The business world isn’t all hearts and flowers, but for one week only Young Apprentice was all about the latter as the teams turned their hands to floristry. Led by Lizzie Magee, Kinetic blossomed, whereas Atomic discovered that every rose has its thorns. After a few verbal barbs, Hannah Richards became the third casualty to be weeded out in the boardroom as her hopes were thrown onto the compost heap.
Lord Sugar
For many viewers, one of the most enjoyable aspects of watching Young Apprentice (and its parent) is the way we can see the teams’ mistakes unfolding in front of us, sometimes before they even happen. Of course, the candidates are having to work in highly pressurised situations, and there are many thing that can go wrong. Even so, it is usually possible to predict in advance where the key errors will occur.
With that in mind, here are my pre-episode thoughts ahead of tonight’s floristry task as to how it will be won and lost.
This week’s Young Apprentice task took us back to nursery – the children’s variety, not the horticultural kind – as the Apprenti-Kids™ were asked to design and pitch a new product for the mother-and-baby market. They were forced to get to grips with toddler tantrums, bouts of hopeless inarticulacy and one participant spitting his dummy. (The babies, on the other hand, were extremely good.) All this proved to be bad news for gardening entrepreneur Ben Fowler, who was all fingers-and-thumbs rather than green-fingered and found himself on the receiving end of an entirely different type of finger: Lord Sugar‘s deadly Digit of Doom™.
It’s summer, and an unruly mob of teenagers are causing havoc. They rob people blind, accost them in the streets and ruthlessly grab whatever opportunities present themselves. No, I’m not talking about the London riots. It’s the return of the newly rebranded Young Apprentice. Yes, the Apprenti-Kids™ are back for eight weeks of puerile puns (and that’s just Lord Sugar), finger-pointing (and that’s just Lord Sugar) and unfathomably illogical decisions (and … you get the idea).
It has been three long months since the comforting strains of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights – the theme music for BBC’s The Apprentice – were last heard on our TV screens. Three long months since our last weekly hour-long dose of bitching, over-inflated egos and unfeasibly stupid business ideas. Three long months since serial inventor – and Michael Sheen lookalike – Tom Pellereau surprisingly defeated runaway favourite Helen Milligan (and also-rans ‘Jedi’ Jim Eastwood and Susan Ma) to win the season seven final. (Although it wasn’t a surprise to me, as I had backed Tom for victory early on. *Smug mode*)
But fear no more. The man with the meanest finger on television – the incomparable Digit of Doom™ – has returned. The Baron of Business, the self-styled Britain’s most belligerent boss, Lord Sugar, returns to our screens to put 12 candidates aged 16-17 through their paces as he once again hunts for a Young Apprentice. (No, I don’t know why they’ve abandoned ‘Junior Apprentice’ either.)
Yes, the Apprentikids™ are back!
16 bright-eyed and bushy-tailed candidates – “Britain’s entrepreneurial elite”, as the voice-over helpfully informs us – put on […]
It’s back! Less than five months after the last General Election-delayed run, season seven of The Apprentice is […]
It was a close-run thing, but after twelve weeks spent selling sausages and buying chicken’s feet, making bread […]
After nearly twelve weeks, Lord Sugar‘s search for his Apprentice is almost over. But before Chris Bates and […]
A short series revisiting the previous Apprentice winners. Won: Season five (2009), beating Kate Walsh in the final […]
A short series revisiting the previous Apprentice winners. Won: Season four (2008), beating Claire Young after a final […]
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The weekly grind of team-based tasks ends as The Apprentice reaches its […]