http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s108/...artins-in.html

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth commence.

It could simply be that "The Blessed Margaret of the Quizzical Eyebrows" is too busy with her papyri this year. At least they haven't brought Paul Kemsley back.

Appropriate, given he works with Lord Sugar on a recruitment agency, and I liked Ricky Martin, and so it'll be good to see him... but it'll seem a bit rich making disapproving faces at this year's candidates after he put "Call me THOR!" on his CV two years ago.

Fantastic! I've always wanted a former candidate involved with the show. I think his interview will be a lot more constructive than Margaret's was. I never fully understood what Margaret was trying to achieve with hers.

Livin' La Vida Loca!

I like Ricky and given he know LS and works in recruitment it's wholly appropriate.

I wonder if he'll be the "nicer one".

lulwut?

Surely he'll have to be. The candidates will have plenty of ammunition to retaliate if he starts going on about their deluded CVs.

I hated Margaret as an interviewer, and I had no idea why she was so popular. I think she has been one of the worst interviewers they have had. What seriously have we actually learned about any of the candidates from her interviews? We learn a lot from Claude and Mike Soutar and the others. Margaret didn't seem to have any purpose but to pull funny faces.

Hardly. There's 5 candidates left who are smarter than Ricky, plus one who thinks he is, and Ricky's expertise is specilaist science recruitment - which at least he has a science degree for. There's a lot more Apprentice graduates who now hold positions where they actually do interview people, or look for investment potential .

Maybe he wrestles them into submission?

How can you analyse Ricky's intelligence compared with the intelligence of the other candidates? You've only seen a couple of hours of edited footage of them - you can see who was sharper in a particular situation (even that can be skewed by the edit) but you can't really quantify their intelligence levels.

He was pretty sharp and fast in putting down other candidates in the board room, esp in the early weeks of his year. Remember when he said to one person "you've been a passenger suring this whole task or even process" and you could tell that impressed Sugar with the way he said it and the person he said it to didn't/couldn't fight back that well.

If Ricky has been able to watch any of the footage/programmes, then he might not be the nice one at all as he might act like Sugar in the boardroom thinking and expecting that Sugar wants him to suss them out good and not be the easy/nice one to deal with.

None of the interviewers over the years have ever been easy really. The closest one to being nice was that guy called Borden but he scrutinised them pretty well too.

I've never thought the interviews themselves were that hard. The problem is that most of the candidates fall into the following:

* Their CVs are full of easily verifiable BS. They never seem to understand this "Internet" thing and this place called "Companies House".

* They don't check their CVs for obvious mistakes or inconsistencies.

* Their Business Plan hasn't been checked for realism, accuracy or basic maths.

I think that Karren was a very pleasant and approachable interviewer in Series 4 and 5. But in fairness, they all have the potential to be. As every interviewer is, they are easier with the people they are impressed by, and harsher with those that they aren't. People generally would consider Claude to be the toughest interviewer, but he was very decent with Ricky because once you got past his arrogant claims, his business plan was really good, and Claude had to give him credit for it.

I think there are probably plenty of scenes with the interviewers being nice, but of course the producers tend to keep in more scenes of them being critical because they think that is what we want to see. I remember in Series 6, Margaret was very positive about Joanna when they discussed their thoughts with Lord Sugar, but we didn't see any clips of her interview with her. Maybe if they had done, I'd have more positive things to say about Margaret.

I would love it if they put the full uncut clips of the interviews on the website. I realise that that is unfeasible for the tasks because there are so many hours of footage, but I imagine there can't be that many for the interviews. I doubt they ever will though.

Borden made a mess of his interview with Stuart Baggs. He called him out on his factual claims and was factually wrong himself.

Margaret has been a waste of space in the interview stage, glad to see someone else getting a go. She was great as an observer with Nick but the cutaway put downs don't work with interviews.

Whether Ricky can do well as an interviewer remains to be seen. As a recruiter he ought to be of course. He's a very different character to the part time wrestler he used to be.

Margaret is grossly overrated whilst Ricky was a very credible winner so I for one don't have a problem with this...

I was massive massively disappointed that there wasn't a single reference to the "other" Ricky Martin that series.

There was, it came up at the interviews (I think it was Ricky's interview with Claude, but it may have been one of the others, can't be 100%.) Claude, or whoever it was, said, 'So your name is Richard Martin, but you use the name Ricky professionally?' Ricky replied that he did that on purpose, because your name sticks in people's minds if you share it with a celebrity, and that's important to become known in business.