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It served us due notice, and its leaving has not come as a surprise but still we bid The Apprentice goodbye with a heavy heart – it truly is the most guiltless reality TV pleasure around.
In the end it was 27-year-old restaurant owner Yasmina Siadatan who triumphed, winning a six-figure salary under Sir Alan Sugar having defeated the toothy Kate Walsh in the final. It was a bit like a leaving do, what with a few of the fired employees coming back for a reunion and to wish the last two luck, although sadly nobody got drunk and told Sir Alan what they really thought about him. But for all the elation of the driven Yasmina, viewers will have felt tremendous sadness; it’s a terrible shame that Wednesdays will be bereft of the superlative business soap opera for another year.
This is the fine wine of reality shows. It oozes class, having cemented its status as the greatest British example of a genre more commonly identified with tawdriness. For its musical accompaniment, The Apprentice shuns hypnotic techno or the pop song du jour in favour of the stirring rhythmic thunder of Dance of the Knights by Sergei Prokofiev, and its visual style, dictated in competing shows by how well the lighting catches a contestant’s cleavage, is particularly arresting. With its glossy aerial footage of London’s skyline, the show has done for the capital’s glitzy image what The O.C. did for Orange County and CSI for Las Vegas, providing potential tourists with an enticing show-reel as we steal glances at the Gherkin or the London Eye over the course of an episode.
The tone is struck immediately, from the opening bars of the theme music and the shots of the title sequence: this is an expensively produced show, not some cheap rubbish. The recurring cast steps ably away from the shrill shrieking exemplified by the increasingly deranged Davina McCall on Big Brother; the twin titans that assist Sir Alan, Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford, are so coolly restrained that when they so much as raise an eyebrow at a contestant it’s as if they have plunged a blade deep into their chest.
Sir Alan is arguably the most underwhelming thing about the show, chiefly because every time we enter his boardroom we expect the pocket-sized pit-bull to swivel around in his executive leather chair and reveal himself like Blofeld… and every time we are bitterly disappointed. Still, at least he’s candid about his intentions. When Simon Cowell’s eyes light up during some poor crone’s choral offering, we know it’s the money rather than the music curling the corners of his mouth up into that grotesque smile, yet The Apprentice admits from the off that it’s looking for somebody to make Sir Alan a few quid. It’s all about the bottom line on this show, which is why substance matters: you can’t drift along by not pissing everybody off, like other shows. You’ve got to actually prove you’ve got something to offer. But despite the gruelling challenges, we all reckon that given the chance, we’d absolutely walk it.
This is the show’s finest asset, for almost every contestant could slot into Sir Alan’s organisation quite capably – especially given that most would be taking a pay-cut to join his team – yet they all dissolve into complete idiots at the briefest provocation. Competence becomes a mythical, unattainable quality. They flounder at the simplest of tasks, wilt when asked the most straightforward of questions, and talk about spunk on their CVs – and that’s referring to semen, not spirit. It’s generally an affluent group, with more designer suits than degrees, but as sharp-minded students we can’t fail but revel in superiority, secure in the knowledge that if we were ever to bump into him at a busy tube station, we could melt Sir Alan’s little cockney heart.
And revel is exactly what we, and the rest of the nation, have been doing these past twelve weeks. The Apprentice proves that event television is alive and well; when interviews with the ejected candidates are published by news websites mere minutes after each show concludes, anybody with even a passing interest is forced to watch live, lest they have the results spoiled. Of course, if you can manage to avoid the myriad liveblogs, tabloid news articles and YouTube videos dedicated to the show then it is made available, alongside the excellent companion show You’re Fired, through the BBC’s iPlayer service.
We can only hope that the show can maintain its enviably high standard going forward. The tragic news that this has been Margaret Mountford’s last season as Sir Alan’s on-screen assistant, as she departs to continue her studies in papyrology (the study of ancient material written on papyrus, you uncultured swine), added extra sadness to the final You're Fired and given Sir Alan’s imminent ascension to Lord Sugar, plus the diluting effect of a next year’s spin-off, the Junior Apprentice, 2009 may prove to be an unrepeatable vintage. Nevertheless, for now we should enjoy the rich aftertaste.
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