A joy to watch (The Apprentice UK)

Member Name: caz-3124

Product:	The Apprentice UK
Date:	03/04/09 (79 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything

Disadvantages: None

Seeing as there is no title availble yet for the fifth series of this show I thought I would reflect on last years' series. This show was inspired by the Apprentice US led by Donald Trump. I have seen the US version once but did not like it as much. I didn't know about the Apprentice until series two but since then have been hooked.

The Apprentice is a show where twelve candidates, normally six men and six women compete over a period of twelve weeks in order to get a well-paid (£100,0000 job with business success Sir Alan Sugar who has a great portfolio but is probably best known for his computer firm Amstrad. Each week Sugar gives the candidates a task to do, anything from selling take-away coffee to devising and ad campaign. The candidatates are split into two teams and then one person on the losing team will be fired after a fight in the boardroom.

The candidates are very mixed. Some come from very-well educated backgrounds and some, like Sugar himself, have worked since leaving school at a young age. Similarly the candidates, or should it be contestants, have a very varied working background. So you may have a retail manager, a stockbroker, a hairdresser, a model, an accountant, a plumber or anything.

The candidates all live in a fancy pad chosen by Sugar. This can be anywhere in London. They had a big swanky place as I recall but it was a tad modernist for my tastes. As usual there were two candidates per bedroom so they couldn't even escape each other at night.

Originally the show was broadcast on BBC2 on Wednesday night but it was moved to BBC1 for this series as a growing mark of its popularity It still kept its 9pm primetime slot. After the show there is a spin-off called The Apprentice, You're Fired hosted by Adrian Chiles.

As usual there were some real characters. I think it is a required trait of a candidate to be very sure of oneself and not afraid to express an opinion whether to their face or behind their back. There were a few who stood out for me whether for good or bad reasons. Lucinda Ledgerwood was an unusual candidate, softly spoken and seemingly more aware of others' feelings she was considered too zany by her team-mates and often picked on. Sugar was unsure that she would fit into the role he had in mind so fired her in week 11 despite her high success rate in tasks. She came fifth. Another one of note was Raef Bjayou who stood out for his dapper dress sense, fantastic diction and general ability to get on well with most of the others. He was eliminated in week 9. One of the candidates I disliked most was Michael Sophocles who even branded himself as arrogant and was quite underhand and moaned behind people's backs' a lot especially when he got to the boardroom and would tell complete lies. He also made a fool of himself when he could not explain what kosher meat was despite claiming to be a 'good Jewish boy'.

There were of course some great tasks in this series. One of my favourites was a task where they had to come up with a new greetings cards. Jenny came up with the idea of sending cards to promote saving the environment. Note the irony. The funniest bit was when they went to Clintons to try and persuade them to buy some of their product and pretty much blamed them for global warming. The look on the Clinton's buyers was priceless. My other favourite episode was one where they had to sell wedding items at an exhibitions. One team decided to go down the cheap route and the other decided to aim for the posh market. I thought Lee McQueen (eventual winner) was hilarious in this episode and really seemed to get the gift of the gab and the flattery just right with potential customers. Sara, on the other hand, who was trying to sell wedding cakes, was so bullying, she kept scaring the customers away.

As you can probably tell, I love this series. You get a great mix of characters, in all senses of the word, and the tasks are always varied and you always get someone making completely the wrong decison, whilst thinking it's a win-win idea and there are always the fights and back-biting to listen to and laugh at. I think it's lucky that Sugar's two aides, Nick and Margaret, who each oversee a team, are there to witness what goes on. They too are very funny with their frowning and sighing in the background and can be very sharp-tongued when it comes to reveling what really went on in the event of a boardroom spat.

Summary: Great way to spend the evening