...Compared to the previous seasons.

I think its better than the series 4 and series 5. Series 4 started strong, but became a huge carcrash by the end. Series 5 was pretty good, but was slightly run-of-the-mill and this one is a bit more interesting I think.

Not sure if its reached the heights of series 3 yet though. This is noone really to equal the behemoth candidates like Katie and Kristina or their epic boardroom battles.

Difficult to compare to series 1 & 2 because the show has changed so much since then. But its definitely better than series 2.

If I was ranking them I'd say:

S3
S6
S1
S5
S2
S4

How do you think it compares to the previous years?

This one is great so far.

I like how they changed the tasks, I think thats single biggest reason why its so refreshing and interesting to watch. Not he same mundane tasks every year. Plus overall the quality of the candidate in general is the best yet IMO. No one totally cuckoo or useless like in previous years.

Plus a few hotties never hurt anyone.

i'm finding this one the most boring so far.

ive watched all series so far but cant think back now, but its a massive improvement on the last series which for me was the first series where i got bored with it!

they got good peeps on this series (TV wise)

loving it! Stella prob my fave at the mo

i did like sandeesh, so sad she gone

It started promising, but has got boring now, as the present candidates are so colourless in character. The show used to be great years ago, full of fun in tasks, sad it's all gone now.

I think this is the worst one. The quality of candidates from both a business and entertainment point of view are pretty poor. Series 4 may have had useless, vile idiots but it was still entertaining in a car crash way. This year I just find them mildly annoying or somewhat competent but boring.

Ranking them would be

S3- good candidates mixed with some right plonkers (and some candidates who managed to be both) and very entertaining
S1- candidates
S5- similar to series 3 but with less of a nasty streak. Really refreshing after series 4.
S2- Ruth and Michelle were great but most of the others were non-entities really
S4- horrible candidates and the worst finalists ever, but there were some classic episodes (Marakesh!)
S6- meh. 2 good boardroom sessions (Paloma vs Alex, Alex vs himself) and that's about it. Joanna and Stella are the only ones who are good and have something of a personality (Stubaggs also has a personality but isn't very good!)

one thing i will say about this one is that thankfully the really awful ones have been going early rather than being kept in longer for 'entertainment' in previous series Sugar would have kept the likes of Dan, Paloma and Melissa in longer, this year they are out right away.

I think that keeping Paul instead of Miriam (S1), Jenny instead of Shazia (S4) and Ben instead of Paula (S5) were among the worst decisions sugar ever made,

Ah yes, the series of the backstabbing Katie and the breakdancing boy

For those 2 reasons alone it loses massive points.

Series 2 and Series 5 are my favourite series, mainly also because my favourite candidate actually won the final (plus little things like the friendships between Michelle/Sharon and Yasmina/James).

No guessing what the worst Series is (Hints: ginger, baret, 24).

This would be my ranking thus far:


S5
S2

S6
S3
S1



S4

I hope they do the buying task in this series. Am getting a little tired of the selling ones. They are good mostly but not every week. The best buying task was the Morocco one.

okay as we are doing series ranking...

S3 - This was BY FAR the best. From Jadine and Trey arguing in th first episode right until the end it was classic. So many great moments such as paul and the french task, Rory and Trey and the 'i am ur boss' episode, the london Zoo task, simon and the trampoline. I hated Katie at the time but ya know i feel an odd affection for her now when looking back on S3.

S1 - Good tv, the first series was the one where you can say the candidates really didn't know what they were getting into. Sara and Pauls fights were great and Adele was ghastly Good stuff.

S5 - Slightly boring at times but generally ok.

S4 - Full of villians but had some great moments.

S2 - - Honestly i did enjoy it but for such an early series lets just look at the quality of the candidates, pretty poor i'd say. i think its episode 2 or something where most of them all start crying Badger was good, michelle was ok and Syed was entertaining in a 'i'm a total ****' sort of way but this wasn't the best series.

S6 - The first one where i have been really bored. The boardroom bit is still good but the part before that my mind wonders and i find i'm not glued to it and can go and make a cuppa for 5 min without feeling like i missed anything as long as i'm there from about 9.35 onwards for the boardroom.

I've only watched from series 3 onwards, so I can only rank those.

1. Series 3
2. Series 4
3. Series 5
4. Series 6

Now, this may look like I'm arguing that the show's quality is declining, but I don't like to think of it that way. The show is fine, it's the quality of the candidates that can be interpreted to be declining.

While I was watching series 3 and 4, granted I was rather new to the show, I found the mixture of candidates very fascinating. There were villains, there were bullies, there were eccentrics (well, there was Lucinda), but together they were groups of veritable personalities, some you love, some you hate. Arguably, series 3 was better than 4, but not by much. While we did have to endure Jenny and her Muslim kosher chickens, the vile 'good Jewish boy' and ex-boyfriend of Katie Waissel Michael, as well as beret-wearing 'I don't need this job' Lucinda, Clare and Lee proved to be strong candidates throughout and were a pleasure to watch each week.

In series 5 and 6, boardroom tactics had become a much more prominent aspect of the show. Candidates in general were younger, more deluded, and chosen more for their tendency to make ridiculous claims which can later be mocked in "You're Fired", rather than their abilities and passion for entrepreneurship. And there's been quite a few deadwood characters in series 5 and 6. I can't even begin to imagine the array of deadwood the producers of the Apprentice had to sift through to have cherry picked people like Noorul and his twin brother this year (the one that Sandeesh foolishly didn't take into the boardroom tonight, he's such a nonentity I don't even know his name). From the looks of it, Mona and Sandeesh just hypnotised them with their eyes. I accept that it must be getting increasingly difficult to find quality candidates. Kate almost had us fooled last year, she's now a presenter on Channel Five. A person with a true passion for entrepreneurship would never stoop so low. Especially for Channel Five. But hopefully Lord Sugar will pick up on this and try to find people who aren't just there for self-promotion. Yes, we might need a few idiots here and there for the odd epically pompous statement, but this year I don't see any proper candidates apart from Stella and Liz. And maybe the blond guy...but maybe not because I can't even remember his name.

You lot have good memories to remember who was in what series. S1 I can recall more or less but struggling after that.

Remember Lohit and Ghazal? Yeah, me neither!

And they were in the same series as well

yer but Ghazal was good to laugh at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2CqKWTV1O0

Huge lol to anyone who says the quality of candidates is not good this year.

For God's sake in series 4 we had Alex, Helene, Micheal and Lee in the final 6. All terrible, and however much you lot at DS liked Lucinda, she weasnt much good either.

Last years final 4, Lorriane and Debra were pretty bad, Yasmina and Kate so very average.

This year the quality of the high finishing candidates is far far better. (There are always going to be 6-10 utter awful ones)

Liz - just a much better version of Kate
Chris - sort of like series 4 Alex but 100 times better
Stella - just really good

Johanna and Jamie are also both better than 95% of the series 4/5 candidates.

In terms of entertainment - its been decent, no worse than 4 or 5 worse than 2 and 3.