I find this format is getting a bit dated and sexist now. Time to split the sexes up from the very start.

Personally don't have a problem with it, nor do I view it as sexist

As far as I'm concerned it's the best way to randomly split the teams based on ability.

If men and women are now considered equal then this sort of split shouldn't matter as one team in theory won't have an unfair advantage over the other.

They don't know eachother or their team mate's strengths and weaknesses, how else do they split them?


Yep, exactly.

Uh, randomly?

By sex is random.

Clearly you have taken no notice of my earlier post.

What if the UK series took a tiny scrap from Season 6 of the US Apprentice.

First day and everyone is sent to pitch two tents up. Once the tents were done, the two people who stood out as leaders, become the first PM's and hand-pick their team themselves.

Okay just that bit though, not the sleeping in tents crap, the poor/rich divide crap or the PM bonus's crap.

As has been said in the other thread about the theme, if it aint broke.. don't fix it.

It's only random if you completely ignore the definition of the word random and make up your own. Sorry. Picking names out of a hat, rolling dice— those are random. Splitting by sex is not random under any definition of the word.

But who decides who stands out the most? The candidates.. or Sir Alan..? And what if they don't want to be manager?

It is random as far as distribution of abilities goes. You actually think the programme makers are going to waste 10 minutes of airtime drawing from a hat when there's an easy split available from the off. Get real.

Tis actually. They don't pick the best men and the worst women, or the worst men and the best women. As long as the candidates are all chosen for the same reason and Sir Alan is unaware of one side being better this year, it's random.

Oldest v Youngest?

I'd like to see the gender division gone. It makes little sense considering there would not be that split in reality. It would be easy enough to divide them just from where they were in the boardroom at the first meeting.

That's as much of a rigmarole as drawing from a hat.

I think in that Season Donald Trump(ed up) watched the proceedings from his house and picked out one (Loudest noticeable person trying to take control) while a group of the contestants who were working picked out the other (Actually Useful person who was controlling things over)

In the UK series I would imagine it work work in a similar fashion of something like that did occur.

As far as saying that they didnt want to. Well saying that they dont want the position in front of SAS would be dumb indeed and a surefire way to have one great big mark on you before the tasks have even properly begun.

Alphabetically?

Why would they have to show the drawing from a hat at all, let alone for ten minutes? And it's most likely not random as far as distribution of abilities goes; men and women are socialised very differently and statistically tend to grow up having different skill sets.

Not that any of that matters, as it wasn't the point I was making. Someone said there was no other way to split the teams. I pointed out that you could do it randomly as opposed to doing it by gender. I personally would prefer that as I think the dynamics later on would be more interesting, but I don't think it's a big deal.

Personally, I think it makes it easier on the viewer. Remember it's not just there for the whole "competitiveness" aspect, it's also a TV show where the viewers want to be able to distinguish one candidate from another and one brand new face from another. I remember in Series 4 it took me a long while, I think at least up to the third episodes, when I couldn't tell who anyone was.

Don't they start mixing them in episode 3 onwards when there are distinctions to be made and viewers start slowly to recognise candidates?

Possibly the TV producers/executives had this in mind from Day 1 and advised Sir Alan to use this method??


Last edited by LilAngel : 25-03-2009 at 23:58

Good point. It's easier to refer to them in the first 2-3 weeks as "the girls team" or "the boys team" than "the team with the fat one in it". I rarely remember their team names till halfway through either.

Maybe its done for by gender for a big main reason.
At the start there is little to distinguish the two groups other than the obvious 'They are guys, those are girls'. Thats it really and any other way of distinguishing them wouldn't work (Religion? No... Letter of name? Nope. Names from a hat, too unprofessional really)
When the candidates start revealing what they can/cannot do and can/cannot work with, then swaps and changes are made. Simple.

I personally love the gender split. Time after time, year after year, the men seem to get on with things and muck in mostly in a generally affable way. The women squabble and try to claw each other out of the way ignoring their team leader or trying to show them up like a group of disgruntled hens.

Great TV

It's not sexist, but it is a lazy, predictable way of splitting the teams.

I agree it's a big disadvantage for the women at the start, as an all-female team is more likely to just sit around gossiping, being bitchy, act like headless chickens etc. You can see that in almost any workplace that has a large proportion of female managers.

However this year they did have the advantage of an extra person, and also it doesn't really matter anyway because there is no way suralan is ever going to pick a female winner again after that Michelle won and immediately got up the duff.

How about those with darker skin versus those with lighter skin.

Ummmm?????