Survivor: Manhattan.

Okay, not really, but it's pretty damned close. Mark Burnett - producer of Survivor, the Cadillac of "reality television" - has teamed up with none other than Donald Trump to create The Apprentice, a new series that pits sixteen business-savvy men and women against each other for the ultimate prize of a job working directly under the Donald himself. And it works! Unlike other reality shows, where contestants are kicked out based on the votes of their teammates or the decision of the viewers, on The Appentice Trump serves as the judge, jury, and executioner. He thinks up the challenges (each week the two rival "companies" - one composed of all women, the other all men - are given an identical task to perform, such as running a lemonade stand; the company that does a better job gets to enjoy Trump-like perks, and the losers face a painful-to-watch dressing down in the dreaded "Boardroom"), then metes out punishment by firing one unlucky soul every week. The other respect in which The Apprentice differs from its ilk is that its contestants are without exception absolutely unsympathetic individuals. They're the go-getters that annoyed the hell out of you in college, you know, the ones who referred to their server at Applebee's by first name, the ones that try to haggle down the price of a television at Best Buy, the ones who come to the Circulation Desk and demand that all the rules be broken for him, just because he's five minutes late for a meeting and it's all about him, and you're just a lowly desk jockey and weren't you put on this Earth to serve him, and who the hell do you think you are to be telling him no, and, and, and...

Sorry about that. My point however is that it's a whole lot of fun to watch alpha-male and female wannabes fall over themselves and each other to impress the CEO, and then again to see them squirm as he rips them a new one in the Boardroom, not to mention how fascinating it is to witness the phenomenology of corporate scapegoating in action - as Trump probes the losers for the most loserish, the "yes-man" mentality kicks in and soon a hint of weakeness on one person's part becomes the signal for everyone else to pile on him/her without mercy ("Yeah, he sure messed up selling lemonade" / "I heard he sleeps with goats, too!"). But without a shadow of a doubt, the best part of this show is when a contestant who has been targeted as that week's big loser pleads his or her case with Trump. One guy - an extremely high-strung Internet entrepeneur named Sam who was already popping pills during Week One - did an excruciating three-ring circus act of business school mumbo-jumbo, nervous tics, and even crawling on his hands and knees to save his hide in the Boardroom, if only until the next episode! I hope he sticks around, though, as it's going to be fantabulous television when this guy loses it for good.

But wait - did I just make him sympathetic? I'll have to think about this one. In the meantime, by all means catch this show on Wednesdays at 8 p.m.!