Why the revamped Apprentice is as pea-brained as its finalists
THIS is not a rhetorical question. I would truly like an answer from the suits at the Beeb: is The Apprentice (BBC1) about creating television to entertain as many viewers as possible, or is it about making the biggest profit for Alan Sugar?
Because as last night’s episode proved, it cannot do both.
The series started two months ago with 20 candidates instead of the usual 12. Alan has been firing them in twos and threes ever since, which has wrecked the tension.
It’s an experiment that has failed, but there was no shame in trying to revive a jaded format. The biggest problem was that the most hapless contestants went out first, not one by one but mowed down — and they were the ones who were fun to watch.
Some of these gormless narcissists had the making of enduring Z-list celebs, reality TV fodder for years to come. Nobody really remembers last year’s Apprentice winner, after all, but we haven’t forgotten the loser, self- styled ‘ Duracell bunny’ Luisa Zissman and her cupcakes.
This year brought several candidates just as deliriously ghastly: flouncing social worker Steven, blundering hypnotherapist Sarah, sockless Shoreditch pillock Robert.
But they were practically the first to be dumped. Weren’t going to make any money with them, were you, Alan?
As a result, we were left with the dullest, most insipid bunch of thirdraters ever collected on television. As fast as they were kicked off the show, we forgot them, even before they’d reached the taxi. Too thick to win, too drab to amuse — what were they doing on our screens?
The only flicker of fun came from the rivalry between two bull-headed sacks of testosterone named Daniel and Mark. Both reckoned they were the slickest salesman in the process, and like a couple of pea-brained roosters they couldn’t resist puffing up their feathers whenever they were in a room together.
Daniel said things like: ‘One thing I have proved in this process is determination, motivation and passion.’ Actually, all that proved was that he couldn’t count.
His business idea didn’t seem too bad: an online manager to organise parties and wedding receptions. Alan’s corporate bully-boy Claude Littner thought it was ‘ ridiculous’ but that appeared to be because Claude hadn’t heard of the internet, and couldn’t imagine people using computers for social occasions.
Mark’s idea was also internetbased, something to do with search engines. He and Daniel both made it through to the final three, and spat insults at each other throughout the boardroom session.
If next week’s showdown was meant to excite us, these two meatheads would be the finalists. Instead, Daniel got the boot, and Bianca, a ‘personal branding manager’ with a vacuum where her personality should be, took his place.
Bianca, of course, has a straightforward business proposition: she’s spotted a real gap in the fashion industry, manufacturing tights and stockings for dark skins, and no doubt she and Alan will go on to make lots of money together. At our expense.
Entertainment is the be-all and end-all of Saturday night telly, as Michael Grade told us constantly throughout a gruelling 90-minute documentary on the rivalry between the BBC and ITV.
You wouldn’t think it possible to make a dull show about classics like The Generation Game and Blind Date, but Michael managed. The Fight For Saturday Night (BBC4) was more soporific than a mug of cocoa laced with brandy.
The interviews were a succession of chats with Michael’s old mates in leather armchairs, reminiscing about their glory days.
If you’re researching a PhD in TV commissioning patterns of the Seventies, this might have been useful — for the rest of us, it was like being locked in the golf club with a committee of bores.
They said things like: ‘What had happened, Michael, was I had lunch with Robert, and he said . . .’
Heaven knows why we’d need 20 minutes of analysis on why Brucie’s Big Night flopped, or the death throes of Noel’s House Party.
But at least those old troupers had tried honestly to entertain us — and not just turn a penny.