From the excruciating bungles to the boss’s belligerent reaction, it could have all come from any series over the past 17 years. Bar Sugar’s pre-scripted put-downs, which made a few token references to Covid – “I’ve got natural immunity to bulls–t”; “You don’t get furloughed, you get fired” – nothing has changed.
The show hasn’t so much moved with the times as rusted away in a railway siding with pigeons nesting in it and “Tottenham Hotspur Rules OK” graffiti sprayed on the side. This clapped-out format is looking more knackered than its 74-year-old figurehead. Forget “you’re fired”, Sugar should point his finger at the mirror and bark “you’re tired”.
The pandemic meant there was no series last year. Indeed, The Apprentice spent 25 months off our screens and nobody much missed it, apart perhaps from manufacturers of wheely suitcases. BBC bigwigs should have taken this as a sign. Either put it out of its misery or demand a major revamp to drag it into the 21st century. It did neither and might regret its dithering inaction.
Replacing Sugar with someone of non-pensionable age might have been a start. The tasks need to be radically reinvented, innovation encouraged, the candidates less identikit. Why not broaden the age range so it spans from teenagers to mid-lifers, as Bake Off manages so successfully? If the contest is serious about unearthing entrepreneurial talent, it needs to cast the net wider.
It could also cut to the chase much faster. Last week’s opener saw candidates hand in their business plans to Sugar’s faux-receptionist. They’ll now spend three months donning hairnets, selling trinkets and going through the menial motions until the interview round, when it all comes back to those proposals anyway.
Unless it forcibly reboots, The Apprentice can abandon the increasingly flimsy pretence that it’s a serious business contest. Instead it’s a constructed reality show, manipulatively produced and slickly edited to hit narrative beats and provide hiss-boo villains. It’s Towie with a LinkedIn profile or Selling Sunset: Foxtons Edition.
Ratings might be clinging on but creatively, The Apprentice is circling the drain. The boys’ unfortunate brown fixation is at risk of becoming a metaphor for the show itself.
