Utterly predictable but winning format a Sugar fix for the smug
IT IS that time of year again. The time of year where I take about six months off my life on an annual basis due to increased blood pressure.
If you have been keeping your eyes peeled in between programmes on the BBC for what seems like the last three months, you may have noticed a short and grumpy septuagenarian flanked by a bald bloke, a wally and 16 failed management consultants.
That is because it will soon be time to crank up Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights and prepare to watch Team Alpha (or whatever they spend half the show deciding to call their team) turn on each other inside a greasy spoon in Willesden.
Yep, The Apprentice is back. I started watching the show in 2005 when revising for my French GCSE (failed) and as such cannot bring myself to call Lord Sugar anything but Le Sucre.
I always vow that I am “not going to watch it this year”. The whole programme brings me to a level of anger which is completely unjustified. As a bit of a moron myself I don’t understand why 16 morons dressed like mannequins from Zara get me to such a high level of rage.
Despite my promises I always give it another chance. Much like Sugar does every single year with the “rough-around-the-edges” male working-class lad who messes up. You may not have even noticed but this happens every year.
A young “cheeky chappy” of a lad, who would be more at home in Fagin’s gang than in business, will screw up. Instead of giving him the firing he so richly deserves Le Sucre will decide to “give him another chance”. Cheeky Chappy will then reply, “I won’t let you down, Lord Sugar”, and Le Sucre will just reply, “Get back to the house.”
Then as soon at the You’re Fired analysis starts they will ask, “Why didn’t he fire Cheeky Chappy?”
Chiles/Briain/Dee/Gilbert will then speculate that “maybe Lord Sugar saw something of himself in Cheeky Chappy” when in fact what is probably happening is a producer warned Le Sucre that “Cheeky Chappy is TV gold, don’t you dare fire him or you will go the same way as Amstrad”.
See, even as I write this I am getting annoyed because IT IS SO PREDICTABLE. So why do I keep going back when I know it is going to enrage me? Every time I flick the channel to the show I get the same warning bells Le Sucre hopefully now feels when he is going to send a tweet.
I think part of me enjoys that feeling of superiority when I see people looking stupid.
Part of me feels really sorry for them. The show is so heavily edited it is very hard for them to come across well. I shudder to think how I would look if you edited the 24 hours of my day down to half an hour.
However, yet another part of me feels that after 13 years on TV, they know what they are getting into and therefore my sympathy is very limited.
So in order to get myself through this year’s show I am going to list all the things that I know are going to happen. This way when it happens I won’t be annoyed that it is predictable, I will be smug that I am so very wise.
First – Cheeky Chappy’s second chance (see above).
Second – There will be a point where the task will be about something one of the candidates is an “expert” in. For instance, it will be an advertising task and one of the people will work in advertising. However, they will not put themselves forward as project manager and are castigated for it in the boardroom.
Third – there will be one person who barely speaks for the first three episodes. On the fourth show they will end up in the boardroom and Le Sucre will say, “Candidate X, you’re very quiet. I don’t like people who try and swim under the radar.” That person will survive by the skin of their teeth but will be told that they “have to project-manage” next week. When they get back to the house they will stupidly tell all the other candidates that they are “on their last chance” and the others will lick their lips like a pack of hungry hyenas.
Fourth – Karen will speak out in favour of a young, handsome candidate... just saying.
Fifth – In the episode where they have to sell things on a market Le Sucre will burst into a speech about how “he used to flog stuff” and how “it’s about identifying what’s selling”.
Sixth – When it comes down to the final two in the boardroom there will be one who has a business plan which is a traditional idea where Le Sucre “understands market”. The other will have a plan in an area he “has no experience in” and he therefore “has a decision to make”.
Maybe I am setting myself up for a fall with these predictions, much like the first person to put themselves forward for project manager. But I am fairly confident that come December I will be penning a very smug piece about how I was right. To quote a candidate from years ago whose name I don’t even remember: “I can taste success on my spit.”