Charlie Brooker in today's Guardian:
"This is not a game! There is no 'panel of judges' here! There's no 'text-a-number'!" No "text-a-number"? What sort of technophobic grandad-speak is that? Holy bleedin' cobblestones, Sir Alan, this is the 21st century! You run a technology firm for chrissakes! No "text-a-number", indeed. I suppose you'd say it ain't a game of yer computerised Space Invasions, neither? None of yer Megadrive cassette tapes here, eh?
This series has seen an exponential coarsening of Sir Alan's already coarse demeanour; he now sounds more like a world-weary, misanthropic prison warden than a high-flying fat-cat. Who the hell wants to work for that? A few weeks ago he used the phrase "as sure as there's a hole in my bloody arse", and my brain filled with horrifying images - grisly close-ups of the aperture itself - which still play a starring role in my nightmares. Incidentally, is it just me, or is he starting to resemble Mrs Tiggywinkle from the Beatrix Potter books? You know - the hedgehog washerwoman? I swear he does. Especially if you squint.
No wonder he's looking for new blood. And this time around, said blood is lady-flavoured. Yes, The Apprentice (Wed, 9pm, BBC2) shudders to a climax this week, with a live girl-on-girl finale featuring Ruth "Haystacks" Badger and Michelle "Eyebrow Pencil" Dewberry. If you haven't been watching the series thus far, suffice to say it should play out like a grudge match between Biffa Bacon's mum and a translucent, whining coat-stand.
Actually, that's horrifically unfair: both candidates have easily held their own over the past 12 weeks. I'm only being snippy because that's my job. As project manager of this column, petty unpleasantness is my number one priority, and I'm proud to say I always meet my targets.
Yes, in reality, I admire them both - although admittedly, my admiration of Ruth is almost entirely rooted in fear; by the irrational suspicion that she might lunge through the screen at any given moment and squish my balls to paste in her fist. She's a cross between Lucy from Peanuts and a career-oriented Minotaur - pushy, stubborn and perpetually teetering on the brink of fury; Pauline Quirke meets the Terminator. If Sir Alan fires her on Wednesday, chances are she'll "Hulk out" - punch her way through the wall, roar into the street and start tossing cars around like pillows.
And as for Michelle - well, I've developed an alarming crush on her, even if she does draw her eyebrows on with a pube-thin crayon and speak in a voice so flat and offputting, I can only describe it as the aural equivalent of the taste of earwax. As I suspect most viewers did, I initially found Michelle a touch cold and distant - a spectral estate agent with a curiously expressionless fizzog.
Last week's "job interview" special cast her in a new light, for the first time revealing her to be a tough little soldier who's overcome all manner of hinted-at hardships to forge a wildly successful freelance career - without banging on about it every five minutes, like Syed.
Ah, Syed. He's like something out of I, Robot - a synthetic android sex doll with undiluted Microsoft Excel pulsing through his veins. And he's back this week, a phoenix from the flames, assisting with the gang's-all-here final task - so for God's sake savour your final minutes with him. Peppy bell-end businessmen are two a penny, but Syed's a special kind of peppy bell-end businessman, the kind whose peppy bell-endism is so relentless and blinkered it eventually transcends annoyance and becomes hugely endearing. You'll miss him when he's gone, damn him.
Anyway, someone's got to win, and speaking as someone who always roots for the underdog, I favour Michelle. So there.
Oh, and BBC, if you're listening? How about a detective serial starring Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer, in which they solve crimes in the city by lurking in the background and peering at the suspects one by one until someone cracks and confesses? It's got "hit" plastered all over it.