The apprentice is back! You might?ve been missing it, but lets face it, that's pretty unlikely since the last series was on our screens roughly 20 seconds ago. But this time, it's different. Apparently. As far as we can tell it's exactly the same, but maybe a little more like Dragon?s Den. It's complicated.
Basically, it's like this. Rather than getting a six-figure salaried job, this year?s winner gets ?250k to go off and start their own business. It seems that Lord Sugar?s got pissed off with the winners messing up his own businesses ? or getting up the duff as soon as they get there (yes, we're looking at you, Yasmina) ? and so has decided to inflict them on society as a whole.
It's the work of an evil genius; he gets to pretend he's ?supporting British business?, when really he's just watching his own back. He might be pretending to be wholesome, but we know the truth.
The overhaul is a bit half-arsed though, as apart from the prize it's exactly the same as it's always been. The contestants are still in two appallingly-named teams ? ?Logic? and ?Venture? are this year?s winning monikers ? and they still have to complete pointless weekly tasks. This week, The Good Lord Sugar decided to make them resell fruit for a whacking great profit. Maybe it's part of his elaborate plan to be wholesome and good to society. Although there?re probably better ways to do that than making businesspeople spend a fortune on three grapes.
Thankfully for the viewing public, the contestants were as incompetent as ever. And they still caused Karen and Nick to pull their trademark disapproving faces, which just serves to make them look like the most constipated people on this godforsaken planet.
This week, the faces were the result of ? shock horror! ? some basic business errors, like when pretty boy Leon broke the juicers and the girls couldn't decide how much fruit to put in their salads. Which you'd think would be one of the basic elements, but since the boys decided to make soup despite having no idea how the fuck to do so, the basics clearly aren't relevant here.
And most importantly of all, there's still the cast of completely delusional characters. There's ?footprints on the moon? Melody, who was trained by the Dalai Lama, Al Gore, Desmond Tutu… and probably Jesus. Then there's Vincent, who seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that his offensive facial hair and spiky spiky shoes make him the most attractive man on earth. But most importantly, there's Edward. Who is like Stuart Baggs on horse steroids.
Edward, you see, is an accountant. But not your normal accountant. He's an accountant who doesn't fit the mould ? which essentially means that he ignores everything everyone else in his team says and bashes ahead regardless. He has a power battle with the annoyingly sensible Jim, who?ll probably stick around for many weeks and not really do anything much… apart from be kinda right all the time, which is really not what we want from our Apprentice contestants. Has Jim learnt nothing? We want fields of ponies!
Meanwhile, in the girls? team, HR lady turned financial guru Edna has picked a fight with Melody. Which looks like it's not going to end well, especially given that Edna noted that she goes “looking for pain” at the top of the show.
Luckily for Melody though, the girls won, and the made a complete hash of it. Despite the Baggs Potential, Edward got fired because even the Apprentice couldn't take the incredible volumes of catshit he produced in that one small hour.
But it's got a nice little moral this time, at least. And that's that there's no shame in being an accountant, which is a lesson Edward should have learnt if he wanted to stay in the competition. Except there is shame in it. Obviously. It's more shameful than being Lindsay Lohan.
And that's saying something.
This was a guest post by Jackie Evans, which is just brilliant eh?
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