I don't follow it, but when I have watched it I'm not interested in who wins.
It's watching them get fired that's the interesting part.

Can you be too confident?

Oh absolutely, judging by the fact that every single one of them is utterly repellant.

I'm sure one of the swaggering cockmonkeys in the last series said something like "I'm the most successful salesperson in the world today" which beggars belief on a grand scale.
Surely if you were the most successful salesperson in the world today you wouldn't need to go on this tawdry gameshow fronted by the ludicrous Suralan, who lest we forget was the "mastermind" behind that dominant force in the world of electronics, Amstrad.

who, less we forget, made the e-m@iler, which I'm sure we all bought and continue to use 'til this day.

I get completely engrossed last year and probably will this year but it's just a big pantomime really, isn't it? It's been said before, but it's basically Big Brother for the middle-classes.

They must make them say the most absurd things possible, just so you instantly hate them and stay hooked for the rest of the series.

It always works on me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7961087.stm
The obvious point though, is that this is an entertainment show and the, ahem, candidates are chosen to be entertaining, and I am duly entertained by it. It's bascially a cross between the X Factor and, in the ways which they're goaded into fighting like rats in a sack, Big Brother, though less honest than either in it's manipulation of viewer and participant alike. In other words, good telly.

My wife loves the programme. I have to leave the room. I just want to slap all their smug terrified sweaty little faces. And the things they say...they need to be gagged.

I did sit through the intro to see what this lot looked like. My God, each of them had a face like an arse and breath to match probably.

...we're this far into a thread on whether or not to watch something questionable on TV without someone already having suggested that you go out and buy a 50-disc box set of The Wire and watch that instead. Not that I'm advising that anyone do so.

case in point, last night's show -

Crazy super-bitch survives, even though she messed up royally.

Quite-nice but equally at fault Mona survives because she argues her case relatively competently.

Quite, under-confident girl ends up out on her ear.

However, there were a lot of people who seemed to sail through that task, never saying anythig camera-worthy who all survived without a scare, including some of the girls. Once you get in the board-room, there is no such thing as being too confdient, as longas you direct your cockiness towards fellow contestants.

It's hardly worth saying that it's the King of Reality TV.

of culture and telly round here but anyone who willing watches the apprentice should pay back the cost of their education and be ashamed of themselves. It tosh wrapped up in big bag of nonsense hidden in the bottom of a dustbin marked "very possibly the straw that broke the camel's back and drag this once great country into a giant pit of uselessness and self harm" wasn't there a police chase programme on or something about buying a house?
You are all sacked!

It's pretty damn exciting.

Defence rests.

as does Mrs Path. The contestants this year seem a little too obviously based on previous gargoyle templates but, hey, it isn't real. (Is it?) Apropos the quiet under-confident girl, you mean the conniving lawyer with a cats bottom mouth, covering her back to save her (ef)front(ery), nah, wrong there, matey. Altho' clearly, she needed the sack less than the giantess with a stone face, but, sadly for her, the producers recognised some future mileage out of the spat that will grow and grow between her and Mona, whose south african accent suddenly kept bursting thru' under stress. Can't wait. I particularly can't wait to see if the tubby fella with the interesting beard turns out to be a super-bastard, like the one without the beard in the last series.
Overly personal remarks? You're welcome. I only say it to save you the bother.
P.S. Love Margarets arch severe make-over. She and her male side-kick, Nick, is it, really make the show as they display their ridicule and contempt for the whole circus of freaks parading before them.

Whoever this man is, he quite clearly ticks all the boxes for future Word-cover stardom.

but I was somewhat pissed off by the fact that the BBC news trailed 'The Apprentice' at 6pm on the night of transmission. If I watch the news I expect to see news, not adverts for upcoming BBC programmes featuring some hideous bearded monstrosity with a face like a warthog's arse.

Yep, sounds like another shoo-in for a Word cover, to me...

I notice they didn't use the previous "Sir Alan...worth...xyz millions" in the introduction. Given he has sold Amstrad and invested massively in commercial property in recent years and this has seen collosal falls in value, maybe he's not worth as much as we think he is.

And where will the winner now work?

Is that any good? Its Tog 10 whatever that means.
Apprentice is pretty compulsive viewing and I am pretty pissed off that I missed it last night. Yes its banal but so is most of the stuff on the tv - surely we are entitled to some popular culture occasionally without having to be grilled by the Taste Police?

For the last 4 series, the Boleg Bros have recreated each episode of The Apprentice in Lego.

Nothing from Series 5 yet but it's on the way

I got into series two of The Apprentice in a big way, and decided to write to all the contestants with a deeply serious question. The results can be read on my long-neglected blog.

Well, it amused me at the time.

and "You're Fired" is the essential companion piece

I now have a vested interest in Mona (by name and nature it seems). I was absolutely certain that my interest would be over very quickly as she came across as the Queen of all bitches. But no! The Queen lives to fight another day and my two quid is safe for another week.

we had Summertime Special, The Good Old Days and The Black and White Minstrel Show for entertainment. The BBC just isn't what it used to be. Country's gone to the dogs.

The only negative thing I would say about The Apprentice is that, like all these shows that run and run, is that it's got so repetitive and predictable, but I guess it's hard to keep coming up with new ideas that work. I still find much amusement from it, and can't help being sucked in to the manipulated suspense of it all.

You can't say they don't work fast!

But there is just a little: You do get people - you really do - who believe that the real world of work is like that, and make arses of themselves as a result. However, there's a net benefit: it flushes out at least some complete idiots before they can do too much damage in the workplace.

The only true lesson about business that you will learn from The Apprentice, is the one demonstrated by Alan Sugar but lost in the considerable noise: Your product might be largely fake, of little real relevance, low in quality and despised by experts, but if people buy it, it's successful.

From what I've read, Amstrad appears to be a similar success story.

Back on top form, I thought as Nick and Margaret grimaced their way thru the minefield of embarrassments in both teams, with som eexcellent emerging spats making themselves evident.
I just love it Seralan says "I'm talking" as some hapless idiot digs on regardless........

the line about the "last time I was that hurt was when my cat died". Just great. James is one to watch - he may be comedy personified.

there's little I can add to my fellow "what's to like" posters, but I must say thanks for the Bolegbros Lego Apprentice link post. And given the greatness of the Lego clips, I can't see why anyone would want to watch the whole god-awful programme.

I've just remembered something weird from last week (8th April). The winning team went to Kenwood House in Hampstead to hear Katherine Jenkins give a private recital. Why was a trained opera singer using a microphone in a room? She's supposedly able to project across opera houses without a mic, so I don't understand why she was using one there.