The Apprentice

Fretwired

It's car crash TV .. like the Roman Colosseum for the left-liberal classes who despise business people and can therefore laugh at their crassness and ineptitude. There should be a version for public sector types .. it would be far funnier IMHO. 

Philly_Q

I've always enjoyed the programme but I have to say the standard of the candidates seems to have really declined in recent years.  

Of course its primarily an entertainment show really, but in the first few series there were always people who seemed to have some genuine business or selling skills.  Nowadays they seem to be picked on looks and/or how ridiculously hyperbolic their audition video is.

Every week so far this series the winning team has won by a tiny margin, often more by luck than anything else.  They all seem to be idiots.

carlos

It was shot in my office this week, pretty cool that. Nobody wears a suit in my office, though.

dindude

Philly_Q said:

I've always enjoyed the programme but I have to say the standard of the candidates seems to have really declined in recent years.  

Of course its primarily an entertainment show really, but in the first few series there were always people who seemed to have some genuine business or selling skills.  Nowadays they seem to be picked on looks and/or how ridiculously hyperbolic their audition video is.

Every week so far this series the winning team has won by a tiny margin, often more by luck than anything else.  They all seem to be idiots.

Agreed. Fired in the last two weeks are a social worker, a graduate who's never had a job, someone who sells scarves at a market, a swimming instructor, and a PA. Not belittling any of these jobs / small businesses, but not sure how this makes them suitable candidates for a big investment.

Nunogilberto

I've started to notice how harsh Nick and Karen have become as well; almost as if they've been told to ratchet up the venom and be nastier...

Gassage

Why do all the guys wear suits they've grown out of? And trousers cut 4" above shoes?

richardhomer

Gassage;396661" said:

Why do all the guys wear suits they've grown out of? And trousers cut 4" above shoes?

Its 'fashion' apparently. As a fat man, many suits look like that on me....

Gassage

I call them generics. Beards, bouffant top, shaved sides hair, a proliferation of tatts and ill fitting clothes. It's so boring

carlos

Just went round to my colleague who was on the show last night - bald w/ ginger beard, he appeared during the segment in which they did the Fat Daddy graphic. His opinion was that all the candidates he met were all smart and good people to be around. They were given 1 hour to come up w/ that image and license it so it could be used on the show. That's ridiculously short and several candidates in the room were commenting on how "they're trying to make us look like dicks again". The show is like a panto of what entrepreneurship and business is like. Just entertainment.

fretmeister

Wild guess -but "Lauren" was on Twitter explaining that she had just applied for next year's solicitor's practice certificate.

Doubtful she would have needed it if she won.

Snap

not watched yet. I hate it but get drawn in, every time!

What grinds on me is the caricature of business it presents - there's enough dopey gets in the world to believe that this is how you need to behave to get on.

ALan Sugar is a bit of a twat though, well from what I've seenof him he is. Of course in reality he could be alright. BUt i guess if yo have been successful in life, you get into a position where really you don't give s astuff what anyone other than your friends and fmily think of you.

rocktron

georgenadaintl said:

Just went round to my colleague who was on the show last night - bald w/ ginger beard, he appeared during the segment in which they did the Fat Daddy graphic. His opinion was that all the candidates he met were all smart and good people to be around. They were given 1 hour to come up w/ that image and license it so it could be used on the show. That's ridiculously short and several candidates in the room were commenting on how "they're trying to make us look like dicks again". The show is like a panto of what entrepreneurship and business is like. Just entertainment.

I find it sad that the candidates are made to look stupid, and are humiliated in the show. 

Any prospective employer looking on during the interviews with Lord Sugar would not hire the majority of them.The thing Lord Sugar should realize is that these people have to go out looking for jobs, after being made to look like idiots on a nationwide show.  

You can see how different they are when with Dara O'Briain on BBC2.  However, it was cringeworthy how the team manager was begging for another chance. She should have gone out with dignity, and her head held high. The fact is that the competition in the two last two weeks were won by very narrow margins, so there wasn't much to criticize by comparison. Lord Sugar was just splitting hairs.

Donald Trump does not come down hard on the candidates (in the Non-Celebrity American version), treating them with respect. But, I think generally, most of his candidates seem better equipped. In fact, quite a few have ended up working for him.  

dafuzz

I don't get why they can't use the internet during tasks. How on earth is anybody supposed to create a viral video without being able to monitor views, tweet about it, post on facebook, etc? What's the point of a social media task at all then?!

Also the editing in the boardroom is really bad and just leaves me wondering how much has been cut out. Spoils it.

Jalapeno

Fretwired said:

It's car crash TV .. like the Roman Colosseum for the left-liberal classes who despise business people and can therefore laugh at their crassness and ineptitude. There should be a version for public sector types .. it would be far funnier IMHO. 

Yeah, with the strap-line "You're Accountable ! " 

frankus

No one would have believed in the first years of the twenty first century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with no value for his spare time might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply on reality TV programmes. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria on The Apprentice do the same.

After a decade or so of really really shit TV programming, the greater intelligences decided there must be something in the water and perhaps it was better not to invade.


The END.

dafuzz

Wells aid that man

Philly_Q

rocktron said:

I find it sad that the candidates are made to look stupid, and are humiliated in the show. 

Any prospective employer looking on during the interviews with Lord Sugar would not hire the majority of them.The thing Lord Sugar should realize is that these people have to go out looking for jobs, after being made to look like idiots on a nationwide show.  

I doubt Sugar himself gives a shit whether they're made to look like idiots or geniuses, it's all the same to him and not his responsibility.

They apply to the show, they know what they're letting themselves in for.  And I shouldn't think in reality it does them any harm at all when they go back to regular jobs.  Some of them, like that slapper Luisa Zissman, choose to go the zelebrity route and probably do OK while it lasts.

holnrew

I enjoyed the bikinis at the end.

carlos

This one might be an irredeemable bellend, though.

Two other candidates went home this week, Ella Jade Bitton and polarising character Steven Ugoalah.

“I was very surprised to go,” he tells HuffPostUK. “Because I did a complete 360-degree turn on my behaviour from the first episode. I stopped being outspoken, in fact I hardly said anything at all.”

Philly_Q

I think he did a 720-degree turn.

In fact I'm 150% certain he did.