Review: The Apprentice
- Article 6 of 13
- Off the Telly, March 2006
Part reality-TV car crash, part Big Boy's Book of Business, The Apprentice is a television show many people end up loving without really understanding why. It's not as if there are any likeable characters in it, after all. But as a civilised form of torture, it really can't be beaten.
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Ostensibly, its aim is to give the great British public an exciting insight into high-flying big business while simultaneously recruiting millionaire Sir Alan "Amstrad" Sugar a brand new, top-class minion to bend to his will.
That's the theory. But there's a slight gap between that and the show in practice. That gap is the contestants. Instead of the best and the brightest of British business, we mostly get a bunch of arrogant, lying, cheating, back-stabbing Wall Street wannabes who would fail hopelessly if ever Sir Alan set them a brewery-related task. If there's a measure of the horror of the show, it's the fact that Sugar is the most likeable character in it, apart from his trusty, but mostly silent lieutenants. Despite his bluster and abuse of the contestants each week, it's hard not to feel sorry for the man, knowing he could well wind up with one of these incompetent vipers on his payroll.
We're now nearly mid-way through the second series and thanks to the extensive pruning Sir Alan's been performing over the previous weeks, the first green shoots of competence are starting to appear. Now gone are most of the really dead wood, who appeared to be hand-trained by gibbons in the delicate arts of business negotiation. Emerging instead are a few contestants who actually seem to have a clue. But not many.
This week's mission for the two teams was to come up with an advertising campaign for Sir Alan's new private jet credit card, Amsair. The card, as explained by Sir Alan, is seemingly a really simple scheme: you can use it to charter private jets, wherever you are in the world, without all those thorny credit checks and negotiations we all face when ordering our own planes. Just dial a number and one of Sir Alan's lackeys will sort out all the details for you while you're still sipping the champagne.
Unfortunately, this is where it all starts to go a bit pear-shaped. The teams send a couple of hapless candidates off to be briefed in full about the card by one of Sir Alan's sons, the MD of Amsair. Velocity's representatives, Ansell and Mani (a self-professed "world-class presenter" who nevertheless makes the average car-park watch salesman look sincere) eventually return with the pitch that it's "like a concierge service". The rest of the team, led by Ruth, a reassuring island of competence in a sea of disaster but one with the charm of a granite cliff-face, naturally gets fooled into thinking the card is "like a concierge service", even though it's not. They then proceed with remarkable efficiency, cooperation and coordination to put together completely the wrong ad campaign.
Invicta, led by Paul, a third-generation Splendid Chap by the looks of him, escape this trap but can't quite work out the best way to pitch the card, despite having an advertising lecturer in their ranks - "I only teach the theory of it," Sharon explains later. Undeterred by failing to yet have that most vital component of any ad campaign - an idea - Invicta heads off to cast the actors for their 30-second promo video. They're not sure who or what they want, so they test young, old, male, female, black, white and Asian alike, hoping that some compelling concept will land in their laps through the power of the casting pixies. The day ends, though, without any fairy dust having been sprinkled.
So, Paul puts his foot down, orders a midnight brainstorm, and, just like that, comes up with his pitch: "It's like magic. 5000 airlines from one card". It's an idea so good, apparently, it gives team members "goosebumps just thinking about it."
Day two then becomes a race against the clock to put together the video and a matching billboard. Both teams try to film on Sir Alan's private jet at the same time, leading to a surprising moment of generosity by Splendid Chap Paul, when he allows the other lot to carry on shooting, even though he had the booking. It'll be the last moment of generosity we'll see from him this episode before he turns to the dark side.
In another further moment of synchronicity later that day, both teams simultaneously realise their directing inexperience has led them to accidentally shoot Confessions of a Business Traveller instead of a promotional video. Cue mad panic.
But with judicious editing and voiceovers, the worrying shots that make it look like the harried businessman in Invicta's video was "rubbing himself off" are excised; and Velocity no longer have to worry about their concierge giving their businesswoman a look-over. The show can go on, after all.
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