Please keep all discussion of tonight's episode on this thread until the West Coast gets to find out that nothing's gotten any better since the last disaster.

There's been times when I've shared my local paper's TV critics with you, especially since they've got a little bit of basher in them. I'd like to do it again now. Ready? (Warning: contains spoiler -- never mind, forget where we were... but if you want to, skip down Really Fast.)
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'During the first boardroom of The Apprentice season four, Donald Trump tells a hot-headed contestant who's promising to reform "People don't change. People really don't change."

Neither do reality shows that have gone bad.

Trump and producer Mark Burnett have tried to fix what ailed the one-time phenomenenon during its last two installments. They've tackled a few minor symptoms. Last season's bogus book smarts vs. street smarts arrangement (as if degree-ophile Trump would ever hire someone without a college diploma) is gone, with the teams once again split by gender.

"The reason I like doing it this way is, sometimes it's hard telling you apart," The Donald admits. "This is easier."

And the exemption rule for the winning team leader, which mainly encouraged loafing by people who often did little to earn the reward, has been modified to the point where we may never see it used again.

But the larger problems remain. Trump is still marinated in his own bluster and self-love, and the contestants are still, for the most part, idiots who shouldn't be allowed to manage a convenience store, let alone be given the phony job title of "running" one of Trump's companies. These people still think, for instances, the the only way to market an event in New York is to hand out flyers to pedestrians; the first time anyone on this show ever uses the word "Craigslist," he or she should automatically advance to the final two.'

(Alan Sepinwall, Newark Star-Ledger.)

*sigh* You'd think they'd have figured out the 'flyers don't work' thing by now, wouldn't you?

Oh, well. Now that we know it's going to suck, let's see which aspects have the most raw blow force. (Isn't it nice to go into a season with absolutely no hope? It saves so much time!)