"Amazing Race," "Celebrity Apprentice" Finales: Very Emotional, For Very Different Reasons

Both NBC's Celebrity Apprentice and CBS's Amazing Race ended their latest cycles yesterday, with endings that were full of emotion, yet not as satisfying as they could or should have been.

In neither show did the best competitors win. Annie Duke was facing a stacked deck in her final challenge against Joan Rivers, while the mother-son team on Race, which had the lead going into the final task, ended up coming in third. Yet by doing so, Margie and her deaf son, Luke, got to end the show, signing and hugging and concluding Race with as much warmth as the end of Apprentice was lacking...

What went wrong with the final lap of Celebrity Apprentice? Several criteria used in previous seasons to judge tasks, and measure levels of success, were ignored this time.

Even Jim Cramer's pre-showdown breakdown pointed out some obvious differences between Annie's overall record and that of Joan. Annie was undefeated as project manager, while Joan batted .500. Annie's team had a higher overall average of successful tasks, and Annie raised more money for charity, by far, than any other contestant. In that category, Joan wasn't even close.

Nor did Annie get to argue why Joan's mistreatment of the designer assigned by Trump to outfit both of their event spaces led to him quitting, and leaving both of them to scramble for a Plan B. Every time Annie brought this up, whether in the taped boardroom session or on Sunday's live finale, Joan interrupted her, shouted her down, and successfully changed the subject.

Why? Because, had Annie been given the chance to make her case successfully, Donald Trump might have had no choice but to agree that Joan's rudeness -- evidenced in nearly every episode -- had penalized not only her, but her competitor, in tasks that were part of the final judging criterion. Pull that in almost any other reality competition show, including The Amazing Race, and you'll be penalized for it.

Finally, one of the ways Trump uses his discretion when deciding whom to hire, in most cases, is to gauge how a project manager works with his or her teammates. On this particular final task, Annie was infinitely more impressive a leader.

Working well with Brande Roderick was a given, but she also got the pouty Tom Green to edit a video effectively, and even reined in the returning loose-cannon Dennis Rodman, who was a big hit, and a useful team member, as a party-event photo opportunity, decked out in drag.

By contrast, Joan had the self-starting Herschel Walker and her own daughter, Melissa, with whom she's worked side by side for 15 years. Clint Black, her other team member, was so disconnected from the others and the task, he spent much of his time making phone calls and answering his personal email.

Despite all this, and despite the glaring fact that Annie raised several times more money at her silent auction than did Joan, the latter was declared the victor. It seemed, and felt, pre-ordained, all rational evidence to the contrary.

Poker players know better than anyone when the card count isn't in their favor -- but even though Annie couldn't surmount the odds in this case, she came off very well on Celebrity Apprentice. Neither Joan nor Melissa Rivers, despite what they may delude themselves into thinking, can say the same.

Oh, well, at least Cara and Jaime, the Amazing Race bad-behavior equivalent of Joan and Melissa, didn't win on their show last night. The sibling team of Tammy and Victor surged at the end -- and if Margie and Luke couldn't win, I'm glad Tammy and Victor did.

But the final, loving moment belonged to Margie and Luke, and it was wonderful to see.

It was wonderful to hear, too -- though I'm guessing that, if you couldn't hear it, it was the most wonderful and inspirational TV moment of all.