Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT All up in your grill
By Miss Alli | Season 2 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.06.2004
Elizabeth reiterates to Pamela they have "big problems." The two of them agree that Pamela will go and tell Maria that her presentation is not working, and that Jen's going to do it instead. Unfortunately, Elizabeth decides to communicate this to Ivana on the rehearsal floor over the walkie-talkie that Maria and Sandy, standing nearby, can easily hear. In fact, Stacy and Maria crack up when they hear Elizabeth say into the walkie-talkie that Maria should not be allowed to say anything, for the most part, and that she should let Jen run the show. Apparently, Elizabeth is not aware that Maria can hear everything she's saying. That must've been fairly mortifying when she saw it on television. Maria gripes in an interview about how "inappropriate" this was, but she has to, again, step on her own good point by arguing that you shouldn't be mean to people when they're about to have to go on TV and pretend to be happy. That has nothing to do with it. Elizabeth was tacky and rude, but you can't expect that people are going to treat you with velvet gloves because you agreed to be the person who plasters a grin on your face. "We can't upset her; in ten minutes, she has to smile!"
When we return to QVC, we are now visiting with Mosaic. John and Wes are preparing to do the presentation. John talks in an interview about how fast the time was going, because they only had 12 minutes to sell on television before their time ran out. As they agree to "sell some grills," John and Wes share a little fist bumping which is really…dopey, actually. The fist bump is not a good move for a guy. Particularly a guy who thinks it's a good move, if you get what I'm saying. Meanwhile, Andy is working in the control room, which he claims have a lot in common with a Las Vegas casino. Personally, I'm not seeing it. And why is he wearing a hardhat? Do things fall on you in the QVC control room? Is he staying out of the way of the keee-razy dropping prices? One of the women working in the control room shows Andy how to look at a monitor and see how many people are calling in second to second. What this does is allow the people doing the presentation to know that when they say certain things or emphasize certain things, it's causing people to call in. I find that completely creepy, that they could say to the host, "Every time you scratch your nose, we get six more calls from Nebraska. Scratch for Nebraska! Scratch for Nebraska!"
The men's presentation begins. John shows off the panini maker, on which he is creating a big sandwich. It does occur to me that I could make that on my George Foreman grill, which I got at Target for a lot less than $71.25. Now, we move to Trump's office, where he is watching the presentations from under his unusually yellow-looking hair. I wonder if he had it specially done for the occasion. Something about his look in this scene reminds me of Rip Taylor. But anyway, back in the control room, the woman shows Andy that for most part, no one is calling in a few minutes into the presentation. They have successfully brought QVC to a screeching halt. They have brought commerce to its knees. Andy compares the chart on the monitor to the 1929 stock market crash. Hee hee. Kelly gestures madly to the guys on the floor, trying to get them to up the energy level and move some grills before the time runs out. John takes the opportunity to show off how much melted cheese he's getting all over his fingers. There goes John, trying to get the dirty-bird vote again. Works for me. With four minutes remaining, something quite fateful happens. A woman calls in from somewhere in the heart of the country to report on how much she loves her DeLonghi panini grill. Andy reports that the only time they really had a jump in sales was when this lovely woman called and offered her personal testimonial. The presentation team thanks Patty from Oklahoma just as the segment ends. In an interview, Raj says that they learned that they had sold approximately 200 grills, when they were planning on selling 800. He shows off his mental calculated by saying they only did 25 percent of what they'd intended. He goes on to complain that he still believes the product was priced incorrectly. He is convinced that, had they lowered the price, they would have increased the volume enough to make up the difference. "The thing that sucks," Chris says to the other guys, "is that it's not even going to be close."
Time to head over to the women's presentation. Pamela and Sandy are stationed in the control room along with Elizabeth and Stacy, while Ivana is down on the floor with Jen and Maria. As Pamela explains, it took quite a while for the sales presentation to get moving, and at first, it appeared was going to be a challenge to sell anything. We watch Jen demonstrate the sponge on a wall to remove various marks, as finally, the calls begin to come in. Sandy compares the competition to "watching a horse race," and I'm going to refrain from making a "horse-face" joke here. But believe me, I could. Sandy reports that when the 12 minutes were up, she felt that the team had done as well as it could have. They left the booth knowing they had sold about 650 units. In an interview, Pamela says that she thinks the women really needed a different kind of leadership, and they needed to be led with more strength, which I agree with. That doesn't mean she didn't go overboard, but I do think that a butt-kicking was in order. And they probably should thank her. But obviously, they're not going to. Elizabeth even tells someone she had "so much fun" doing the task. And I mean, when was the last time any of the women were able to say that? Pamela says that she wanted "a blowout win" for the team. And it's interesting, because for all the heat she rightly took this week for being arrogant, part of that comes out of the fact that when she talks about the win, she talks about wanting the win for the other women on the team, and while that does have a boss-like quality or a condescending quality to it, I also think she believes it, and I think it's not meant in an unkind way. I do think she felt like she was made responsible for reforming them, because of what Trump said, and I don't fault her for feeling like she was in fact being asked to perform a rescue. Sunset.