boardroom hurts only the Project Manger. I wouldn’t necessarily agree, since bringing two people could allow them to gang up on the P.M.
• It could be argued that Elizabeth was going to go to the final Boardroom anyway since she was the Project Manager, so letting her pick people and then firing her would have just dragged out the agony. But maybe in that final discussion Elizabeth could have brought new information to light that she was unable to do in the fully-packed Boardroom.
• It could be argued that Bradford gave up his exemption. But where in “the rules” does it say an exemption can be given up? He might have presumed that he had it no matter what, so he could volunteer to give it up without repercussion. Then he couldn’t back down when Trump called him on it. (Of course, Bradford got his own Hall of Shame Moment for that.)

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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