‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ was meant to have live finale before ratings decline
For those of you who were wondering why “The Celebrity Apprentice” only had the one-hour finale last night instead of the typical big, live affair, it turns out that there was a very simple reason for that — a financial one.
Speaking (per TVLine) in an interview following the end of the season, winner Matt Iseman made it clear that, on a whim in case of an emergency (or someone not being able to attend a live finale), the show filmed two separate “endings” at the time of the final task — one in which he won, and one in which Boy George was declared the winner. He actually didn’t know for sure who was going to be declared the winner until watching the show last night!
Originally, Iseman noted that the plan was to have the typical live finale, but NBC changed the plan once they saw the lower ratings for the season. We do also personally think that, unfortunate to the cast members of the season, the network was ready and willing to bury this season and send the show out to pasture. As entertaining as we find the show separate from its affiliation to a current President of the United States, it’s inescapable that Donald Trump is listed as an executive producer on the show, and this is a guy who’s been openly mocking the ratings of the show. For NBC, there may be an interest in distancing themselves further from the brand to avoid any backlash.
While we’ve said this, look at things through the same lens as we noted yesterday — if the series was getting monster ratings, we absolutely feel like there is a zero percent chance that NBC operates in this way. They’d probably have a big finale and another season. With the show getting lower numbers, minimizing its impact is a small way to work to send it out to pasture with a little more of a whimper rather than a bang.
What do you think of Iseman’s win, and is it time to see the series go off into the sunset? Share below, and you can head over here for some more thoughts on the season as a whole. (Photo: NBC.)