A hire power

There’s nothing much to distinguish VH1’s “I Want to Work for Diddy 2” from NBC’s “The Apprentice” — not necessarily a drawback if you’re into predictable, by-the-numbers reality TV.

“Diddy” tears a very obvious page from “The Apprentice” playbook, with Sean “Diddy” Combs replacing Donald Trump as “The Mogul” — and the typical reality-show types (the fat guy, the backstabber, the beauty queen) vying to work for The Man Behind the Curtain as they bicker and bond while bunking in a fancy loft.

Here, the Holy Grail is a job as Diddy’s personal assistant, though it’s not made clear in Monday’s second-season opener exactly what that entails (umbrella holder?). Last season, Diddy chose two assistants, Suzanne and Mike, who no longer work for him. We’re not told why they were dismissed, but there wouldn’t be a “Work for Diddy 2” if they were still gainfully employed by him, so make your own judgments.

Diddy himself doesn’t mix much with the contestants, who include a female football player, an obsequious mall manager, several public-relations types and two women named Ebony and Ivory.

It’s Ivory who’s the in-your-face dragon lady always cast on these shows; it’s hard to tell if she’s the real deal (“I’m the queen bitch!” she announces), or was told to act this way by producers — either way, she’s completely annoying.

Diddy says in the show’s opening that he’s going to use a “Hands-on, foot-in-a**, hands-on-your-brain approach” to find his assistant, but he’s got to show up to do that; in Monday’s episode he’s noticeably absent, although there are a few fun scenes in the beginning of the show when he meets with each contestant for the first time.

The job of weeding out the weak links is left to a woman named Capricorn, herself a former Diddy assistant who’s risen to become global brand manager of his empire. She comes across as a nice woman trying to play tough, and her momentous line, “Losing is for losers,” isn’t exactly a life-altering rallying cry.

Keep your fingers crossed that Diddy finds an assistant he’ll keep this time around; sitting through a “Work for Diddy 3” doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

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