The Apprentice Season 11

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Apprentice is back, with eighteen ‘would be’ tycoons starting their adventure. These are some of the most budding entrepreneurs in the country, and they believe they have what it takes to be hired by Lord Sugar; or, rather, to avoid being fired for as long as possible. Season 11 promises to have tears, laughs, and a new business partner for Lord Sugar.

The business reality show is sure to capture audiences with various challenges for the entrepreneurs to complete, along with tension in the boardroom. The candidates this time around have rather interesting credentials. Their honed skill sets include being “disgustingly ambitious”, and aspirations to Hugh Hefner. The generous Lord Sugar is offering £250,000 to the winner, to help them enact their successful business plan.

Karren Brady. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / John Morris

This unique, progressive show introduced ‘mixed teams’ for the first time, prompting one misogynist to exclaim that “women will moan about touching the slimy fish”. The show had also altered its core personnel: Lord Sugar and Baroness ‘call me Karren’ Brady were joined by former Tottenham Chief Executive Claude, who no one has ever seen smile.

In the opening five minutes, Dan was singled out for having his hands in his pockets and, surprisingly, his team-name idea of ‘The Sugarbabes’ was upgraded to the Latin ‘Conexus’. His aspiring image of Alexander the Great was a long shot, and was rightly corrected by Lord Sugar to ‘Desperate Dan’.

Appointing team captains for the task of selling fish and making money was most comical. The interesting experiences for some candidates, apparently, made them the best choices for team-leaders. On Team Versatile, former podium dancer, Selina, with expertise in “cooking and being intolerant to loads of food” took the bullet, whilst former food blogger and boutique owner, April, seemed similarly under-qualified with the fish counter.

Dan had a disastrous affair on the field front, with total sales of £0

Though this was laughed at by his teammates, the idea of selling £9 gourmet tuna salads did not seem an easy task, especially considering that he had almost no help from his team – even when he was clearly struggling.

However, these were not the only mishaps of the episode. Other failures included the attempted sale of fish fingers to a Vegan shop (whilst still stubbornly persisting “is there nothing else I can do to persuade you?”); an admission to never having done face-to-face selling before; and abysmal negotiations with fishmongers (prompting one seller to say “you’ve got more chance of getting Jesus Christ”).

Perhaps most disastrous of all, £150 of calamari was ruined due to a temperature mishap

As one entrepreneur helpfully pointed out, “that actually smells quite bad.”

The ‘disgusting’ profit of £1.87 by Connexus, compared to Versatile’s £200.29 caused Dan to be chucked back into the sea. It was a successful day at the office for Lord Sugar, who declared: “If I wanted to be loved, I’d go to Tinder”.