• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, January 3, 2017

Or at the very least, it looks bigger. Sorry, but I have no way of actually measuring the table Schwarzenegger uses in his new role as host of “The New Celebrity Apprentice,” which premiered Monday night on NBC. But it looks bigger and on this show, appearances are everything.

The special two-hour premiere -- going up against the season premiere of “The Bachelor” on ABC -- marked the debut of Schwarzenegger and his gargantuan piece of furniture, replacing Trump and his table.

'This idea was first announced in September 2015. It was NBC's solution (and Trump's -- since he’s still a producer on the show) for continuing “The Celebrity Apprentice” without Trump, who was by then campaigning for president.

In many ways, Schwarzenegger was an inspired choice. Like Trump, he’s a larger-than-life personality who borders on cartoon-like. Also like Trump, some people like him and others can't stand him.

On “The New Celebrity Apprentice,” much of the action takes place inside the flashy Los Angeles-area headquarters of a company called Schwarzenegger Inc., which is likely a fictional business name.

But what isn’t fictional about Schwarzenegger is that he has been an entrepreneur and businessman. His Wikipedia bio says he was a millionaire by age 30, based at least in part on his success as an international body-building star, and before the onset of his movie career.

Perhaps most importantly, with Schwarzenegger the show gets the opportunity to alter Trump’s famous “You’re fired” catchphrase to “You're terminated” -- which is what Schwarzenegger, star of the “Terminator” movies, says in this new show when dismissing someone from his boardroom.

For icing on the proverbial cake, he then says: “Hasta la vista, baby!”

“My job is to terminate you one by one,” he said at one point in his monotonal Austrian accent during Monday night’s premiere.

The fact is, it wouldn't be too surprising to learn that Schwarzenegger was hired for these “Terminator” catchphrases alone. Another reason may have been that at age 69, and following a scandalous divorce from Maria Shriver, he was open to hosting a reality show -- a role he never would have considered previously in his career as a global movie star.

He is also the former governor of California, and on Monday night's premiere of “The New Celebrity Apprentice,” he admonished one of the contestants, Jon Lovitz, for calling him Arnold. On this show, Schwarzenegger prefers to be addressed as “Governor.”

Like Trump before him, Schwarzenegger is flanked at the boardroom table by two advisors. In the premiere episode, they were Tyra Banks and Patrick Knapp Schwarzenegger (seen with Schwarzenegger in the photo, above).

This other Schwarzenegger was introduced by the ex-governor as a nephew who is also a Hollywood attorney with a celebrity clientele.

The younger Schwarzenegger speaks with a slight Austrian accent and at one point, he and Arnold suddenly reverted to their native language when they wanted to talk privately about a contestant while she sat mere feet away from them. Subtitles were used.

A line of cosmetics being marketed by Banks -- Tyra Beauty -- was the focal point of the first challenge on the first half of Monday's premiere, which was really a two-hour show in name only. In actual fact, it was two episodes made into one.

The Tyra challenge, which pitted the show's eight male contestants versus the eight women, ended with the men winning the challenge. The show's first firee was a woman named Carrie Keagan, described as a YouTube celebrity who by her own admission conducts puff interviews with celebrities.

Her dismissal was inevitable when the governor's only other choice came down to Snooki. The “Jersey Shore” star -- identified on the show as a “Reality TV Icon” -- also contributed nothing to the female team's losing cause. But given the choice, wouldn't you try and keep Snooki on the show over this YouTube person no one ever heard of? Of course you would.

In the premiere's second hour, the two teams -- still arranged by gender -- were challenged to produce a commercial for Trident chewing gum. And so it went -- another reality-competition show featuring in-show sponsorships with a vaguely German-accented star as guide and final arbiter. (Sorry, but I still have Heidi Klum and “Project Runway” on my mind from that show’s season finale less than two weeks ago.)

For “The New Celebrity Apprentice,” the question really is: Is Schwarzenegger better than Trump? The answer is: Despite their differences, it's all pretty much the same.