The Apprentice has become a caricature of itself

[DockOTheBay]

Anyone else really annoyed at how ridiculous The Apprentice has become?

If you look back at clips from previous seasons, they had people who were actually competent, of various ages and backgrounds, who wore normal clothing. They worked together as a team and actually aimed to produce something decent - rather the trying to sabotage each other at every opportunity.

Also recently the method of the programme makes no sense. Split the groups and expect them to come up with a coherent marketing, with no communication between them? Do customer research AFTER the products are finalised? Its just stupid, of course the stuff they come up with is crap.

I think the rot started when people like Katie Hopkins and Louisa Zussman (sp?) just used it as a means to get their faces on telly. Since then it's become just another reality show with a slight 'business' twist.

I don't know why they have to design, make, brand, pitch AND sell every product. It used to just be "design a product and make a TV advert" or "choose some products and sell them" or "here is a product, brand it". It all feels so rushed and every aspect is rubbish.

I miss the “good old days” too; it used to be quite a funny and informative watch, and the crazy people were entertaining exceptions rather than the norm.

Yes! Back in the day it used to inspire me to want to up my game in my career. Definitely not these days

It was better when the prize was a job offer rather than a business partner set up. I reckon AS knows right from the beginning which business he’d invest in.

Agreed. A six figure job ..it was so exciting back in the day. The business format is just meh because it doesn't ring true. You get the feeling AS could just turn around and say 'sorry, I'm not investing because of X,y,z' helped along with his lawyers. Or maybe BBC pay.... who bloody knows.

@DockOTheBay

I don't know why they have to design, make, brand, pitch AND sell every product. It used to just be "design a product and make a TV advert" or "choose some products and sell them" or "here is a product, brand it". It all feels so rushed and every aspect is rubbish.

No matter how good you were, nobody could come up with an amazing product, advert, social media campaign and pitch in 24 hours. It's ridiculous. I don't know why they had to mess with the format. BBC is becoming more sensationalist, sadly, I guess.

Since they moved away from the job with AS it’s gradually become more ridiculous. It’s always the one with the best business plan who wins no matter how useless they are. The rest are cannon fodder.

The women in variations of the same super tight dress, ridiculous heels, perfectly styled hair and over the top make up annoys the arse out of me. Them all wearing coordinating shades of pink last night at the beginning

I do love it though.

@FleshLiabilities

I think the rot started when people like Katie Hopkins and Louisa Zussman (sp?) just used it as a means to get their faces on telly. Since then it's become just another reality show with a slight 'business' twist.

I think Haty Katie was one of the originals in the early series. And a bit of an anomaly, hence why she was unfortunately memorable. I agree about LZ, though. I think that's when the rot set in

It was always ridiculous.

We discussed this exact thing last night, that all the contestants are almost identikit with how they dress and talk and behave. It got worse when they moved from an actual apprentice to being a business partner. I want them to go back old school and have a variety.

Bring back the Badger is what I say!

They do seem to set them up to fail sometimes. His Lordly Sugariness still hasn't realised that expertise in one field doesn't translate to expertise in another almost unrelated one though. He is still trotting out thing like "As a pharmacist, you know about quantities, so you should be great at drinks ingredients". 😂

I have posted this on mumsnet before but this is when it was good TV 😂

m.youtube.com/watch?v=xd2Y8VdkZ68

I watched it for the first time in many years last night (21 y/o who is a big fan was home from Uni for a few days) and I was struck by how it is EXACTLY the same as in the Ruth Badger/Katie Hopkins days. I sort if enjoyed it in a guilty pleasures kind of way and might watch some more of this series. Going to miss Claude though.

It's still one of the best things on TV! It's so cringe though. I've been watching it through my fingers. It's just not realistic. I'm not in business but I know that's not how things would be done. Shama was lovely and gave me one of the biggest laughs when she said, ' I still don't know what Bougee means!'

Agree with lots of your points OP.
The people looked more normal and wore a variety if clothes, they looked like they could work together and work as a team. The houses were not as grand but the treats for the winning team were much better.

I've been watching since series 1 and the mistakes and errors people made in the early series were noticeable and notable because they weren't expected. (I remember one series someone miscalculated the ingredients for something - possibly a perfume by putting the decimal place in the wrong place and it seemed a big deal. )
I think its like all TV where they want yo make more drama. So it's allegedly boring if they make a good product and the team work well together. It's like bake off where they make the challenges almost impossible to achieve and in a very short time frame to induce the risk of mistakes, mishaps etc.
I do enjoy them running about doing practical tasks (like at factories or farms, decorating, gardening etc) with their business wear on though.
(I still maintain there is a dressing up box of bodycon dresses, stilettos, lairy waistcoats, cravats, glasses, fake beards, fake teeth, etc and the first - untelevised- task is creating an outfit from the box in the shortest amount of time)

I too thought it was rubbish that the 2 teams are not communicating what they're doing all the time so the branding team are making packaging for something they dont even know the ingredients for. It's ridiculous!

Oh and lord sugars jokes are bloody horrendous and barely recognisable as jokes

@Amandasummers

What really pisses me off, is that they show clips at the start of each episode of future weeks, meaning you already know who hasn’t been fired 😤😤😤

Yes this! Like we knew Nick's team wouldn't lose this week as he would surely have been fired if so, and we had seen him in a hairnet on a future show.

I agree it's ridiculous but I do love it

[quote ItsSnowJokes]I have posted this on mumsnet before but this is when it was good TV 😂

m.youtube.com/watch?v=xd2Y8VdkZ68[/quote]
Yes this sort of thing was SO funny. And the contestants actually seemed to like each other and work as a team towards an aim.

These days if they were given that wolf jumper they would just be looking at ways to twist it to get someone else fired, rolling their eyes and making snide comments. It's just car crash TV now, it is amusing that the products are terrible but it doesn't make me laugh.

Also sad that Shama has gone; she seemed to be a normal person.

Why did all the women wear those awful tight dresses on the first day?

I remember one series someone miscalculated the ingredients for something - possibly a perfume by putting the decimal place in the wrong place and it seemed a big deal
Was it the one where they bought sandalwood instead of cedarwood and it cost 10x as much. Nick just told them dead-pan and walked away

I too thought it was rubbish that the 2 teams are not communicating what they're doing all the time so the branding team are making packaging for something they don't even know the ingredients for.
Absolutely. It makes no sense. "Why didn't the branding mention peach?" "we didn't know it contained peach". Whose fault is that, the producers basically. You're fired!

@Exhausteddog

Oh and lord sugars jokes are bloody horrendous and barely recognisable as jokes

They have definitely got worse. I used to like Nick's comments, the comedy has gone way down since he left.

Agree its very silly now but, oh, how we all need a bit of silliness these days! Think I enjoy it more as it's so obvious that they are really dim. A joy to watch for all the wrong reasons.

Oh god yes - they all look the same - why are the women all dressed so ridiculously?? Do women really dress like that for work? Why do they all look like they are made from plastic bar one town 'normal' person?

Although jist watching Karen's expressions while they do the tasks is worth an hour of my time!!

I enjoyed Australian Celebrity Apprentice more than I thought I would

Was a really good watch. It’s on iPlayer if anyone wants to watch it

I watched the last 2 episodes and it was basically the same task and the same things happened. I’m sure it never used to be like that.

I actually fell asleep when it came to the boardroom bit, I’m not invested in any of them.

I miss the good ild days too. Remember the ‘plantsman’ song for the breakfast cereal ad?! DH can still sing the lyrics to this day
I also remember a task to sell alcohol and one of the teams came up with the idea of coloured gin, I think it was pink and they were laughed out of the room. The experts said no one would buy coloured gin

Pantsman!! Wish there was an edit button