The Apprentice Review – Lord Sugar's 'I've Got Better Places to Be' Routine Is Becoming Preposterous
The latest series of the hit BBC reality show marks its 20th anniversary – but the formula has long grown stale. As the programme returns for another round of boardroom battles, viewers are left questioning whether Lord Sugar's trademark curmudgeonly persona has finally jumped the shark.
A Familiar Formula in a Changing World
"A lot has changed in the past 20 years," admits Alan Sugar in the first episode of The Apprentice's 20th series. "There have been financial crashes, and pandemics... not to mention Liz Truss." Yet despite these seismic shifts in the global landscape, The Apprentice itself remains stubbornly unchanged. The moment this year's class of aspiring business moguls walk through the boardroom doors, it becomes clear that the BBC's annual spectacle of entrepreneur-on-entrepreneur pugilism remains necktie-deep in a creative rut.
The series premiere centres on an archetypical Apprentice task – a treasure hunt with an international twist. The twenty contestants are divided by gender into two competing teams and flown out to Hong Kong, where they must race to acquire specific items including a mahjong set and shrimp paste. The catch? They cannot use Google, a restriction that feels increasingly artificial in our digitally connected age.
Ineptitude on Display in Foreign Territory
As is so often the case in the early rounds of this long-running series, both teams are undone by their own rank ineptitude. Navigating a foreign city without speaking the language presents a genuine challenge, but hardly represents an absurd contrivance from the show's producers. The teams' attempts to complete their mission prove alternately amusing and excruciating to watch, highlighting the fundamental disconnect between television drama and real-world business acumen.
Each season of The Apprentice seems to recycle the same familiar personality types – predominantly the young, the brash, and the vapid – thrusting them into identical patterns of conflict and confrontation. There's always a wildcard or two among the candidates, and this series introduces Georgina, an actor and events manager who describes herself as a "quadruple threat." She claims to possess entrepreneurial nous alongside more conventional musical theatre talents, but it becomes immediately apparent that she's ill-prepared for the boardroom's particular brand of savagery.
Early Exits and Double Firings
Georgina's competitors – performers and showpeople in their own right – have all brought knives to what she mistakenly believed was a pillow fight. Consequently, The Apprentice's most distinctive new candidate makes an early exit. The only surprise comes when she finds company in her dismissal – Nikki is also blamed for the women's team's dismal performance, prompting Lord Sugar to round off the episode with the earliest double firing in the show's two-decade history.
The Preposterous Nature of Lord Sugar's Persona
Newcomers to the series might assume that Lord Sugar's heart is no longer in The Apprentice, but in truth, this has always been part of his established routine. He consistently projects the air of a man with pressing, serious, and opaque business demands just out of frame, perpetually tugging at his sleeve. Yet after twenty years, the former Amstrad boss's indefatigable air of jaded, savvier-than-thou, I-can't-believe-I-have-to-put-up-with-this-malarkey rigour is becoming rather preposterous.
No individual as wealthy as Lord Sugar would devote two decades of their life to something they genuinely didn't want to do. The reality is that he wants to be there – but what exactly is "there"? A drab meeting room where clueless egotists argue about who made the error in purchasing shrimp paste hardly represents the pinnacle of business achievement.
Stagnation in a Changing Television Landscape
It's worth noting that The Apprentice begins less than a week after The Traitors concluded on BBC One. The latter reality show, in just four series, has demonstrated far more willingness to innovate and shake up its formula than The Apprentice has managed over two full decades. This extends beyond mere rules or format adjustments to encompass the very people chosen to participate.
"Apprentice candidate" has evolved beyond a simple role into a complete, and frequently insufferable, personality type. This latest series is, as ever, packed with such candidates from start to finish. As television formats evolve and audience expectations shift, The Apprentice's stubborn adherence to its established template feels increasingly out of step with contemporary reality television. For many viewers, the spectacle has simply grown tiresome.
