The Apprentice

The beginning of March 2005 saw one of the best programs to ever air on English TV. The Apprentice.

This English remake of the hit American series sees millionaire entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar search through 12 young hopefuls to find his apprentice - the award being a 6 figure salary and the chance to work with him.

The hopefuls range, some high flying university graduates to some who never attended school - all going for the same job.

To enable Sir Alan Sugar to pick his apprentice he splits these hopefuls into 2 teams (originally boys and girls) and then sets them tasks - these tasks can be anything from; Selling flowers on Londons Streets, to holding top celebrity auctions, creating advertising campaigns and let us not forget creating a brand new toy for the market - the episode and "secret signals" still haunts me!

Every week the loosing team has Sir Alan Sugar fire the person who performed least in the task - and in the board room looks them in the face and says "You're Fired!"

The series is a brilliant piece of television. It has everything TV needs, suspense, drama, laughter and bitchiness. They all soon learn a big part of this show is not learning how to cope with the challenges but learning to cope with each over.

Overall an amazing, brilliant piece of television. The sort of television that has you an inch away from your screen for the whole hour shouting at the screen as the hopefuls stab their team mates in the back, lie and stitch each over up - all to get in that position of being an apprentice.

Broadcast on BBC2, the 12 60 minute episodes all offered superb entertainment and left the audience not wanting to blink at any stage during the program!

A brilliant piece of television, fingers crossed for a DVD release and 2nd series!

"YOU'RE FIRED!"

Easy explanation. Thousands submit a business plan. Ten idiots/narcacists/delusional people plus one about credible and the winner Are selected. Lord Sugar has already decided the one that's going to make him even more money but it's dragged out for a few months with the performing monkeys entertaining us with their unique brand of obnoxiousness (that peasant librarian wannabe gentry!!!) After real business people completely humiliate them nothing changes in their jelly brains and they still think they have been on the program for merit, not basically a slaughtering that even web toed folk who marry their sister can look down on. To give them credit though, they can dress themselves and are toilet trained. I think.

Why are we - the British tax payers - paying for this absolute piece of garbage? 14 seasons of a complete and utter non-entity (Alan Sugar) - the epitome of capitalism gone wrong - braying, bullying, abusing and manipulating so-called contestants for a prize that seems to be absolutely worthless - employment by him. Could I, as a business man, bet the BBC to fund my 'talent' search? I don't think so... Could we please place this rubbish in the receptacles provided - or better still, just flush the entire, stupid idea... so that'll reside in posterity, along with Sugar - in its fitting home.

'The Apprentice' is labelled as the interview from hell, and it is certainly no walk in the park. A range of aspirants from wide-ranging backgrounds are formed into two teams and must attempt to make the most amount of money in a variety of tasks, with one member from each of the losing team getting fired after each task until only one person is left.

The decision to have Sir Alan Sugar head the show was inspired as though he may not be the richest entrepreneur in Britain, his gruff, no-nonsense manner works very well on television and better I suspect than someone like Richard Branson. His sidekicks Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer are also great value with their world-weary sarcasm and their ability to say more with a lifted eyebrow than anybody since Roger Moore in 'The Saint.' Sir Alan makes tough and controversial decisions about who gets fired each week and though as a viewer you may not agree with his choice, ultimately it is up to him as he will have to pay the winner's wage packet. With some tasks taking place over several days, we get to see what the editor wanted to some degree and not necessarily a 100% accurate reflection of events, but The Apprentice is supposed to be entertaining and not a documentary about business practises.

There are frequent accusations of bullying being encouraged by the programme. While it is true that the candidates will often do their best to stab each other in the back whenever possible, there is some satisfaction in seeing the negative tactics leading to the failure of the task and the possibility of them being fired. There is even more to be had when people who claim in front of the camera to be able to able to crush anybody in their way turn into jellyfish when they get into the boardroom. The tension mounts considerably as the series goes on, as the obviously weaker candidates get filtered out and there is less room to hide behind other people when things go wrong (as they frequently do). Some of the bitchiness and aggressiveness must come from the pressure on the candidates which must be enormous, increased by the television cameras and in particular when for most of them being the winner would be a massive opportunity.

I can't help but feel that the quality of the candidates has declined since the first season as now the producers probably have to wade through applications from people who failed the Big Brother audition. Also the fact that some of the losers have managed to carve out TV careers for themselves probably boosts the attraction for fame-hungry applicants. It is certainly worrying if the 14 finalists represent the greatest business potential in the UK, though in fairness in the business world a £100,000 salary is probably not enough incentive to attract the best who are on more than this money already.

For once a winning format has managed to cross the Atlantic and actually last unlike so many others in the past decade and appears to be here to stay for a good while yet.

When The Apprentice UK appeared, I regretted the fact that it bumped the American version off prime-time; I never felt that Lord SrAlan (or just 'SrAlan' as he was then) was any substitute for Trump - this was before Trump became the world's most dangerous moron, of course.

I read recently that Lord SrAlan is getting sick of it now, though, and I don't blame him: I'm sick of it too. Where do they find these people: year after year, a batch even more stupid, ignorant, selfish, arrogant and ungracious than the last? You can't imagine for one moment that any of them would be any use in business, I guess all they really want is a TV career.

When in last night's episode a guy who is pitching an ice-cream business couldn't make ice-cream, I felt like banging my head against the wall. But why did he fail? Because he tried to screw the customer a little too hard, passing off the cheapest rubbish he could produce as 'premium'. That's the ethos they all have - it's depressing. Then there's that awful woman who is actually a school librarian, but seems to think she's Lady Diana Spencer. You just want a 16-ton weight dropped on the lot of them: how much more can we take?

It's gonna reach the point soon where it's more excruciating than entertaining (not least because of Lord SrAlan's own awful gags, he really needs a new writer). In fact I'm not sure we're not already there.