The Apprentice Final

I spend a lot of time pondering the Apprentice, not least why I watch a show involving people I largely hate. But lately it's been on two things, the format, and the latest winner.

Now the prize is a business partnership rather than a job the whole point of the series has been removed, and it's just a lot of smoke and mirrors to the final. From pretty much week one, whose getting fired? The person with the crap business plan. Who gets picked from the interviews? Business plan. How you do on tasks, whether or not you're an arse (I mean, the degree to which you're an arse, there's never been a contestant who doesn't share 98% of their DNA with an arse), how hard you're going to work, these things are entirely irrelevant, because he's not looking for an employee any more. HE'S NOT LOOKING FOR AN APPRENTICE.

The first 11 weeks are an entire waste of time, and I always get caught up and forget that until the end, and the show turns in to Dragon's Den. I guess the end has always been disappointing, because, like all reality shows, they have to make the finalists look like decent human beings rather than the halfwits they are, but still...

Anyway, this year's winner bothered me:


Hooray! For the first time in the new format, his business partner is going to be a woman! Setting up a business that considers medical procedures are a reasonable and rational alternative to natural ageing! But, as Sugar and Dara O'Briain pointed out, only for the ladies -- too late for the men, ho ho. Nevermind, though, the blokes will get by. It's almost as if their self-worth isn't intrinsically tied up with their appearance...

So Lord Sugar is getting into a business that's cosmetic surgery crossed with a nail bar. But any questionable ethics/morality issues is covered entirely by the fact it's backed by a doctor who would be very careful on the medical side of things, and anyway, she's a young pretty woman interested in appearance so it's all OK.

I think I'd've been happier with the other woman winning, and Alan Sugar making cupcakes.