The Celebrity Apprentice not canceled, but dead at NBC for now
For as long as Donald Trump is in the White House, we’re going to have stories out there about whether or not there will be more The Celebrity Apprentice. Earlier this year, Arnold Schwarzenegger backed out of his role as the host of the show, a move that was probably right for him. The ratings for his revived version of the show were down, so much so that NBC backed away from doing a live finale as they’ve done in the past.
The irony here is that we don’t think that the former California Governor was bad in the role at all, and the show was still entertaining even if there was less of a trainwreck factor than when Trump was the host. The biggest issue with the new version was that it still had Trump’s name listed as an executive producer. That association sunk the show. Nobody who hates Trump wanted to watch something that he could profit from, and given the President’s own mocking of the show’s ratings, his own supporters felt like it was C-grade entertainment at best. There was nobody that the show ultimately was for.
Obviously, there are FAR bigger problems going on in the country than losing a reality show because of Trump’s association with it, but that’s precisely what seemed to go down here. We never used to watch it thinking that a future President would be firing Gary Busey.
Anyhow, let’s get to what the main point of this article now: What NBC programming head Robert Greenblatt had to say on the subject of the future of the show. Speaking at the TCA Summer Press Tour today, he confirmed (via TVLine) that there are no immediate plans to bring the show back in any iteration:
“There is no plan for The Apprentice. It’s not cancelled, but I don’t think you will see it back anytime soon.”
Odds are, it will never be coming back so long as Trump is associated with it. NBC is killing in the ratings right now, and they’re bringing back Will & Grace this fall. There is utterly no reason to consider giving the show another chance when they don’t need to do. Develop some more original properties, this time without someone with extreme political views involved. We do want more reality competition shows on the air that are quality. This one just doesn’t pass the test in 2017 when it has such an Albatross weighing it down.
Our advice if you loved the old Celebrity Apprentice — just move forward and remember it for the good times. Don’t blame yourself for lacking some sort of foresight. Who could predict that things would go like this?
What do you think: Should this show ever come back in any form? Share now in the comments!
If you do want to get some other coverage from past seasons of The Celebrity Apprentice, you can do so over at the link here. (Photo: NBC.)