The Apprentice seems to have lost its way. The relentless bickering of  pseudo-business sods and arbitrary tasks has taken its toll, and while this eighth series is belligerently thundering on, it's entertaining us less and less. The only changes over the last 8 years have been minor: Now, rather than a job with Lord Sugar (which it seems mandatory for them to quit after a year), it's the chance to be his business partner. And not, er, an apprentice.  But what is it that's bothering us?   First up, The Candidates. Mitchell and Webb's excellent parody of the candidates is now years old, but captures exactly what we already know: They're not Britain's Brightest Business Brains, they're a bunch of fucking idiots. ...

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that last week's bout of bladdy bizniss was not subject to my laughter. That's because it featured Chinless Steve doing awkward pelvic thrusts and Azhar rendering me temporarily blind by wearing the teeniest shorts known to mankind. Shorts that Karrrrren couldn't tear her eyes from, incidentally. Anyway, Duane's puppy-like enthusiasm got too bladdy annoying and he was bladdy fired. This week, Lord Sugartits interrupts an awkward Wii party to send the hapless fools to Edinburgh. Why? Well he doesn't think they have enough bad food so he wants this lot to make some street food. Not any old toot though, he wants it to be bladdy gourmet street food. So no bladdy hot ...

Toot! Toot! This week, Lord Sugartits' band of muppets have to flog toot (his words) to unsuspecting hipsters in Brick Lane in a couple of shops that he's laid on for them. I don't know how he laid on them. On the roof perhaps? Just on the floor? Is he secretly into planking? Who bladdy knows. This week, the wannabe bizniss slaygs have a morning off which seems to consist of lolling around listlessly or playing ping pong. Dynamic. Never fear though, Lord Sugartits has called to tell them to get their bladdy lazy arses down to an old cinema in Chiswick. Because... well, I'm sure there's a tenuous link in there somewhere. He blathers on about rag and bone men ...

Last week, the weight of Maria's eyehadow meant that she fell asleep in cars and so she was fired. This week, the remaining fools have to make a condiment to sell to people with no tastebuds. Gloopy. Lord Sugartits tells them this at a dock for reasons that are so tenuous that they don't even exist. He's bladdy bored of the boys winning all the time so he mixes it up a bit by sending Quiet Katie to flutter her eyelashes at the boys and Duane and Nick to deal with the idiot girls. Fruit and veg man Adam introduces Katie to the boys even though she's been living with them for three weeks and so would presumably know who they ...

Lord Sugartits still isn't looking for a friend or a dog or Lord Lucan. Though to be fair he'd have a better chance of finding Lucan than the amazing BLADDY BIZNISS mind that he seems to think he's going to find. Anyway, last week, Bilyana managed to talk her way out of a job and got fired. 5.30am is apparently a thing not that any of this lot seem to know. They've been summoned to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The girls are busy bitching about how the boys think they're better than them. Well, they are so far because they won last week. After a brief history lesson from Lord Sugartits, he reveals that the task this week is to ...

Ah look. London Town in all its HD glory. Lush. Striding in to ruin the view, though, is this year's bunch of cretinous muppets trying to trick Lord Sugartits into starting up a BLADDY BIZNISS with them. It's 8am in the boardroom and there is a frightening array of eyebrows and over-highlighted faces ready for the first task. First though, they have to listen to Lord Sugartits running through a random list of people who had partnerships. Also, he isn't looking for a dog which is completely irrelevant but good to know all the same. In an effort to gee them up a bit, he gets a bit bolshy and claims he'd win his own bladdy "process" if he was on ...

So we’ve met the girls. Now let’s meet the boys because, frankly, they’re always better value for money when it comes to TV gold. THE BOYS Adam Corbally, 32 Adam is a market trader. No, not that sort. He actually deals in fruit and veg. It's almost a step up from stocking the bread aisle in Co-op. He used to do that. Not caring about the rest of Richard Branson's empire, Adam wishes he'd thought of Virgin Galactic. Never mind, at least he's the brains behind his local Christmas lights switch-on. Branson wishes he had that power. He says: "I get too excited but that shows my passion, it shows my drive and it shows my ability." We say: "It shows you shouldn't have too much ...

BLADDY BIZNISS! Yes, that’s right, Lord Sugartits is back with another bunch of eager beavers bluffing and bungling their way to a dirty stack of cash that fell off the back of a van. But who are these cretins? Let’s find out shall we? THE GIRLS Soon to be known to you as Team Destiny or something equally ridiculous, this lot represent the cutting edge of female business brains. Weep for our future, sisters. Bilyana Apostolova, 25 Bilyana already wins a prize for the name that Lord Sugartits is going to mangle the most. She sold snails when she was a kid in what passes for some sort of go-getting enterprise in Bulgaria. She’s a “risk analyst” but is training to be a “wealth ...

Here we are, the final of the Young Apprentice!  Finalists James and Zara are facing off to win a £25,000 trust-fund and the hearts of a nation. They’ll be making an online game and viral advert before pitching their idea to the patented Industry Experts.  The disinterested former firees are brought back, and we’re thrilled to see that Mahamed was allowed out to play.  They start with a briefing at game firm Mind Candy, one of those typically wacky tech firms with beanbags and board games, and a scruffy twat of an MD who hasn’t bothered to shave. James and team run through a bunch of terrible ideas: One where you stop a seagull ‘excreting’ on you.  Another where you see a ...

It’s the candidates’ day off, so they play catch in the garden in front of a camera crew, like they always do. Unexpectedly, Lord Sugs turns up and tells them that the next task will be “corny”. Literally! They’re making popcorn! These will be pitched to an airline, a cinema and a supermarket, and the team with the most sales win. Oh, the losing team will be fired entirely, and one of the winning team will go as well. Harsh, man. James is with Zara and Haya, and is made PM after Haya decides not to bother with the job, and votes for him. They decide on a Mediterranean theme, but can’t come up with a name. Popcorn Popcorn was one inspired ...

Week 6 of 8 is upon us. The teams head off to Madame Tussauds, where Sugar has a tenuous task link for them! They’ll be buying ten items that are vaguely related to celebrities who feature in Tussauds. All of this opening spiel is spectated upon by these waxworks – an unsettling Cheryl Cole, a dead-eyed Justin Bieber and a realistically waxy David Cameron. Haya and Harry H argue over who will project manage, doing that awful polite “well, I will, but only if you don’t want to” that old ladies do over the last biscuit. Haya wins out in the end. They’re teaming up with James, and immediately decide that Harry H should ...

Week 5, and Sugs has commandeered a big screen at Wembley. The task is to brand some anti- perspirant, tenuously linked to the location because crowds gather there, and crowds sweat. Clever. Zara is managing Team A, with Haya, Hayley and Harry H. Harry M leads Gbemi, Lizzie and James. Harry M takes to his job with patronising enthusiasm, seeing it as a licence to ignore everyone else. Immediately, he’s decided that they’re branding for women – presumably with one eye on the hotties that he’ll inevitably rope in to his TV commercial. Despite James’ whinging, he forces them to come up with a name. “Vanity” wins, for some reason. Harry wants an advert ...

This week’s Pointless Task Distribution Location is the Natural History Museum, which gives Sugar the chance to bust out a predictable gag about being a dinosaur.  The teams will have eight products demonstrated for them, and they’ll pick out two.  The dinosaur thing becomes clear: the products are all for the over 50s. Sugs makes it very clear that the task is all about number of sales, rather than profit: And here's the good news.  The good news is, this is not all about profit.  Your job is to sell as much as possible, so you'll be judged on sales volume. But that gets forgotten by the end, and it is actually about revenue.  Well done, Al. The products are: a pie maker (ballache), ...

Week three for the baby Bransons, and it's a flower-arranging task. Sugs mixes the teams up, to make it confusing, and appoints Hannah and Lizzie as Project Managers. James is thrilled by having girls on his team, as flower-arranging isn't his thing. Because he's a grr blokey bloke. A woman gives them a lesson on bunching flowers and economics. They'll pitch to three clients, and then set up market stalls to flog at the public. Hannah sends Lewis and Zara out to pitch, because she wasn't watching Lewis' stumbling last week. Lizzie (who does nothing else interesting for the rest of the episode - perhaps she died and they just filmed the scenes around her, like at the end of the ...

Week two, and task two is a generic “design a product, and pitch it” effort, set up to force the apprentices into an unfamiliar situation, and then laugh at them for doing it wrong. Tonight, they’re sorting out a whole new baby product. Who needs massive companies with enormous research and design budgets, when a handful of spotty little sods can make you millions overnight? The teams, still boys vs. girls, are given a pep talk on babies, and what a ballache they are to look after. It seems vaguely irrelevant to the task, and only there to stop them rutting as soon as the cameras are off. Lewis takes over as the boys’ PM, instilling his ...

Lord Sugar is back, and he's been trawling high schools and community colleges for 12 of Britain's best businesskids. As always, the series opens with the candidates offering unrealistic appraisals of themselves and alienating the viewers from their first sociopathic words. Sugs calls them into the boardroom and tells them: "I love you lot". Here we go. He's confused by two of them being called "Harry", and inventively calls them Harry M and Harry H. Their task tonight is to sell a "frozen treat" (i.e. ice cream), that they've branded themselves. First though, is team names. The girls suggest "Sixth Sense", which is rejected for being "odd", and go with Kinetic. The boys choose ...

Dara Ó Briain opens the show with a short begging message to watch his spin-off program afterwards.  We’re here first though, to find out who will be… The Business Partner Apprentice. The Apprenticees are given forty-eight hours to polish up their business plans.  Tom will have some sort of ergonomic hat, while Jim just fucks about on RedTube, assuming he’ll be able to wing it.  The business plans and CVs are going to be pored over by Alan’s business buddies; Claude Littner; Mike Suiter; Matthew Riley; and Karren+, Margaret Mountford. Jim is immediately pegged as a bullshitter, while Riley has a cheeky flirt with Susan.  Tom gives a sterling talk through his bad-back-reducing furniture range, before it’s pointed out that he’s so ...

As it’s the penultimate week, the teams gear themselves up for the traditional Interview episode.  However, Lord Alan’s pals can’t be arsed to get off the golf course to help him out, and so they’re selling fast food instead.  Hopefully none of them saw that incredible Southern Fried Chicken episode of Undercover Boss last night.  Not that it matters, as they filmed this ages ago. Helen and Tom go head to head with Susan, Natasha and Jim.  Susan is pleased that they have three minds: Natasha’s vacant stare disproves that.  Jim and Helen put themselves forward as PMs, and they’ve all but given up having names for the teams. Susan and Natasha head out to pick up some generic lazy Mexican flair ...

The teams take an early morning jaunt to Enfield, and a giant tat warehouse.  They’ll be selling a palette of stuff worth £250 wholesale (£1,100 retail) picked out by Sugar, and then re-investing the profits in the bestsellers to make even more cash. The teams are jumbled once again, so Natasha leads Venture’s Susan and Jim, while Helen, Project Manager Melody and Tom make up Logic. Jim and Natasha head out to Covent Garden, and try to flog giant umbrellas to tourists on a day that’s grey but definitely not raining.  Susan heads door-to-door in “fashionable West London”, and gets absolutely nowhere.  For some reason, everyone is at sodding work. Or they don’t want to answer the door and barter with a ...