I'm really enjoying it so far

The candidates: Good

The tasks thus far: Not so good

Not a patch on series 1 & 2.

Please say by good you mean entertaining, they give incompetent buffoons a bad name

Yes. I watch The Apprentice as a comedy.

Yes, it's shaping up very nicely on the entertainment front.

For sheer entertainment, it's great. As a genuine search for an Apprentice, it's the worst series yet.

Yeah I've really enjoyed this series. I think it's better than last series but I'm not sure if it's as good as series 2 or 3 yet, time will tell though.

As an entertainment show, most certainly yes.

As a method of selecting a future captain of industry, dear Lord no.

Yes I'm loving it - it's great fun!

Yes I'm really enjoying it. Much better than last series when Sir Alan just picked off all the good candidates and left us with the worst final four ever.

Nah nothing can beat the series when Lee McQueen won.

It's my favourite after Series 3 so far. Last year was the worst where all the finalists were either dislikeable or incompetent or both. And I hated last year's constant rewarding by SAS of rude and agressive behaviour which doesn't seem to be the case this year.

I can't believe there are people who have seen Series 4 and yet still say this year's lot are more incompetent. Last yearI didn't see one instance of good business sense.

I agree that they are a better calibre than last year. I am pleased that the women in particular are a better standard after last years gaggle of bitches. And I think this might be the best group of girls they have ever had.

I actually think its one of the strongest years, in terms of the standard of candidates. Definitely is superior to both S4 and S2.

I think this is one of the strongest years in terms of candidates. There's also been less genuine nastiness so far. Nothing comparable to, eg, Jenny C reducing Lucinda to tears. (Whether that was Jenny C bullying, and Lucinda playing the victim for the camera, doesn't matter here.)

Also it has some of the best tasks, given that we won't be getting any really great high value tasks like the US show has. Most years the tasks are very focussed on selling or buying, with some variations over what is sold or bought and who to/from. This year, although there have been elements of that, there's been more focus on the design and other aspects. Even this task, though ostensibly about selling 10 items, was more about getting the items valued and figuring out a plan.

[quote=brangdon;32206307]I think this is one of the strongest years in terms of candidates. There's also been less genuine nastiness so far. Nothing comparable to, eg, Jenny C reducing Lucinda to tears. (Whether that was Jenny C bullying, and Lucinda playing the victim for the camera, doesn't matter here.) [quote]

Yer, I agree the candidates seem alot nicer compared to some of them last year. You only really have a couple of idoits this year and I generally have agreed with all the sackings this year, unlike last year.

I am loving this series so far. I didn't like Series 4 very much as I found the majority of the candidates very dislikeable. I find this year's candidates a more interesting and likeable group of people.

Completely agree.

I didn't like last years, most of them were just nasty and calculating. This year I think the candidates are more decent towards each other, they actually work together to try and win rather than work against the project manager so they can try and destroy them later in the boardroom and they are generally more competent....so for me it's much more enjoyable to watch.

I think Series 4 was way better. Yes, it had a lot of unlikeable characters, but it also had some characters I really liked (Sara, Raef, Lee and Lucinda). This year, it's no more than a bunch of extremely unlikeable persons or people I don't care about at all.

In addition, Series 4 had better tasks, and I don't like that they show more of the boardroom sessions instead of the tasks this year.

The firings are also too predictable this year. You know from the start that it's always the nice and decent people who get fired instead of the bullies. It's not very exciting watching the boardroom when you know who will get fired. This week, for example, you just knew that Noorul was gone even though I can't imagine Sir Alan would employ people like Debra or Ben in a million years.

Absolutely true. In the cases of Maj, Paula, Kimberley and Nooral, I guessed who was going to be fired each time. Why? Because none of them were gobby or caused any conflict. None of them were rude and/or patronising. Basically, none of them made for good tv, although I would prefer to have a drink with any of those four than with say Ben or Philip or Debra.

yep i agree. This is the worse series to date. The others were far better.

It's hard to say how good this series is in comparison to the others. In series 4, there were very few candidates I was actually impressed with. A lot of them were very nasty and stupid people, the finalists were poorly chosen and there was far too much arguing and bitchiness. I really felt I was watching Big Brother sometimes. I think the fact that a CV buls*****r won summed up the whole thing.

There's not so much nastiness this year - Debra isn't quite as bad as Jenny C and some of the other girls last year. There one or two idiots, but they're generally much more level headed and seem to work together better. In terms of business, though, they're only slightly better - but I don't think even Ben is as stupid as Kevin or Michael.

I would say the candidates in Series 3 were probably better than the two following series. Whatever you thought about Katie and Tre, they both did have some credible business skills. Kristina was fantastic, and even Simon had his moments - and there were other good candidates, like Naomi and even Jadine.

Apparently Sir Alan said that he wasn't very impressed with Series 2, and felt most of the candidates there were out of their depth. I would probably have to agree, it was really only the Badger who was very good. In some ways, those candidates were almost as bad as Series 4, if not worse.

Series 1 was probably the best in terms of business acumen - but not as entertaining. We love to watch the idiots, don't we?

Maybe, but then most of the girls in series 1 were awful. Only Miriam and maybe Saira were the only decent ones.

I think this current series might have the best group of women, but the guy-side isnt so good.

Definetly true about the girls being strong this year - they've got Kate, Yasmina, Debra and Lorraine - but then Series 3 did have Katie and Kristina. But this time, I think we're sure to have a female winner. In series 2, Michelle only won because Ruth was to independent and the other candidates were just rubbish.

As for the boys, you're right, they're not so strong - but James is still a good candidate. Phillip and Ben are arrogant, but at least some substance behind their arrogance - they have shown creativity and sales ability, although they were both awful PMs last week.

But they do have some skill as well as arrogance, unlike Kevin and Michael, who were totally arrogant and had no talent whatsover.

Series 1 candidates :

Adenike : Surly, argumentative, crap ideas
Lindsey : One of the worst PMs ever.
Miranda : Alright, but kind of disruptive, and made a huge mistake in task 1 by panic-selling from mid-day.
Adele : Awful and a quitter
Matthew : Good ideas but no social skills
Rachel : Dithering drip with a mood-board
Sebastian : Invisible
Ben : Hid in a cupboard to avoid doing a task, had little to no control when PM
Raj : Invisible
Miriam : Profoundly over-rated. Spoke middle-management garbage most of the time, passed the buck for her own failings repeated, made a huge costing error on the Farmer's market task. (Still, a good PM and a great negotiator, so not a bad candidate per se)
Paul : So abrasive and disruptive that he's the only candidate to come back and actively sabotage the Final Two task
James : Genuinely A grade candidate
Saira : So abrasive and disruptive that she's the only candidate to get an entire task cancelled because nobody wanted to deal with her psycho ass any more.
Tim : Alright bloke - won more for lack of profound faults than any great virtues.

Don't get me wrong, they're stronger than the candidates in series 2 and 4, and even after all that on a par with, if not better than this series and series 3, but series 1 was by no means halcyon days.

This is definitely a lot better than last year, in which I only liked 3 people, all of whom were treated unfairly, either by Sir Alan (in Raef's case) or by other candidates (like Sara and Lucinda). Added with the fact that we were left with the worst final line-up and most smug group of people, I almost lost my patience. By the time Lucinda went, really couldn't give a stuff who won or not.

This year's lot seems more varied, and the competition is more active, and there is less confrontation, and there definitely isn't to the extent in which I felt very uncomfortable and bitter by the end of the episode, which happened a lot last year. The best candidates are a lot better than the best last year too.

I don't think it is as good as Series 1-3, but it's very close. I may even include it in this "bracket" if this series continues to prove itself well.