Where 16 candidates who previously appeared in a series and got fired get a second chance?

And who would you like to see get another go?

I'd like Miriam from series 1 and Jadine from series 3 for definate. Possibly Paula from series 5 (she did very well on her task as project manager making a very good product and tbh i didn't think he was going to fire her but she got fired over that big mistake with the costing)

The woman who got fired in the laundry task in series 4 and Jenny was spared.

And several that got fired in Series 4 so that Sophocles could stay, like Raef.

That would be great! I think the only way it would really be viable though is if it was fpr charity.

Here's my dream candidate list:
Ifti Chaudhri (so we can see if he really was as good as he thought he was)
James Max
Raef Bjayou
James McQuillan
Chris Bates
Jim Eastwood
Glenn Ward
Neil Clough

Miriam Staley
Karen Bremner
Jadine Johnson
Shazia Wahab
Sara Dhada
Jennifer Maguire
Paula Jones
Gabrielle Omar

I really would love to see a series like that, even if it were shorter than an average series.

Well he could break bricks with his bare hands, of course he was

I've actually thought that a limited series featuring candidates from Series 1-6 would be a good idea, to give them a chance at earning the £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar. Here's who I'd cast from each series:

Series 1 - Miriam and Sebastian. Miriam's firing was one of the Sugar's all-time biggest cock-ups, which even he admitted, so she's a shoo-in. Sebastian was a pretty solid candidate all-around who could do with another chance to shine.

Series 2 - Alexa and Ansell. Ansell's a pretty obvious one, as he was clearly the most competent of that year's men and the one who genuinely wanted to work with Sugar the most. Alexa... well, I really can't think of any of the other women to bring back! Ruth's so successful now she could probably raise the £250k in ten minutes by calling her rich chums. Karen would never come back given how she was treated. Jo's too much of a loose cannon, and to an (admittedly much lesser) extent Nargis was as well. Sharon would be the obvious candidate, but I think her recent legal troubles would kill any chance of her getting the investment.

Series 3 - Jadine and Lohit. The former because Lord Sugar's said more than once what a great candidate she was and how she just came to the show a few years too early, so I'd like to see her put her money where Sugar's mouth is. Lohit, in addition to being a good candidate on the show, has actually set up his own online retailer, so he'd have the experience to make good use of the investment.

Series 4 - Alex and Sara. Sara actually admitted the job with Sugar would never have worked out because she prefers to be her own boss, so she'd be an ideal candidate for the new format. Alex did have some good moments on the show and hopefully will have improved with age - or at the very least, would provide some laughs by constantly saying "I'm only 30/31!"

Series 5 - Howard and Paula. Howard was a generally very strong candidate and also has experience running his own business, while Paula did a generally pretty good job as a project manager but got taken down by one absolutely horrific mistake.

Series 6 - Joanna and Raleigh. Joanna I think was unlucky to be in the last series before the prize changed; had the prize come in that year, and if she kept her attitude in check, I think she'd have walked it. Raleigh got taken out of the show by circumstances beyond his control, so I think he deserves to come back and have a proper go.

I think you give some pretty good reasons for those choices. Hard to argue with it really

I would like to bring Adele from Series 1 back in a 'second chance' series. The reason is that I think that she wasn't in a good place when she did the show in terms of her personal life and worries about her grandma in hospital etc, and that impacted her performance and eventually resulted in her choosing to leave. She was pretty dislikable on the show, but I think that was probably mostly due to stress, as in the few interviews she has done since she has always come across as very pleasant. She has been pretty successful since, so I'd like to give her another chance and see if she could turn it around.

Are we allowing Young Apprentice candidates? I think we should, as they are all now old enough to take part in the adult show. If so, I'd like to give Jordan De Courcy and Hannah Richards another shot. Jordan because I think his biggest mistake was being too arrogant and jumping in to lead a team too quickly, and he was a bit out of his depth. Given that he started a successful business at 12, he is clearly very capable when he's on form. Hannah because on the task she was fired, she was generally a pretty good leader and went based on a really bad decision about who to bring back to the final boardroom.

Really? I thought Jim was full of hot air and only average at best but able to charm, I can't see him doing very well. Also i don't think you could mix the 2 formats easily - what would be the prize remembering that with the prize becoming a business partner not only did the prize change but the emphasis on the qualities the candidates should have so mixing wouldn't really be fair imo. If you kept it to the old format and only contestants from up to series 6 (plus maybe Helen from series 7) with the prize being a job at the end of it then maybe. I would definitely like to see more from Ifti as he seemed like he could be a good candidate.

I'm generally considering just people I'd give a second chance to, not specifically for the prize.

Here's an interesting one. Who would win if you brought back all the first firings and put them in one series? My bet would be Bilyana, as she seemed the most capable out of all of them. (That's entirely hypothetical, without consideration as to whether they would actually come back. Adenike is dead, so she'd be impossible to get anyway.)

I was a bit shocked when i heard about Adenike. The first person to ever be fired on the apprentice and dead. Shame

I often wonder about all those first firings, we never get much of a chance to get to know them and they never get a chance to show much of their abilities as they are only being judged on one task

Andy from series 3 for example got stitched up But tbh he did a shocking job and had he not gone in week 1 i could have seen him going in week 2 or 3 or something

I wouldn't like to see that really arrogant one again, can't remember the name i think he was on series 6 and he was awful. Sugar said to him something like 'can you sit up straight, you look like we're having a natter at the golf club'

His name was Dan.

I'd say that Bilyana and Ben would definitely be the front-runners, as they both seemed pretty competent compared to the other "fired first" candidates.

Of the remainder, I think Dan could actually do okay if he softened his attitude and got more directly involved in the tasks. Maybe Edward as well, if he learned to employ his skills where they're suited best. Nicholas wasn't actually particularly awful in the first S4 task (in particular he was proactive enough to spot the pricing error and correct it), but was taken down by a spectacularly inept boardroom performance, so might be able to do better with a second chance. Assuming we brought Lindsay back in Adenike's place, she did show some skill at managing a difficult bunch of women, but things went completely pear-shaped as soon as the Secret Signals got involved. Seemed to be some skills there, but her judgement was suspect to say the least.

Anita would definitely be bottom of the pack for me, she really showed nothing at all in the first task of S5. I also wouldn't rate Andy's and Jaz's chances, as they seemed well out of their depth managing the first tasks of their years.

Yeah, I'd kind of agree with most of what you said there. Particularly interesting what you said about Lindsay - her judgement was terrible, but I did admire her calm resolve and the fact that she managed to get the team behind her, especially when we'd seen from the previous task that they were an argumentative group. Again, would we include Young Apprentice candidates in there? If so, I would definitely not rate Mahamed's chances and probably not Max's either, but Jordan's would definitely be up there.

What annoyed me about Andy was that he was a real coward. He put himself forward as team leader for the boys having no intention of actually doing it, but just wanting to look like he was willing. He then secretly tried to back out of it by persuading Adam to do it instead, but the boys had decided they wanted Andy so he was forced into it, and then moved over to the girls' team. Ironically, Adam seemed quite on the ball to start with, and it would probably have been better for him in the long run to have got to lead the first task.

I think poor old Adam got worn down as the weeks went on by the bullying he received from the others, particularly Natalie and Katie who both seemed to really have it in for him and were almost setting him up to fail.

I quite liked Adam tbh and felt for him in the end.

I felt sorry for him, but I didn't feel he was a very strong candidate generally and wasn't going to go further than he did.

What do you think would have happened had he led the first task, instead of Andy?

Hard to say. I think he would have done a better job than Andy (but that's not really saying much ) I think he would have had enough sense not to pull the mobile van, that was a really bad move on Andy's part and had he not pulled the van but instead sent Gerri and Naomi to a better location they would have had a better chance of winning.

I think if Adam had led the first task and won he might have had a better time on the show. I think some people if they start losing they just go into a downward slope and can't get back up again and that's kinda what happened to him.

Yeah, definitely. I feel that was what happened with Sara in Series 4 as well.

Although, would the team leaders have been swapped if Adam had led the first task? It's the only time the teams have ever been mixed from Task 1, and I wondered if maybe Sir Alan did it to make a point to Andy, because what had happened with the boys had been fed back to him.

I think the 'swapping the PMs' thing would have been pre-planned, regardless of who was PM, and again, it would have been the producer's decision.

I didn't like that twist at all.

So you think it was coincidence that on the one series when there was a very interesting debate about who should be the Project Manager, which involved someone putting themselves up, secretly backing down and then being pressured into doing it, the PMs were swapped, when this has not happened on any other series?

They did do the "swap the PMs around on the first task" trick once or twice on the US version, so it's possible they got it from there. On the other hand, the UK Series 2 men's team had to resort to selecting their PM at random, so maybe the producers thought they'd throw another cat among the pigeons by swapping them around the following year.

I suppose, but I still think it had something to do with the way in which Andy was chosen. The choosing of team leaders is usually a formality, and out of all the series that was the only occasion when it was in any way interesting in and of itself. Think about it, if the boys had chosen Adam and the girls had had Jadine, would swapping them over have been quite as interesting? And while we're about it, would swapping any of the Week 1 PMs from other series have been especially noticeable? It was noticeable in this series because of the way Andy handled himself, and I think that that is too much to be a coincidence.

We know that Alan Sugar knew about the discussions that the teams had had, because he made a point of referencing the fact that the boys had chosen a team name that was actually the name of a company that Tre already worked for, and made them change it. I feel like the swapping of team leaders could well have been a result of that as well. Even if it was more for entertainment purposes than actual business reasons, I think the fact that this was the one occasion that the choosing of the team leaders had entertainment value says a lot.

It definitely would have been in Series 6 and 7! The women's team from the former series was volatile enough as it was; having Dan lead them would have been like throwing a hand grenade into the room. As for Series 7, as annoying as she got later in the series, I have to admit that Melody was an extremely effective project manager on the first task, while Edward... definitely didn't fit the mould of a good manager.

In any case, another factor in why they haven't done that particular twist since may be the fact that 4 of the 6 subsequent main-series versions have begun with the teams having to do their first task immediately after the initial briefing with Sugar. In those cases swapping the PMs before the task would have been pointless, because they wouldn't have known anyone on the team anyway, whereas Andy and Jadine had to get to know the strengths of their new team-mates in just a few minutes.

Okay, I see that point, but I don't think that could have been predicted in advance. The selection of Dan, Joanna, Melody and Edward was as formulaic as ever - Series 3 was the only one where there was any sort of drama concerning it besides arguing over who would do it (I suppose Series 9 had a bit of that with Jaz's instant volunteering, but not in the same way). I just think it's too much of a coincidence that they happened to pre-plan a PM swap in the first task, and then the choosing of one of the PMs happened to be so notable. I think it's far more likely that the swap was decided as a result of that.

(Also, it's a moot point, but I think Dan in Series 6 may have been slightly different managing the girls. I think a lot of the time men like that are more likely to be dictatorial with other men, and softer when dealing with women.)

I'm not sure how accurately or fairly it could be done considering but even if we ignored that point and assumed that such a show was on the cards I would not be putting money on Bilyana, from what memory serves of her even if she didn't make the same mistake as before in the boardroom she would still end up talking her way out at some point.

I wasn't much of an Adam fan myself and thought he was just a little out of place and almost but not completely out of his depth on the show - but all credit to him for doing as well as he did, I just don't think he is made of stuff that could compete a second time round and if anything he would probably go sooner as there are plenty of stronger candidates from other series that would be in the running. I liked Jason from last year quite a bit and he seemed to be genuinely nice and fairly smart, unfortunately I don't see him being "compatible" with Sir Alan so would never be able to do well even though I can see him having potential.

Simple answer, yes. It's hardly unbelievable, is it?

When the show moved to BBC1, they would have wanted to make it as interesting as possible... The producers would have brainstormed a twist to spice up the first episode, in my honest opinion.

Do you have a reason for thinking that, or is it just a guess? Of course, mine is just personal conjecture also, but I do feel that my theory is considerably more likely than yours, given that yours tends to involve quite a bit coincidence.