OPINION: The Apprentice is only in the business of firing up cringeworthy TV
Amy Anzel, one of Lord Sugar's former boardroom victims, delivers her withering verdict on the latest cohort of pinstriped wanabees as the show returns to our screens
The Apprentice is back on our screens – and having been a previous candidate, it’s very interesting to watch after experiencing the process yourself.
I (quite naively) signed up to the show with the genuine goal of securing an investment and scaling up my beauty brand, Hollywood Browzer Beauty. But how wrong I was to think for a second that this show, and its producers, were focused on creating a factual entertainment show that’s all about business, as opposed to just another slice of cringeworthy reality TV.
For 10 years, before I went on the show, I watched it religiously. Like many other viewers, I enjoyed it enormously, even the car crash moments and the often-unexpected firings. I would think to myself – I could do so much better than them. Just give me a chance and I can show Lord Sugar my business acumen, and the business I’ve built myself from the ground up.
However, after experiencing what it’s really like being on the show, I now realise that the disaster moments are usually caused by manipulation on the producer’s part. That said, I did sit back and try to enjoy Episode One with no preconceived notions of my own experience.
This season has certainly not started with a bang. The most exciting parts of the whole episode were the location, with the contestants jetting off to sunny Antigua.
They’ve clearly upped the budget since our first episode filmed in Portsmouth. The return of Claude Littner caused a bit of a buzz but aside from that, the episode fell quite flat.
So we saw yet another tourism task, with the exact same elements as many previous seasons – selling tickets to an excursion, boys versus girls. I don’t know why the producers feel the need to do similar tasks every year, just in a different place, with different candidates.
They’re clearly trying to tap into the Love Island market – if the location didn’t make that clear enough, just look at the line-up of candidates. Many of them are appear at first glance to be much more suited to lounging around a pool all day drinking mimosas and getting texts from boys who would break their heart in a second to secure that Boohoo Man brand deal.
The boys on this year’s line-up are a lot stronger than on my season. It was clear from the very beginning of the episode that the boys were going to win the task. They were leaps and bounds above the girls, who opted to bicker on the beach, costing them valuable time they could have used to sell their tickets.
I miss the old days of The Apprentice, where the candidates actually had valid business experience and skills; candidates that actually stood a chance in the real world of business, as opposed to the now dumbed down cohort, cast purely for their low IQs and lack of any real business knowledge or experience.
I took each task seriously, as if it was my business that I was working on. I was Sub Team Leader in four out of the six tasks that I was a part of on the show. I felt that as the second in command, I was always where I should have been, until I was ready to be Project Manager, so that I could lead and contribute significantly to every task but not overstep outside of my strengths.
Lord Sugar even said in our very first boardroom meeting not to put yourself up for Project Manager until the task was synergistic with your skill set. I followed his instructions, but he then twisted what I was doing and suggested that I was hiding as the Sub Team Leader to avoid the Project Manager role – when in reality I was waiting for where my skill set would best serve.
I miss the old days of The Apprentice, where the candidates actually had valid business experience and skills; candidates that actually stood a chance in the real world of business, as opposed to the now dumbed down cohort, cast purely for their low IQs and lack of any real business knowledge or experience.
I did in fact put myself forward to be Project Manager in week two – but this didn’t make the final edit, so the only people who know that are my fellow candidates and The Apprentice team.
Ironically, the tasks that followed in the weeks after my firing included TV shopping, creating a baby food brand, and arranging a corporate away day at Silverstone. I’ve been a TV shopping presenter on various channels around the world, including QVC UK, for many, many years, selling both my own beauty brand products and others. I was the only candidate who had a young child – and therefore had much more experience with baby food. I also used to work at the Classic Car Club in New York and it was my job to organise the same type of away days for the members as they did during the Silverstone task.
Had Lord Sugar given me the opportunity to be Project Manager, I think things would have turned out a lot differently for me, but of course the producers were fully aware of my background and skill set prior to filming, so it’s interesting that I only made it to a certain point and all the tasks I would have really excelled in came up afterwards.
I think Emma being fired first was the right decision. There are some really strong contenders on this series and hopefully they will really show us what they’re made of as the episodes roll on. Based on the first episode and my all-knowing eye from having been on the show, I predict that the ones to watch are Reece, Rochelle, and Shannon.
However, knowing that time on the show is also based on entertainment and cringe value, I would wager that Joe, Gregory, and Simba will be gracing our screens for quite a while longer.
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