The Apprentice!
21st Oct 2010
What a bunch of muppets! If you don't watch the Apprentice I'd strongly urge you to do so. It is one of the best bits of TV entertainment ever conceived in my mind. I watch very little TV, but look forward to my Wed nights. For those who don't know the concept, 15 people are effectively being interviewed for a high flying job as an apprentice to entrepreneur Alan Sugar. Each episode they are set a fairly hefty task (for example to think of, design and sell a brand new beach product, all within a 48 hour period). The interviewees are split into two teams and compete against each other. One member of the losing team is fired.
Sounds simple enough. It is. The tasks are pretty tricky, but these are folk aiming for a £100,000 salary job so you'd expect them to have the credentials necessary. So why is it that week after week the project leader (different each time) turns into a raving lunatic that wouldn't be able to manage a GCSE project? I'll admit that as a viewer I am being manipulated and toyed with by a team of very clever editors, and that each episode a new character or two are picked up to look incredibly silly, but that doesn't get around the fact that they say and do some down-right daft things! Then there's the argument that they're just doing it to get on the telly. Well given the fact that there is a 14 out of 15 chance that they will be fired and end up looking like a total wally in front of millions, I can't see that The Apprentice is really a very sensible road to fame and stardom! It'd be interesting to know what the previous contestants have got up to since their time in the limelight (the series is a few years old now).
Can't wait for Ben Elton to parody it in one of his books!