While still enjoying this series, there are certainly major problems with the format now the prize has changed that could be excused last series because the "investment" idea was new.

Now though, what is the point of so many "sales" tasks?. While the prize was a job with one of LS's companies then fine, but now?. Simply put, this show could do with a major overhaul to keep it fresh.

One little thought I had, its probably been said before, could the flaws in this season be due to having to give Tom a finalist edit when in the normal course of events he'd be edited more like Laura was?

I think the problem is lying more with the tasks than the candidates (and I say this as someone who has "come out" as rather liking this series after not being keen on the last ).

We ask, year after year, whether the candidates have ever watched previous series as they seem to be making cock ups left, right and centre - most of which could be predicted given previous years' tasks. Well it seems that this year they may have done. The mistakes are not as enormous nor as frequent and many of the candidates seem far less willing to do the "arrogant as @rse" talking heads to camera that set them up so deliciously for a fall. There's little that can be done about that last (other than deliberately cast complete knobheads) but by changing the tasks to make them fresher, less predictable and more relevant to the skillset that the winner would need to possess it could be a potential way forward.

I like this series because I like the candidates (or quite a few of them) but I agree the format (principally the tasks) wouldn't be harmed by a shake-up.

I still love the series but I do think the emphasis on money rather than doing a good job has been worse than ever this series. As has been said in previous years, they might make a lot of money initially, but if it was real life would they get return customers for some of the shoddy work they put out.

My two main annoyances this year have been the gym episode when Stephen won even though he'd promised equipment free of charge which should have been deducted from his total and last night's art task, where even though Tom won the corporate deal, theirs was worth £5,000 less than the other team's so it wasn't a level playing field from the outset,

But its a question of degree - if two three arrive at the same conclusion it has less weight than if twenty or thirty, or two or three hundred do.

I am enjoying this series from here in Canada, and i can tell you its better than anything we have on TV here !

Canadian TV must be dire if it's worse than this turkey.

What difference does the prize make to the task format? In the final analysis all businesses will fail if the product does not sell, so spotting or creating what will sell and then selling it are important, whether you are Sugar's employee or business partner.

When I watch an episode The Apprentice, it doesn't bother me if the task is relevant to the prize or not. They get a business related brief they must fulfill better than the other team.

I don't think she was suggesting that the problem many people have with the repetitiveness of the tasks is directly related to the change of the ultimate prize. Rather that the change to a business partnership and the fact that the business plans are seen beforehand, leads to a suspicion that the firing is prejudged, on the basis that Sugar already knows which plans he prefers.

Maybe its not for you.

Does your remote not work?

I am enjoying it.

Many people here are saying that Sugar is firing people because he doesn't like their business plans. Are we forgetting that last year the winning business plan was deemed awful by Sugar, but he chose Tom anyway because with a different business idea he could be great? Tom never went on to make the chairs. I think it's silly in light of that to say he has already decided the winner - if that was the case, Tom would have gone in an early round.

It wasn't so much that Tom would be great with a different business idea - it was that Sugar wanted Tom to go back to his curvy nailfile and develop that further. So the suspicion has always been that Sugar picked Tom not on his business plan and not on his performance in the show, but becouse he had a product that Sugar wanted.

It can't be that dire. It had 1m more viewers on Wed nite than the Voice on Saturday.

I suppose we'll see what happens this series. They get thousands and thousands of applications for the show, I find it really hard to believe Sugar couldn't find 12 (or however many candidates we start with, I forget) that he liked enough to want to invest in. I don't think out of all those he could pick one that was to win. If I was him I would pick ones that all had potential and then see if the candidates would be someone I'd want to invest in.


To be fair, that's more a testament to how poor The Voice is than how good The Apprentice is, although I think it's clear TA is superior.

You can't equate ratings with the intelligence of subjects of this country.

I'm not equating anything.Viewers watch what they enjoy and obviously more people enjoy watching the Apprentice even though it's on a weeknite and up against football.

I think that it is far from being 'dire' (in which case I would have stopped watching), it remains one of the most watchable programmes on at the moment.
However I don't think that this will be seen as a 'vintage' year, for a few reasons:
There have been fewer complete disasters; generally both teams seem to have done reasonably well at most tasks, with one team just doing a bit better than the other. This means it is hard to identify a clear reason for 'failure'.
There have been some clear injustices (e.g. the disregarding of costs of free gym eqpt, and two companies with different budgets). Maybe similar things happened in previous series, but not to this extent.
I also get annoyed when we are not told important aspects of the task (e.g. one team getting kitchen gadgets meant the other team couldn't).
The edit this year seems to have been trying to mis-direct us as to the eventual task winner even more than the past, which is just annoying.
LAS has made some ludicrously odd firings this year. I don't mind him reaching a different decision to me, but in the past I have been able to understand his reasoning. This year I haven't always been able to, which just lights the fuels of the conspiracy theorists. Personally, I don't think that there is a pre-determined winner, I think that he just wants to be contrary partly to generate publicity and partly so he can claim to see what us lesser mortals cannot.
For me, the above do not add up to meaning 'dire'.

Why oh why do people start a thread like this. I think Eastenders is dire... I stopped watching

I actually think this series has been better than last series, although not as good as Series 4-6.

Some of the tasks this year have been average however, like the gym equipment / regime week.

Yet, they still produce the show. So you not watching won't have a bearing on the lowering of standards.

What a ridiculous argument.

Here, I'll let Rhydler explain things to you.