The Apprentice Africa

I just caught the ending of Apprentice Africa. I really enjoy the show, however the editing leaves a lot to be desired. I know that a lof of reality shows edit creatively, so sometimes you get the story they want you to get - as opposed to what actually happened. However, very often in AA, you are left feeling like you've missed some important chunk of the story, but not quite sure what it was. It just felt incomplete.

This is particularly so when watching the team enjoying their 'prize.' Some of these prizes have shown almost total unimagination, although the editing and presentation of the prize segment is even more lacking.

Today's prize actually seemed cool (a meeting with image consultant Ifeoma Williams of Fruition, a meeting with designer Lanre Da Silva and a photo shoot in one of her designs, which the contestants would get to keep). However, did we get to really share the experience of the prize with the winners? Nope! We got some visuals alright, but layered with an incredibly annoying soundtrack looping what I take to be exclamations from the contestants during their day of "Are you serious?", "I LOVE it", "This is great" and ..... I can't even remember now. We didn't get to hear anything of the conversation that went on during the day, e.g. tips shared by the image consultant, designer, reactions from the contestants.

I suppose one way of looking at it was that perhaps none of the conversation amounted to much in the first place and that we were kindly spared by the editors. However, because this is par for the course with regards this show, I think otherwise. I remember one episode in which the winning team (Zulu) won a lunch with Oba Otudeko (successful entrepreneur and chairman of Honeywell Group), did we get to hear what pearls of wisdom he shared with the team? No! Instead, we got to observe the tush restaurant in which they had their lunch, how nicely set the table was, what they ate, drank, etc. We saw the hand-shaking, bowing, curtesying that went on and the lovely picture they took at the end of the meal. Wow! I learnt so much from that. Nigeria! Too much emphasis on the superficial and not enough on what lies beneath.