It is no secret that I hate The Apprentice, because this hatred tends to manifest itself in articles about how The Apprentice should definitely end now. Such as this one that I wrote in 2014 and this one I wrote in 2015 and this one I wrote in 2016, that effectively blamed the entire current US administration on the morality of The Apprentice. Last year, like an ageing covers-band hauling itself back onstage for a mediocre Freebird encore, I reverted to the hits and wrote something about how, you guessed it, The Apprentice should definitely end now.
But none of these articles actually worked. The Apprentice, despite being roughly as enjoyable as getting pelted with sun-hardened donkey dung, inexplicably remains a thing. It is still a miserable, joyless, Brexity slog about big-tied dickheads failing to make any money in a series of repetitively menial tasks, then getting shouted at until one of them gets to leave in a taxi. But I cannot kill it. So, fine, you win and I lose. Hooray for The Apprentice. Whoopy doo.
But if The Apprentice is going to remain bizarrely uncancelled for the foreseeable future, can’t we at least try to make it better? I have some ideas on how to improve the series, and I’d happily welcome yours. Together we can make this dreck very slightly less abject.
More varied tasks
My biggest gripe with The Apprentice is that every single episode is identical. If you have seen one, you have basically seen them all. A large part of this is down to the tasks, which invariably involve selling things. Sweets. Soap. Snacks. Part of the reasoning behind this obsession with selling is that it plays into Alan Sugar’s origin story as someone who got his start flogging scrap metal to the Krays as a toddler or whatever, but it is tedious to watch. Not only is it predictable (oh look, they are cold-selling to shops again) but it simply is not how businesses operate. Let’s have a more realistic episode where the candidates are dropped into a real-life failing business and have to sack some real people in person. Let’s have one where they are investigated for tax fraud. Let’s have one where they brace for a no-deal Brexit. Anything – anything – not to have to watch them sell sweets again.
A better definition of success
Nothing would improve The Apprentice like making the candidates live off their earnings as the weeks go by. So, in week one, they sell some sweets. There are eight people in the team, all working two full days to acquire and sell products, and at the end they make a group profit of £200. Instead of celebrating this as a towering achievement like the show usually does, let’s divide the winnings between everyone. Each candidate gets £25 for the task, or £12.50 a day, or just under £1 an hour to spend on food and bills and tax, and that is all they are allowed for the week. Let’s see how many private jets you can buy with that.
Boardroom segments that reward acknowledgment of failure
One reason I hate The Apprentice is it celebrates denial of culpability. Whenever a team member messes up, it becomes their duty in the boardroom to protect their own failings by blaming everyone else with an increasing level of genuinely unpleasant viciousness. If they succeed, they are allowed to stay. If they crack and admit that they were actually at fault, they almost definitely end up being fired. Every significant problem this country faces stems from people who were unwilling to admit their own mistakes. It is ugly, and I blame The Apprentice for it.
Just, like, some nice people? For a change?
Fourteen years. The Apprentice has been on the air for 14 years (15 in the US), and every single candidate has been a dipstick. No matter their age or background, they’ve all been aggressive, oblivious, self-interested dipsticks. You’d have hoped that the dipstick well would have run dry long ago, but no. In fact, thanks to quotes such as: “There’s no need to watch your back when I’m already two steps in front,” they are perhaps more dipsticky than ever this year. Imagine how great it would be if you could actually relate to one of the contestants. Imagine if any of them, even for a single fleeting moment, were actually nice? Obviously this would kill the show if it ever happened, but you won’t hear me complaining about that.
The Apprentice starts Wednesday 3 October at 9pm on BBC One
