Welcome to the most depressing paragraph you're likely to read today:

Supersizing “Celebrity Apprentice” gives NBC a way to cut programming costs, since adding an extra hour of an already-produced reality show is much less expensive than airing an original scripted or unscripted hour. With “Biggest Loser: Couples” already slated to fill two hours on Tuesdays, and “Howie Do It” set for an hour on Fridays, NBC’s winter schedule will likely feature at least five hours of unscripted programming each week.

Setting aside for a moment whatever the fuck Howie Do It might be—and all the Canadian-cranium-polishing and germaphobic-fist-bumping that truly dreadful title implies—things have now gotten so desperate at NBC that they are stretching out Celebrity Apprentice to two hours per week. That's twice the combforward, twice the Z-list celebrities competing for charities they secretly wish were their own bank accounts, and twice the uncomfortable rendezvous at Trump's gold-encrusted penthouse vomitorium to catch up with his Transylvanian mail-order bride and their future little beednees tycoon.

That said, let's take a look at the rumored cast!

Andrew Dice Clay
Tom Green
Clint Black
Annie Duke - poker player
Claudia Jordan - Deal or No Deal briefcase model
Brian McKnight - R&B singer
Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins - TLC
Herschel Walker - retired NFL player
Natalie Gulbis - LPGA golfer
Scott Hamilton - former Skater
Khloe Kardashian
Joan Rivers
Melissa Rivers
Brande Roderick - actress
Dennis Rodman

Let's see if we can break these down for you:

Roderick, Jordan: All-purpose waitress/actress/model/whatevers, i.e. boardroom candy for Trump to keep around 'til the last possible minute when one of them burns down the Toys R Us flagship store in an EZ Bake Oven challenge gone horribly wrong.

Gulbis, Rodman, Hamilton, Walker, Duke: Washed-up stars of sports and gambling. Rodman and Hamilton will go head-to-head in the Sephora outreach challenge, but the former NBAer will ultimately come out on top by offering the best eyeshadow application to on-the-go businesswomen passing by.

Black, McKnight, Watkins: Washed-up recording artists. (Maybe Black has a career, we honestly have no idea—but would he really be doing this if he did?) Look for McKnight to eke out a few more weeks than his competitors when he rearranges the lyrics from his one hit with all the counting in it to become the catchiest 1-800-Flowers jingle ever.

Kardashian: Is that the drunk driver? Or the mother who looks like Liza? Or the one who has to sit behind the register of their drug-laundering-front accessories-store because Kim is the hotter one. We get them so confused!

Clay, Green: Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum. One has one ball, the other, none. NEXT.

Well—we guess that leaves the Rivers girls.

Joan FTW.

• Celebrity Apprentice On Steroids [TVGasm]
• NBC’s Sunday Audible: Supersize ‘Apprentice’ [TV Week]

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