Does anyone know when the show is back?

I know it's usually end of March/beginning of April but the last couple of years they've messed around with it a lot!

It was only really messed with because of the election. Should be back on track now I would think.

It's back in March, Lord sugar tweeted it today.

I see the US Celebrity Apprentice starts this weekend

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...ie-Gibson.html

The Celebrity Apprentice USA

BBC 1 Sunday 19th February 23:35 to 01:05

Series 8 of the American version begins with the introduction of the 16 celebrity competitors. Clint Black, Brian McKnight, Tionne Watkins, Andrew Dice Clay, Tom Green, Joan Rivers, Dennis Rodman, Hershel Walker, Scott Hamilton, Claudia Jordan and Brande Rodrick.

cant stand Dennis Rodman but will watch just to see how Joan Rivers gets on.{ trying to avoid reports as I know this has been seen in the states }

I know people aren't looking at this forum atm, but Sugar recently tweeted that The Apprentice Series 8 will be on during late-March. It will follow the same format (As in the winner will receive a £250,000 investment for their business.

I'll always love the apprentice but I wish the prize was still a job rather than an investment because if last series is anything to go by then the winner is not going to be the best overall candidate, i.e. Helen losing to Tom.

That said still can't wait for it to start!

Glad you made a Thread as I was wondering too.

True people aren't looking at this forum, or so it seems, and why I dropped in to start it off. Looking forward to seeing LS again, and March won't be that long.

It's not on until mid-March at least. There is no mention of it on the BBC press office site up to 16 March.

I' not sure that Helen was the best overall candidate......

Granted she was on the winning team more often than any of the others, but that was down to sheer luck - and the other members of the teams she happened to be in - the wins were not due to Helen's own skills and actions. She avoided the boardroom by being on the winning team all the time - but had she actually been taken in - I'm pretty sure she'd have been accused of flying under the radar.

When it got down to the final - Helen's business idea was woeful and completely unoriginal... Of the finalists, Tom was a worthy winner with a workable idea to offer Lord Sugar.Helen's looked like she didn't think she'd get to the final and had had to come up with something at the last minute

Sugar didn't think Tom's idea was workable. He was only interested in the curved nail file which Tom had developed the series started. Although Tom came across as a nice guy unlike the ineffable Winkers, the Apprentice will go the way of the Restaurant if there is another series where the winner has been chosen in advance no matter how poorly s/he performs in the tasks.

I didn't know that apaul

All i remember of the 3 finalists was Tom's idea was the only innovative one (his office chair), Helens "Concierge Service" was old hat, and while Jims idea was worthy - it was trading on the AMS name to do whatever it was he wanted to do.

It wasn't until the final that we actually saw Helen's real feet of clay - and I still think she wasn't the best candidate - just the luckiest one to be on the right team all the way through. LS hates the candidates who fly under the radar and survive through just not being noticed - and Helen was the perfect example of that. She did just enough to ensure her PM wouldn't take her into the boardroom if they lost but was mostly invisible on the tasks - except when she was PM (and even then - the others won those for her (wasn't Jim responsible for the big sale of biscuits?- and Tom came up with the idea for My Pie?))!

I think that's harsh on Helen. Don't forget, Venture only won in Week 8 due to the huge order from La Redoute from Helen's pitch. She did well in Week 6, organising Logic who had just lost five tasks in a row.
We don't know enough about the biscuit pitches in Week 9, tbh. We don't know whether any other retailer aside from Asda made an order. Lord Sugar never told us. Don't forget that Venture would have needed just an order of 1 (!) from one of the other retailers to beat Zoe.
In Week 11, she did well as PM - Yes Tom thought of the branding (which, admittedly was a good idea), but Helen planned out the finances, made sure customer service was good and made the actual pies, which were praised for how good they tasted. She ran the whole operation smoothly. Compare that to the shambles under Jim and Caracas.

However, when it came to the final, the right person won. Helen, I feel, is more suited to being an employee, whilst Tom's ideas and free-thinking mind make him more suitable to run a business with Lord Sugar.
Helen's idea was bad and it didn't work in theory. As Lord Sugar said, Tom's business plan wasn't exceptional, but it was the best-placed to work.

Yes but Helen was the opposite of poor Harry M in Young Apprentice - he was on the losing team every week despite working his socks off and being very visible in each task - poor kid seemed to be universally dislliked by all the others). Apart from when she was PM (with the honourable exception of the La Redoute pitch) Helen was almost invisible all the way through - not making good TV moments in terms of gaffes or successes.

The way some folks talk about her it seems that people think that she was solely responsible for the wins - when it wasn't obvious from the edits that she contributed anything exceptional to ensure the win for her team. In fact when she alluded to the fact that she had been on the winning team x times in a row in one boardroom LS cut her down to size by saying "but that wasn't all due to you though!"

She would have been the perfect winner if the prize had been a job like in previous years - but when she got to the final she showed that she had no originality which is what LS is looking for thse days!

Hmm... I didn't like Harry M at the time, but you couldn't deny he worked hard at the tasks. All I would say is how do you know that Helen didn't work hard? We, the audience, don't see half of what goes on in the tasks and I think the fact that Helen barely featured in Weeks 1-5 was more down to the fact that the editors pretty well edited her out. Don't forget that she volunteered to be PM in Week 1, but was pretty well shouted down by Melody. Later, in Week 6 onwards she did feature, particularly as PM.

But, you do raise a good point about her comment in the boardroom. After her La Redoute pitch in Week 8 and her record-breaking PM win in Week 9, she started to get a bit to big for her boots and seemed determined to have control. It was obvious in Week 10, when she tried to take over from Melody as PM and later in the boardroom when she mentioned the "I've won nine times" comment. It continued into Week 11 where she seemed reluctant to let Tom do anything!

She wasn't suited to win the series and I've already made that point. I think that Tom's win was good for the show because if Helen won in the end, then where was the difference from the old format? The winner shouldn't necessarily be the person who won the most tasks. I point to the case of Series 2, where Michelle Dewberry won 7 tasks and Ruth Badger won only 3, but Michelle's hiring was criticised by most people.

Helen was interesting......in terms of her ability to be in the right place at the right time. I would say she was a hard worker but winning 10/11 tasks was based on some skill and a LOT of luck;

Task 1; wasn't featured, seemed to be helping out preparing the food in the kitchen, maybe she sold consistently, therefore we hardly saw her. Seemed to fly under the radar, though to be fair a lot of the candidates are invisible in the 1st episode.

Task 2; invisible

Task 3; Jim mainly helped Susan's team win by the negotiating, from what we saw Helen just seemed to be standing by his side all day.

Task 4; the beauty task, Zoe's team won by default, Felicities team made a loss. Helen did a few tanning sessions, seems that's about it. Again, an example of being lucky by being on the team that did 'less poor' then the opposite team. Also helped Zoe by trying to scapegoat Susan. Showed us her mean/sneaky side.

Task 5; didn't seem to do much. Helen, along with Zoe and Leon, tried to push through that awful 'Lucky Fish' idea, which, if Glenn had allowed, could have lost them the task, Glenn would have definitely taken 2 of those 3 into the boardroom had that been the case.

Task 6; first time as Team leader, seemed to do a good job, yet only beat Zoe's team by around £6. So a combination of hard work and luck of beating the other team by such a tiny amount. Offering a no charge term to clear the rubbish was VERY risky.

Task 7; pretty much non-existent, all we saw of her was bickering with Natasha over the 'blow your load'.

Task 8; good pitch to the French company, which DID get them a big order, yet the products that she was pitching were selected by Susan. Possibly a bit of luck that Tom allowed to be walked over by Melody and not selecting the rucksack, which nailed it for the win. Tom knew the rucksack would be a big seller yet due to the ignorance of Melody and Leon, chose the teapot instead for fear of conflict.

Task 9; both teams did a bad job. As someone else mentioned, Zoe got 0 orders. The 'lucky stars' biscuits were heavily flawed, very unhealthy, as pointed by several customers in Asda, and the slogan 'anytime is treat time', was absolutely awful marketing, as pointed out by Natasha and later at the supermarket pitches, which Helen seemed to merely brush aside. They won by a bizarre pitch from Jim, who made these promises of huge promotion for the product.

Task 10; both teams screwed up, Helen along with Melody trying to push for retail orders. This was the moment that alarm bells rang for Lord Sugar, and for viewers, really questioned her business acumen. By this point I think her ego had swelled so much due to the fact that she had never been on a losing team, she suddenly seemed to think she was the 'queen' of the show!

Task 11; very well managed and organised, did a good job running the restaurant, sorting out the layout of the building. Allowed Tom to develop the product while she ran the task smoothly and efficiently.

When the interviews came and she revealed her business plan, that pretty much secured her fate. None of the interviewers were impressed, neither was Lord Sugar. Helen easily had the weakest out of the 4. As an employee she would have walked it, but was obviously not right as a business partner.

It's on Wednesday 21st March at 9pm.

1/12. New series. Alan Sugar begins another search for a candidate worthy of setting up in business with him - with a £250,000 investment to help get their idea off the ground. The first task, as usual, sees boys versus girls, with each team buying blank goods, adding their own designs, then selling them on the streets of London in a test of creativity, marketing and salesmanship. While one team opts for cute kids' clothes, the other plays it safe with Union Jacks for tourists. But before long, the pressure of their tight deadline grows and the back-biting begins.

Can't wait to see them in action - this is one of my favourite shows!

One of mine too

OMG Can't wait! Thank you!

Good to see it back, though I hope the quality improves over the last few disappointing series (apart from the kids version, which was great until that howler in the semi-final).

Wonder if the candidates will be revealed in the upcoming week (on the official website) or that they will do that in the week in which the first episode airs (hopefully the former).

I'm glad it's back soon. I really enjoy the apprentice.

And I am glad that Tom won last time. He is a likeable inventor and AS has the business knowledge so they make a good team.

Its been nearly a year ........... what exactly have they done so far?

You're probably right, but I've never been convinced that the change in emphasis was communicated to the contestants in advance - in many ways, from what we saw, Tom was probably the only likely winner last year, based on the new criteria (hence his easy ride to the final), whereas under the old regime, Helen would have been a clear (and deserving) winner.

I hope this year they have 12 Toms in the mix, rather than 1 Tom and 11 Helens!