>I think instead of having individual
>projects (which for the most
>part have been second rate
>afterthoughts) they should randomly draw
>who is responsible for a
>certain aspect of the project
>and then be evaluated on
>that.

I'm not sure I agree - I think I might prefer to go the other way, to have more focus on the individual projects.

The thing I like about the individual projects is that they are a way for someone with a really good all-around ability to be creative (the ultimate goal of the show) to survive a bad team - as long as they are smart about always making sure to dedicate time to projects regardless of how the team project is going. A person worthy of winning in the end, in theory, should never be removed even if the team does poorly week-to-week.

If you think about it, the individual projects are also kind of doing what you wanted - which was to have people display talents in all sorts of different areas. The first could be construed as a food challenge (to use apples), the second as kind of a themeing test (how well you can make a gift bag that matches the party theme) and the last episodes challenge as a test of the ability to create something from very raw materials.

I like this approach because it lets you (and the judges) see the the abilities of each person in a "pure" context, without help or interference from other players. The problem I see with your suggestion is that I think there would be too-much crossover in work, people who were naturally pushy would tend to bleed over into other areas and perhaps carry team-members that were not deserving to continue, and also mask talent or a lack thereof. I really feel like as they have it set up, in the end individual projects will have some role in selecting the winner.

The problem I see with the individual projects as they have them is that we really do not see them!! They flash by on the screen very quickly, we never get a good sense of who made what without a lot of effort. The first episode was actually pretty good in this regard, we got to see who made what and heard what the worst as well as the best projects were. But shows since then have been terrible in presenting the projects and we don't even see the winning teams projects. Since this is supposed to be a show to appeal to people who watch other style shows, you would think they would want to spend a lot of time going over these cute side projects so you would head for the web site for some idea how to make them.

On a related note, I feel like the contestants have mostly done a pretty poor job on individual projects. They seem to lack any understanding of what the topic at hand is, and many seem content to buy some cheap trinket and glue stuff onto it. That's not crafty, that's just crappy.

I do like the concept of the show, I don't think CBS does a very good job of presenting it. I also fear we may not ever see the last episode, I've been watching the HDTV feed from LA, and the last episode they stopped broadcasting the HDTV version. I sense that CBS is rapidly dropping support for this show, at least it's not dropped as fast as "The Will"... I hope CBS at least will stick by it and keep airing the episodes after it moves to its new, far more deadly timeslot (same time as The Will in fact...).