It's May 2013. The Boardroom chairs have been dusted off, the table polished, the long shot of the candidates walking with ill-conceived confidence towards the camera has been shot, and the familiar strains of Prokofiev's Montagues and Capulets booms out over the air. Yes, it's time once again for the Interview From Hell, and don't we love it! I'm a big fan of The Apprentice, though I can't claim to have been in at the start. I got into it through the late-night showings of the US version on our Irish national telly channel RTE, and promptly sought out all previous seasons of that, then devoured the UK version and was delighted when we started our own, ill-fated attempt. I've also watched the Australian, New Zealand and any other version I can, including the oftimes hilarious celebrity ones and the Comic Relief one. And I adore it. But not as a serious show. You can't really take it seriously. I mean, untried, untested kids going out on the high street and trying to bargain with seasoned traders? Haggling over prices in shops? Presenting to global conglomerates? Wouldn't happen, would it? No, it's all part of the huge Apprentice machine that has been happily trundling on now for almost ten years, and it's accepted as part of the conditions for doing business with Sir Alan, now Lord Sugar. And it's all great fun. Which is the vein in which I'm going to be writing this weekly (or, if the BBC maintain the practice of showing two episodes a week, twice weekly) review and recap of the latest series of our favourite reality show. Okay, well it's my favourite: you know what you can do with Britain's Got Talent... But that's just it. Britain, at least in this case, does not have talent. I mean, these people are supposed to be the best and brightest, the
creme de la creme, selected from thousands of applicants to be the ones to go head-to-head for the .... um, what is it again? Used to be the chance to be His Lordship's apprentice (hence the title), now it seems he's got more apprentices than Man United have won Premiership titles, so he's going into business with them? Changing the format somewhat? Well anyway whatever the goal is, these are the ones who have been selected to take up the challenge, fight it out with one finally emerging victorious. Uh, yeah. It's consistently struck me as odd over the course of certainly the latter series how --- let me see, how can I say this without giving offence? --- weapons grade dumb these people are. I mean, there are things they don't know that a kid of ten would know! Some of the comments that have come out of the show in the past are worthy of almost being awarded a prize for the Most Stupid Or Inane Comment On A Reality Show, with the one about "Do the French love their children?" certainly standing a high chance of clinching that reward. Then we had the ones who didn't know what a candleabrum was, the ones who didn't know what century we were living in (I'm serious! Okay, they were on the American version, but still...) and even going way back, who can forget the jewish boy who didn't know what kosher meant? Bet he was banned from the synagogue for a while! But some of the evidence presented on this show would definitely refute the idea that these are the future of business, the captains of tomorrow's industries, and, lord help us, the ones who may be running our lives in a few decades. As the ninth series gets underway I'll be looking at the show and talking about the silly or ill-advised things said by the candidates, the bad decisions made, and where anyone with half a brain could see they were going wrong. Also, I'll be taking a wry look at Lord Sugar's thought processes --- how he fired some of the people he did and kept the ones he did in previous seasons, only he can say, but sometimes it seems like maybe he's been sleeping though the task. Someone almost screams "Fire me! I'm terrible! I'll never make you a penny!" and he shakes his head, grimaces and points the finger at ... someone else. No offence to anyone is intended and yadda yadda yadda, you know the score, but there are too many reviews looking seriously at this show; I thought it was time to poke some gentle fun at these "rising business stars" and their grumpy old taskmaster. So sit back, enjoy and let's have us some fun! Click "next" below to kick us off;