Ruthless: the Badger, back on TV tonight. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
You heard the rumours. The Badger is back. Sky One's Badger Or Bust tonight sees the return to our screens of Ruth Badger like some business Terminator with a grudge. And make no mistake - she has a grudge. Against you, against the world. A feeling confirmed last week when she confided in New magazine that she would "crush" current Apprentice hopeful, horse-faced demon child Tre. The Black Country ball-breaker bulldozed her way through series two of The Apprentice with her unique brand of snappy sales decisions and organisational genius. But she's back and this time it's personal.
And the Badger's frankly terrifying return (where she troubleshoots ailing sales teams) proves one thing - business is theatre, at least as far as TV is concerned. Of course Sir Alan Sugar wants The Apprentice to reflect real business, educate the public about this thing that made his fortune. He insists that only "very high calibre" business-orientated people need apply for the show but let's be honest here, there would be no show if this were the case. Sugar needs to be saved from himself and the show's producers are doing an excellent job by choosing egomaniacs, nymphomaniacs and common-or-garden maniacs to appear. The moment you remember from The Apprentice isn't Invicta successfully bartering a cloth merchant down - it's Syed buying 100 chickens for 90 pizzas. Likewise, The Armstrongs were required viewing for their demotivated sales staff and swivel-eyed motivational guru Basil Mienie, not because they were the third largest double-glazing firm in Coventry.
Sir Alan needs to realise that we're only interested in the spaces where business breaks down. Even the ruthlessly efficient Badger has people skills problems. In contrast to Sir John Harvey-Jones in the 1990s series Troubleshooter, who would make redundancies with one hand while soothing and inspiring with the other, Badger is simply a cold-blooded snapper of necks who sees conflict as a way of life. It's her headbanging social autism that viewers will tune in for, rather than her brilliant business mind. Candidly, there's enough real business in everybody's nine-to-five lives. Back at home, it's time to kick your feet up on the couch, relax and watch the squares take a pummelling from a pantomime villain like the Badger. Buckle up, folks. It's going to be businesslike.
