The Apprentice 2023

[Triple A]

14 hours ago, McFly said:

protein enriched booze? Wtf?

I would definitely not want to be in the vicinity of someone farting after having had a skinful of that stuff.  Rancid!

[pledge]

Not sure if this counts as a final spoiler, but my TikTok started showing:

 

Spoiler

Clips from Harpreet talking about her business, including one that introduces her sister. I read that as she lost. Either way seems odd that they allowed her to start a marketing campaign a week before the episode airs.

 

[Gotters]

I used to like the interview stage when this was less a reality show, now it just seems like setting them up to be shown as twats, they didn't even get a chance to work on their plans with a laptop this time like in the past. The interviewers don't look good out of it, well done multi millionaire Claude you made a young girl in her 20s cry because she didn't have the right numbers in a business plan. Is that really entertainment ?

 

What you're left with is people that are serious business types used to running large organisations ripping strips off people for setup questions they were asked to go on a reality show when they didn't really expect to get on. 

 

Harpreet for example probably got asked to jazz up her answers a bit early in pre-selection, 'come on Harpreet, we want you on the show but you need to create a stir, catch our eye, stand out a bit. What's the most controversial rule you think people should work to, something spicy will really help you get on' - 'OK how about no emotion before 7pm'. Then you see this answer she can barely remember saying being raked up in a televised interview by some punching down captain of business and she's expected to defend it. 

 

It's so stacked against them as they want fame, a bit of promotion or in some cases the £250k. Don't get me wrong the contestants often do themselves no favours either, it just feels like an unfair fight.

 

On Dragons Den is far fairer if their plans don't stack up, they are claiming BS or don't know numbers etc, on this it's not really.

[glb]

Probably said it before but barring a major revamp think that’ll be it for me in terms of watching the show.

 

As with Sugar, this is now a bit of an outdated relic, harking back to the voyeuristic era of reality TV. Let’s all laugh at the idiots! Except the idiocy is so heavily manufactured that it renders it all a bit mean, rather than entertaining.

 

On the basis of various behind-the-scenes accounts, the process sounds so relentlessly gruelling that it’s a small wonder the candidates hold themselves together.

 

Interesting comparison with Dragon’s Den, which I agree is a far more engaging, and fair, show. Would be cool to see an Apprentice spin-off, just to see some of the business ideas that didn’t make it, and how they might be treated by the Dragons.

 

Protein alcohol is dumb though. It doesn’t take a degree in chemistry to know why alcohol and protein tend to not be mixed.

[McFly]

I skipped through a fair bit of the final, it was just so uninspiring. Once the ideas were explained it was such a "wtf" moment, that's the best they could come up with? 

[sofasurfer]

44 minutes ago, McFly said:

I skipped through a fair bit of the final, it was just so uninspiring. Once the ideas were explained it was such a "wtf" moment, that's the best they could come up with? 

To be fair it's been like that ever since they decided it's not an apprenticeship, or really an actual job in one of Sugar's companies, but rather a more Dragon's Den opportunity. This year I've struggled to see what is so investable about a pyjama company or a dessert business. Neither are revolutionary but then I suppose nothing Sugar does really is.

 

As a fan of the show, the latest season has been painful and quite frankly boring to watch. Hopefully next year it will go back to being far more entertaining when they can do tasks such as the shopping list one.

[K]

The interview round was particularly grim this time round, as rather than taking some absurdly overconfident idiots to task, it was some well-meaning but inexperienced and naïve young people having their business plans ripped to pieces by old people. It was pretty depressing really - they came across as very ambitious and hard-working, but just didn't know how to run a business in the long term, presumably because nobody had told them. I assume they were nicer to them off camera, but it was a pretty unedifying spectacle seeing someone who has done the best job they can do be reduced to tears by someone who's had forty years of experience doing the same thing.

 

They should ditch Sir Sugar, and reboot it with someone younger, and refocus it on actually trying to help people who are good. Maybe have the tasks focus on the actual things a startup would have to do, like getting investment, hiring the right people, branding, etc, rather than making them pick up dog shit / spend the night in a haunted house / write and release a drill track in one day / etc.

[Gotters]

I suspect the problem isn't that the production don't realise any of these criticisms of the format, but rather they think it's what the core audience wants.

 

I'd love to know the demographic of who watches this, I think for the first few it was actually quite aspirational and probably had a better spread of ages watching. Now I suspect the audience is older people who like watching 'young know nuffin idiots' get ripped apart and put thru the ringer.

 

It's why I don't want to watch any more and am cross it pulled me back in, as I sort of know what it is now but think I just watch out of habit.

 

 

[Garwoofoo]

I like laughing at the stupid people failing the ridiculous tasks, I think it becomes much less engaging towards the end when it's obvious they've just been pre-picked based on their business plan. The show always peaks around the middle of the series where you know the characters and have eliminated the real no-hopers but before it gets to all the rubbish around the "Final Five".

 

I wish they'd just drop the whole "investment" thing and just have it as a knockout competition without the business plans in it at all.

[McFly]

There's a Gordon Ramsey Apprentice style show started tonight on bbc1

[Fierce Poodle]

I’m watching it. Absolute cat shit.

[McFly]

Seemed not too bad but only watched 20mins so far. I do love Ramsey tho.

[Fierce Poodle]

It was fucking awful. Actually makes the Apprentice look good.

[yakumo]

Started watching this season and forgotten how cringe inducing Apprentice is. Plus Sugar's jokes are so bad, and its worst when everyone starts laughing despite knowing its shit.  Plus side, majority of the candidates seem like normal people and not ego maniacs.

[Triple A]

That secretly-posh-but-trying-to-look-street/salt-of-the-earth Steven bloke off Dragons’ Den, is blatantly trying to position himself for The Apprentice.  I’m well wary of him!

[instasis]

9 hours ago, Triple A said:

That secretly-posh-but-trying-to-look-street/salt-of-the-earth Steven bloke off Dragons’ Den, is blatantly trying to position himself for The Apprentice.  I’m well wary of him!

 

You couldn't have read that guy more wrong, really.

 

On 30/03/2022 at 11:59, Garwoofoo said:

I like laughing at the stupid people failing the ridiculous tasks, I think it becomes much less engaging towards the end when it's obvious they've just been pre-picked based on their business plan. The show always peaks around the middle of the series where you know the characters and have eliminated the real no-hopers but before it gets to all the rubbish around the "Final Five".

 

I wish they'd just drop the whole "investment" thing and just have it as a knockout competition without the business plans in it at all.

 

I stopped watching properly years ago, but occasionally drop back in for an episode or two. K's assessment of this year's is interesting, because actually helping people succeed should be exactly what it's there for. It could actually help the people on it, and the people interested in doing something themselves who watch it.

 

Instead it's the most terrible kind of reality TV audition show. Generally it's full of cretins who seem bizarrely determined to ruin their entire careers, and tasks that drop beneath the level of a graduate assessment days. It's fucking awful.

 

Ramsey's new show at least has aspirational chefs cooking things. 

[Fierce Poodle]

Ramsey’s show is dull as fuck though.

[Stoppy2000]

Also Lewis from the 2019 series appears in current channel 4 'experiment' Open House (group of randy people in a house having threesomes etc). 

The Apprentice only attracts fame hungry types looking for a reality TV career - it's time it was binned or seriously overhauled. 

[sir podger]

Dragging this thread back out of the mire like a disinterested hunter-gatherer lazily pulls the bloated corpse of a festering beaver out of a river and hopes there is a meal to be had out of it. 

 

This is probably how the producers feel about the show as well as a bunch of sociopaths hoping for a future in reality TV cover this aspiration up by saying they really want a business partnership with the man who said the iPod would be a flash in the pan and whose top tech guy thinks an ISP is an internet service protocol.

 

However, we did have a miracle this time around on the first episode

 

Spoiler

the boys won the first task!

 

anyone else still watching, i have downgraded the show from must-watch on night of airing to background iplayer fodder in the office

[Sidewaysbob]

At one point, I was praying the plane home would crash land and kill all the contestants and Lord Sugars "comedy" script team. 

But, alas, they all lived to give 132.7% commitment. 

 

 

[Gotters]

yeah background fodder with a touch of hatewatch.

 

it not only feels so lazy and tired now but like something from another age somehow, which Dragon's Den before it doesn't

[pledge]

The intro to the candidates video on iPlayer just seems to be increasingly strong accents, like they had to include someone from every possible county. I'm hoping it goes full parody of itself. Despite thinking I'd hate the candidates from the first episode last year I ended up really enjoying it, so hoping the same happens this time round.

[K]

The tone seemed slightly different this time round. They had the usual ridiculous intro bit, with all the contestants saying stuff like "I'm Conor, and I'm here to FUCK" and "I'm the Elisabeth Bathory of business. I will literally kill hundreds of people and bathe in their blood and entrails, in a metaphorical business sense, except I will do it literally", except the bit in the boardroom seemed to show them having a bit of a laugh over how preposterous it all was. It seemed slightly more relaxed.

[Art Vandelay]

Yeah I noticed that, it was actually quite refreshing to watch as they all did a bit of forehead slapping and eye rolling at what unbelievable planks they were to write down things they were fed by the production team. I did enjoy the young dork – who I can only presume spends the time he isn't an international captain of industry squabbling about about console sales on Rllmuk – getting ready to dazzle Sugar Daddy with his extensive esoteric knowledge of antique artillery only to have his story rudely truncated. Beautiful payoff when he strode out onto those ramparts to see a massive cannon pointed to the ocean and the other candidate fumbling about. THIS IS GREGORY'S TIME TO SHINE.

[Mr Do 71]

Always hilarious when they have to produce a food product.

[Fierce Poodle]

I keep thinking they’re saying “bowel buns”.

[pledge]

Shame we only got one episode with Claude. I keep forgetting to skip the spoilerific intro sequence where it shows you who is in future episodes and removes any jeopardy from the boardroom scene as my memory is longer than 40 minutes.

[Sidewaysbob]

God I hate this, its just so terrible now. 

 

However. 

 

I think even a team of professional character designers would be hard pressed to come up with a brand new design for a toodlers cartoon show, from scratch and then pitch it to people clearly not interested in being in the room. 

 

These things take months, years and do not have one team in one room making decisions in isolation that will affect another team in a different room. 

 

The only things that proved, was how difficult it is to be creative and how important it is to have everyone working together. 

[glb]

Yeah, pure hate-watching it now. Probably should find a hobby other than lying on the sofa staring at the gogglebox but y'know. Disappointed Johnny Cannons or whatever the lad is called got biffed. In a series that has long since scraped through the bottom of the barrel, they've managed to achieve a perfect mix of utter blandness in the remaining candidates.

 

Initially did enjoy the preview of next week though; a scavenger hunt with a team questioning directions bodes well. But then I stopped staring at the TV long enough to think, of course people would question what street they're on and try and make sense of a map in a city if they've never visited before. The series is just mean.

[glb]

The scavenger hunt task is one item away from “get me some tartan paint and spirit level bubbles”.