Roger Catlin | TV Eye

Piers Morgan Wins 'Celebrity Apprentice'

Nobody denied he was a jerk. But because Piers Morgan raised more money than everybody else on "Celebrity Apprentice" combined, he was named winner of the revived show that again lengthened its finale to two hours Thursday.

Morgan, whose very claim to being a celebrity is in question (he’s the former British tabloid editor turned mean judge on the same network's "America's Got Talent"), beat Trace Adkins, the country singer everybody seemed to like much better.

"Piers, you’re a vicious guy," overbearing show host Donald Trump began his last minute pronouncement, adding, "you're tough, you're smart, you’re probably brilliant, I’m not sure. You’re certainly not diplomatic. But you did an amazing job and you beat the hell out of everybody and you won by far more than anybody."

Unlike past winners, Morgan won’t go to work for Trump. Instead, he’ll get another $250,000 for his charity, for which he’s raised twice that through the season.

Trump couldn’t bring himself to say his signature "You’re fired" to Adkins. "You’re really a special guy. A special human being. A beautiful guy. I’ll always love you,  but for tonight," he said, slapping his hand on his desk and turning to Morgan, "Piers, you're the 'Celebrity Apprentice.' "

Daughter Ivanka Trump who has been one of her father’s helpers all year, told Morgan, "this would have been a very short boardroom had you have had a better beside manner."

"You don’t know about my bedside manner, Ivanka," he answered with a leer.

"That’s a great example of the tact your lack," she shot back.

For his part, Morgan had said of his competition just before that, "If this was a good guy competition to find America's the world’s most likable man, he would win immediately. But it is a business competition with a premium on raising money for charity."

As such, he went on, he boasted, "I won nine of the 11 challenges, more than everybody else; I rose $500,000, more than everybody else put together. I also brought in the biggest and the most celebrities."

"But you were not loved," Trump pointed out.

"Mr. Trump, you are not loved."

Be that as it may, the combed-over host bid farewell by saying, "It’s been a really great season. We’ll see you next year. We’re going to be around for a long time."

'Jericho' Series Finale

"Jericho" ended for good Tuesday, wrapping up an unlikely six-episode second season created by the demand of its fans.

Jake and Hawkins succeed in getting "the last loose nuke" to the Republic of Texas that will force a civil war and "give the good guys a chance" against the menacing Allied States of America, the group headquartered in Cheyenne whose crimes include a redesign of the American flag with vertical stripes instead of horizontal.

The new government, the apparent subsidiary of a corporation called Jennings & Rall, had covered up its role in the 39-city nuclear attack that started the mayhem (and the series).

Producers played the paranoia-against-government angle such that it could appeal to the left and right. A mayor turned delegate is frustrated with the new government’s constitutional congress which he calls a sham, saying more and more rights are being taken away in the name of national security. But the rights the show specifically addresses is the second amendment right to bear arms.

There are some allusions to current wars, with some of the townspeople standing up for themselves called insurgents. But mostly "Jericho" is an action show with an echo of nuclear scare stories of the 50s and a veneer of homegrown nonspecific patriotism.

A big turning point comes when the provisional military leader played by Esai Morales changes his mind about Cheyenne.

"I believe this government is corrupt at its core. Its actions are criminal and I no longer recognize its right to lead," he declares. His men decide to follow him. 

For Jake and Hawkins, the unlikely smuggling of a nuke by ambulance and private plane to Texas will have to serve as the end of their mission and the beginning of the next untold chapter of the civil war.

At the end Hawkins summarizes their success to Jake in the series final words:

"How does it feel?"

"What?"

"Making history."

They’re talking about their success in the nuclear transport. But they could also be talking about the history made by the series, where its fans rose up like an insurgent community of one, demanding their show, flooding the network with peanuts and being the first to get what they wanted – a resurrected second season – even if it didn’t ultimately work out in the ratings.

'Jungle' Out There

Suddenly, the "Sex and the City" copycats have lapsed.

"Lipstick Jungle" ended its seven episode season Thursday. "Cashmere Mafia" ended its own seven-episode season late February. And all we have to wait for is the "Sex and the City" movie.

In the end of "Lipstick Jungle," the season long affair conducted by Kim Raver's high powered magazine editor character Nico Reilly is finally over when her husband Charles suffers a heart attack while she's out with her guy. Then she worries that Charles may have been having an affair too when one of his college student seems especially concerned about her condition.

The affair has come between Nico and her friend Wendy Healy, the studio head played by Brooke Shields. But the scare brings them back together (though Wendy spends most the episode luring a script from a reluctant screenwriter played by Oscar nominee Marsha Mason, now turned quite matronly).

The big guest star, though is Bobby Cannavale, playing a hockey player who tries to engage the design services of Victory (Lindsay Price) as a way to acquire her to be part of a threesome with his wife. In what might have been a comic scene on cable becomes a particularly uncomfortable one on network TV.

It’s unclear whether it will be back.

End of 'The Wire'

"The Wire" wound up its marvelous run on HBO Sunday by returning to its original theme song.

The Blind Boys of Alabama version of Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole" that had started the first season shows in 2002 came playing again in the final moments, as McNulty parks his beat up car, looks over the city he's worked for 13 years and various flashes appear of what's to happen wrap the story.

It’s been a shorter than normal season, with just 10 episodes, but there's still a lot to cover. Most of the taut final episode was given to how exactly everything was going to play out following the botched legal road to what would seem to be the goal of all -- the bust finally of a major drug operation. It's clear from Mayor Carcetti's first slack-jawed scene, that he has no idea how to spin the thing except that it's never to come out at all.

Some fall, some rise. There's a terrific scene when McNulty faces the lying, opportunistic reporter Scott Templeton and tells him he knows he's in on the fib. The truth about makes him sick. A deal with the drug lawyer seems to fall too neatly on the heels of a source within the grand jury, but hey, there is a lot to tie up quickly here.

That's never been a main goal in a series that's been allowed to unfold more naturally and realistically season to season. But like the clocks on Marlo Stansfield's cell phones, it's time to move things ahead. And before we do there are a number of moments -- another police wake for the dead career of McNulty; a Hitchcockian cameo of creator David Simon back at a desk in the Baltimore Sun where he began his career; a quote to start the show that comes from a quote that's later seen on the wall of the newspaper hallway from H.L. Mencken:

As I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings.

Mencken's the most famous guy you could have in an episode of "The Wire." Except Poe. And he'd say "nevermore."

But if it wasn't the Mencken, the quote would have been the one McNulty says about a "lie being so big people don't notice it," a pretty good metaphor for our time.

But as they played "Way Down in the Hole" at the end of the episode, what do we (and McNulty?) see as a future for these people?

• At the Sun, the reporter who made up stuff, Scott Templeton, won the Pulitzer; the City Editor Gus Haynes was busted down to the copy desk; reporter Alma Guitirrez shipped out to the county bureau. In one happy development, Mike Fletcher, who finally finished his story about Bubbles, got the City Editor job.
• Carcetti gets the governor’s job; Rawls takes the state police job as planned. Daniels takes the fall and becomes a lawyer. Council president Nerese Campbell becomes mayor and who gets the city police commissioner job but Valchek? 
• Assistant state’s attorney Rhonda Perlman is made a judge (payback for making Marlo problems go away).
• Lester Freamon is happily retired.
• Young un Michael Lee is stepping into an Omar role, stealing from drug dealers.
• Marlo walks, wants to become a businessman, but shoots up a corner just so he can finally say he stepped to the street (he gets cut in the process).
• Slim Charles and surviving members of the consortium meet up with the Greeks to continue the connection.
• Kennard, Omar's killer, is picked up by the police, charges unknown.
• Dukie, poor kid, becomes a junkie.
• Bubbles keeps sober, is eventually invited upstairs to eat dinner with his sister.
• Drugs are still sold on the streets of Baltimore.
• Life goes on.  Way down in the hole.

Who wins 'Gone Country'? Julio Jr.

The surprise about the celebrity competition "Gone Country," which reached its finale on CMT Friday, is that each of the contestants, from Sisqo to the former Marcia Brady to Dee Snider, turned out to be a credible performaner in their dancehall show and each could have won. You could even expect a win for Diana DiGarmo, Bobby Brown or Carnie Wilson.

But it turned out that the one-man one-decision-maker, John Rich of Big & Rich who hosted and mentored the group, voted with his mind on new markets for the Nashville sound when he picked someone nobody would have called to win the thing, inclding the winner himself.

Julio Iglesias Jr., who struggled to sing a ballad in English, nonetheless got the women to squeal and that's about all he needed to win his prize – a Rich-produced single that the star said he’d personally see would get to country radio.

"I watched them girls screaming for Julio and I said, 'There’s our guy, that’s the winner,'" Rich said later on camera. "It will be a great example to have someone from another genre to successfully go country."

It doesn’t hurt that the winner is the youngest and best looking of the candidates as well.

Still, Rich said that picking a winner was on e of the hardest thing he'd had to do, especially considering he didn’t think very many of the celebrities would stand out with potential.

He did have issues with some performances – Snider going blue (which he equated with flying his freak flag – though it was his bird that flew), and Sisqo doing an R&B spin move he thought would clear the hall.

In winning, Iglesias didn’t say much more than he had the whole season. "It means a lot to me," he insisted. "It gives me a chance to have a great song in the American market and have it played on the radio. That’s a dream come true, really."

Brown, for his part, said Nashville hadn't heard the last of him, though he didn’t specify why.

Re-Viva Las Vegas

The cancellation of "Las Vegas" in the middle of a cliffhanger has rankled fans of the NBC show. Declares one website:

After FIVE years of watching this show and being a loyal viewer, we DESERVE more from NBC. We deserve a real ending to the series we have followed for all these years. We aren't going to allow NBC to think they can dump us so easily.

In a time of fan empowerment, when shows have actually been returned due to public demand, such as CBS "Jericho," fans of "Las Vegas" are organizing a protest.

The action ended with beginning of a two-part cliffhanger  in which Molly Sims’ character Delinda was suffering serious complications from a pregnancy.  So just as the successful "Jericho" campaign involved sending nearly 25 tons of peanuts to its network, the “Vegas” campaign involves sending little baby booties to NBC execs like Ben Silverman and Jeff Zucker to convince them to change their minds.

Over 3,000 people have signed the first batch of booties send to NBC as part of "Operation Baby Booties/Socks," spokesmen say, with more on the way.

Beats what ABC is up against, with fans of the endangered "Cavemen" sending in hair.

Clark Brothers Win for Now

Cutie pie country band The Clark Brothers took the title "The Next Great American Band" in the show's finale Friday, winning a record contract in the process. But living up to it will take a whole new challenge.

Beating fellow Nashville country dudes Sixwire in the final two-band showdown gave the band something to celebrate on stage in Los Angeles. But it will be a whole other competition trying to get music buyers respond to the group.

For one thing, very few people saw the 10-week band competition patterned so closely to "American Idol" and brought to you by the same producers. For another, the record business is funny. Second year "Idol" winner Ruben Studdard just lost his record contract after weak sales of his latest record.

So good luck, Clark Brothers. But by no means is your struggle over.

Next Top Model: It's Saleisha

Saleisha Stowers, who distinguished herself by looking the most like show host creator and diva Tyra Banks, won "America's Next Top Model" in the finale Wednesday.

In final showdown in China, the 21 year old receptionist from Los Angeles edged Austin blonde Chantal Jones, after a runway battle that had one big casualty, when Chantal's train knocked over a stilt walker.

Eliminated first from the final three was Jenah Doucette of Farmington, who had to endure snide comments from her competitors (for her bad attitude!) and then psychoanalysis from Tyra and the judges about her breaking through a wall, in yet another tiresome allusion to the Great Wall. She had pretty much blown her Cover Girl ad, though.

For many, this will have been the season of Heather Kuzmich, a beguiling brunete with Asperger Syndrome, who won the viewer-voted Cover Girl award a record nine times -- even after she had been eliminated from the show. It will also be the last season for Twiggy as judge (though there was no send off in the show; Paulina Porizkova will take her slot next season).

As winner, Saleisha wins an Elite modeling contract, a Seventeen magazine cover story and a $100,000 contract with Cover Girl cosmetics.

Said Saleisha:

When I was younger I was just weird and had low self esteem and just wasn't happy with my life. I've grown into a strong young woman and I'm so happy with myself right now and the place that I'm at. This is what I've dreamed for. I fought fo this so hard. And I'm so determined and I have it now. I'm not going to slip it off. I want it so bad and I got it and I'm never letting it go!

"I'm 'America's Next Top Model' baby!" she exclaimed, jumping up and down as she had earlier in the season.

But how many "Next Top Models" can America support? Saleisha is the ninth already And with the writers strike, the tenth cycle is imminent. 

Death of a Nation

"Kid Nation" ended Wednesday as it started -- with the 37 remaining kids not getting close to starting their own society, as the series promised, but taking their every order from a pushy reality show host for 40 days.

Well, he was providing the gold stars, so they lived with it. The last $20,000 star went to Zac, and when it was time to award three extra heavy $50.000 stars at the end the all male Town Council of Greg, Michael, Blaine and DK awarded them to all girls.

Sofia, 14 (who won the first $20,000 gold star in the first episode); Morgan, 12; and Migle, 13, all won the big prizes in part because they served as mother figures after more than a month in a god forsaken place without mothers.

But mothers -- and dads -- all showed up for the final session, running up the road like anxious parents at the end of camp. Everybody kept talking about how they showed the world they could get along and such, but all they showed the world is they were pretty good reality show contestants.

But even at a time when reality is about to take over TV, there's little chance "Kid Nation" will rise again; although it had a rush of hype in the summer, it only averaged 7.7 million viewers once it actually aired and will likely pale against the finale of "America's Next Top Model."

'The Hills' Are Alive

It was the night of "The Hills" finale, followed by the lamest reality aftershow you’ve ever seen, capped by very special announcement by Lauren Conrad, the "Hills" star.

Her announcement, pretty much, was that it was not the finale at all.

"This season of 'The Hills' is not over," she said in the aftershow’s final minute. "We will be pickup up soon and you’ll be able to see our whole trip to Paris and everything that happens after. So a lot of fun stuff."

Lauren’s last minute invitation to go to Paris was one of the main things to happen in the final episode. She had turned down a previous chance from Teen Vogue to go to the City of Lights so she could spend her summer with the Iddy of Dim, Jason, with whom she broke up soon after.

Guys who can’t support their girlfriend’s career opportunities should be dumped immediately and even though her current quasi-boyfriend Brody had the same kind of middling reaction to her good news, she wasn’t going to let it slow her down this time.

On the Heidi/Spencer front, it’s a good thing they’re breaking up. No matter how much you hate Heidi Spencer, nobody deserves a jerk like him. Even though he realizes he’s made a mistake by walking out, he can’t quite make himself call her on the phone or even apologize when he finally sees her again at home.

He’s been spending time at his parents house; she's packing to go home to her parents in Colorado at the episode’s end. For a time, it looks as if it's all calculated so Lauren will run into Heidi at the airport, since they’re both fleeing Los Angeles at the same time. But apparently Heidi is driving to Colorado, or has been uninformed how far it is away.

Neither Heidi nor Spencer were at the aftershow, a hideous thing hosted by the two most annoying MTV hosts in that network’s history (and that’s saying a lot). One guy, named only Dan, had a bowtie on as if he were hosting a "Revenge of the Nerds" harathon; the other, a talky redhead named Jessi, acted as if she president of her high school drama club. They had no good questions for the guests, who had no good answers. They’d turn to electronic geegawas like webphones that didn’t work and misused a Telestrator by doodling on incessant clips (of a show that just ran minutes before) as if they were football analysts. The aftershow began with a series of "Hills" scenes that had been turned into art work like those bad eerie insurance commercials; perhaps they were part of the storyboard for the series done before filming started (ha ha).

The aftershow was set in a Hollywood nightclub called the Area, so around the the hosts were liquored up girls in expensive dresses, cheering and trying mightily to get on camera. Welcome to Hollywood.

What was surprising to me is how much of this season of "The Hills" I had seen, either through their incessant reruns or the fact that so little has happened all season:

They go to work. They go out to a bar. There’s some sort of implied slight at the bar (which you have to rerun sometimes to catch, they are so minute). Then, because they are all so inarticulate, nobody ever talks about things or wraps things up, so the characters often just look at eachother, roll their eyes, shrug or pout, while they blast pop songs by James Blunt on the soundrack to provide the needed emotional impact.

I’m embarrassed for whatever gaffes happen in Paris already.