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.

@ouch321

It started in2004/5, (the good old days, when it was on at 9.00pm and Desp Housewives used to follow at 10.00pm so it's had its day)..

It's v repetitive now. Ditto Call the midwife sorry to say.

Yes, and on BBC 2 in the 'spring' 3rd of the year. Apparently the timing was changed to autumn because elections happened in May and SurAlan being a Labour peer (at the time) might have made everyone vote Labour .

I quite like that it's moved to the winter 3rd, though - it means its 12 week run has now moved right round the calendar.

I used to love the show but it really should have been put down years ago. These days it's all about boring airheads (male and female) trying and failing to be alphas.

I remember crying with laughter at the wolf fleece segment. Also loved the QVC episode from 2007 (!!).

@Whydoesthecatalwaysdothat

We started watching it last night and I had to turn it over.

The women look like Barbie dolls. It's just bizarre!

What a contrast between 2005 and 2022..........

2005 are dressed how working women would at the time. 2022 are identikit business Barbie. Nobody dresses like that anymore. Especially not post covid. I assumed that they are given the clothes and told what to wear.

My favourite tasks are the ones where they have to run around finding random objects they’ve never heard of and then haggle the price.

Yes the women are dressed like they're stuck in 2012. It's quite peculiar.

The first one after they changed it was a good series actually— Helen from Greggs who never lost a task, the episode where one team basically made a lads' mag, the buying for the Savoy task when nobody knew what a cloche was...

The badger has always been my favourite. Cool, calm and collected, she was just good at everything. Wonder what she would make of the uniform of wiggle dresses and high heels. The apprentice has definitely gone backwards in terms of representation of women in business.

I really liked Shama. She seemed really switched on. I imagine in reality she took a good look around and realised her tolerance for working with such idiocy was low and got out.

Ruth Badger is my all time favourite, the way she sold those cars in the second hand car dealership was awesome!

I agree the tasks are now often over complicated, I like the ones that focus on a specific skill and don't have unrealistic elements to them eg this latest drinks one.

The women all wearing heals is really dated I agree, it would be much better to see them wearing proper business attire from 2022, not 2012

It definitely needs a refresh.

... That said, I do love Alan Sugars dry humour, that's the main reason I watch it.

The advisors comments always sound like they are reading from a script, and often seems to end in the phrase 'but can they xxxxx, I'm not sure'

It feels like love island now. Just people trying to get famous.

@SouthOfFrance

Lord sugar says "and for that reason, I'm struggling" every week.

@girafferafferaffe, I agree and that's the reason tv is rubbish today. I was never a big fan of Big Brother but when it started, they did at least have (semi) interesting characters and the show appeared like a social experiment. I'm not sure when it was last aired, but towards the end it was just a load of wannabees.
I don't watch much TV.

You know what's missing now is the pretend to wake them v early with 20 mins to get ready (though that bit is still there) and then take them.somewhere that has an extremely tentative link:

house woken at 3am for an unexpected flight to Australia. All candidates wash, dress, preen, pack, and gets to airport in a pretend half an hour

"Here we are at the beautiful Sydney Opera house where [insert bit of history]. Today you are going to produce a five-course meal that can be served on a yacht"

@Bagadverts dh and I said this about last night’s contestants talking about their “business ideas”. Extending their current businesses is hardly innovative or exciting - surely he’s looking for new innovations to back not just dull expansions .

[quote Exhausteddog]@SouthOfFrance

Lord sugar says "and for that reason, I'm struggling" every week.[/quote]
Yes he does doesn't he? I'm sure he's not struggling at all, I doubt he cares all that much who gets fired.

The fact that the sub team only seem to get a rushed 30 second phone call with the other half of the team with no chance of a call back or later call is almost as unbelievable as not being able to Google stuff on their phones.

It always mystifies me that they receive the phone call at around 4am when it's pitch dark, and by the time the '20 minutes' has passed, it is broad daylight!

@AutumnAlmanack

I noticed that too. I'm pretty sure a lot of the girls hair and make up would take more than 20 min to do on its own

@LoudSnoringDog

I really liked Shama. She seemed really switched on. I imagine in reality she took a good look around and realised her tolerance for working with such idiocy was low and got out.

I liked her too - she was definitely the most intelligent and capable.

I miss Margaret and Nick.
They were sharp, witty and most entertaining!

@AutumnAlmanack

It always mystifies me that they receive the phone call at around 4am when it's pitch dark, and by the time the '20 minutes' has passed, it is broad daylight!

Keep in mind that it’s filmed in the summer so it’s lighter a lot earlier. I vaguely know someone who was on a recent series. I’ll ask if they actually get longer if it comes up in conversation ever.

dh and I said this about last night’s contestants talking about their “business ideas”. Extending their current businesses is hardly innovative or exciting - surely he’s looking for new innovations to back not just dull expansions

If you're genuinely there for an investment then you would already have a business though. It wouldn't make sense to go into the process with no business.

That's why it always mystifies me why the last task is to come up with name/branding for your business. Surely you would already have all that in mind.

@TheGoldenWolfFleece I thought it was supposed to be a business idea rather than a fully established business?

I take your point but expanding nurseries or pharmacies are not very exciting 🤷‍♀️.

I think I read somewhere that some contestants get ready the night before, as much as they possibly can

Totally agree OP. They definitely get less time on tasks than they used to which inevitably leads to bad mistakes, but I guess that makes better TV...

I strongly suspect they are only allowed a small number of phone calls between the sub teams, and the length of the calls is restricted. Otherwise it makes no sense for the sub teams not to run stuff by each other very regularly. And the calls always end with issues not properly resolved and hurried "byebyebye"s. No one ever says, look we're not entirely clear on this, let's take a couple of minutes to run through it again.

Looks like next week they're doing another of my pet hates - get the candidates to do something pretty specialised (fishing in this case) despite having no experience. A much better business task would be to contract the services of a local fishing boat and crew, negotiate with them on prices and then sell their catch. But far less entertaining to watch so it won't happen.

thetab.com/uk/2022/01/20/the-apprentice-behind-the-scenes-production-secrets-236508