I watch both the UK and US version of the Apprentice, and have to say much as I think american versions of programmes are overly dramatic and hyped I do prefer Donald Trump to Lord Sugar.

Sugar is to much the egotistical panto villain with the smart quips ("I am judge, jury and executioner") where Trump is to the point without being rude or belittling.

Who do you prefer ?

Sugar by far - I take it you haven't seen that much of the US version if your prefer Trump

Much the same. Probably Trump if I had to choose.

Thing with Sugar is he does not have much of a business. As far as I can tell he has two companies one which pedals low cost PCs to schools and one which sells ad space on TV. Is he really the businessman he claims to be or his he just living off his past glory ? For all his ideas and and stories of how he started as a barrow boy what does he really have left. It is hardly the big business cutting edge stuff the TV show would have us believe. The end result for these people is they either get to flock PC's to school or end up selling Ad space. the big prize is the ability and know how from Sugar and yet he does not seem to how much of this magic on this own poor showing for a business empire.


Okay compared to me he is doing well but if you compare him to Trump well he sugar is still back at his market stall really.

Depends on who Trump has fired at the time on when you ask me

I prefer Sugar.

Mainly because I think the show should be more about the candidates, and the US version is just Trump pitching his empire or an hour long glorified advert for whatever product they are flogging that week.

Also Trump is shady as hell.

Which is exactly why he now offers a business partnership, and not a job.

It is true that he doesn't have that many businesses anymore, but not because he's failed, it's because he is older now and has sold quite a lot of it - completely reasonable, and what a lot of very successful people do. He's semi-retired - that's why the format of the show has changed.

Trump

Trump started with huge inherited wealth and has (so far) gone bankrupt three times. Sugar started with very little and amassed a decent pile. In terms of what the show's looking for, especially these days, he's a better fit. And the jobs Trump was offering in the civilian years were far far far more vapid and pointless than anything Sugar gave, apart from perhaps to Stella. They were vanity titles attached to a few promo appearances. By the last series he didn't even bother pretending he had anything for the winners to do.

I find Trump more entertaining than Sugar, because she's such a moronic blowhard, but he's absolutely impossible to take seriously. He's a joke.

Whilst obviously I cannot know for certain, I am fairly sure that Stella's role would have been productive. I believe that the issue was not so much that the job was pointless, but that she was completely overqualified for it. The programme was called The Apprentice, and Stella was already way beyond that level. That's why I think Laura should have won that series - she wasn't too great on the tasks, but I think she would have tried really hard and learned a lot under Lord Sugar.

If Trump is so pointless, why does he continue doing the show? Doesn't it harm his reputation? Or is he one of those people who believes that no publicity is bad publicity? Also, what is the incentive for people to go on it? Are they just trying to make names for themselves? If so, I imagine that would be harder on the US version, as from what I've heard Trump is more likely to fire people at random than Lord Sugar. Has there ever been anyone on it who has managed to play his game, like Katie Hopkins?

Trump hasn't done civilian Apprentice properly for 8 years now - there was one series in 2010, which tanked, where the gimmick was that every contestant was unemployed or had been hit hard by the recession (this was the one where there was no job at the end, although he made a decent fudge at pretending there was going to be one) but it's all celebrity editions now, where the contestants take part to earn money for charity (either via fundraising tasks or with funds subbed in by task sponsors/NBC). Trump's there now for the name value, he has no real input or investment beyond deciding who get fired.

Before the change, people applied to get on tv, or work in tv, or for the networking opportunities they'd get or simply I guess, to get a big wage for doing very little at the same time as being able to carry on doing other work. Trump was there for the attention and because he would have been paid a hell of a lot of money to do the show, American tv being what it is. They've actually attracted a fair few people who've gone on to be successful, although I doubt any time they spent with Trump had much of anything to do with it. In media terms someone like Rebecca Jarvis would be a good example I guess - she finished runner-up in Series 4 and she's now (last I checked) the Chief Business and Economics Reporter for ABC News, which in terms of prestige is far higher than anything Hopkins could aspire to.

Interesting. What do you think of the other international versions? The only one I was able to engage with at all was The Apprentice Australia with Mark Bouris, possibly because it's quite chilled like the UK show, and puts more emphasis on business skills than on drama. It's a shame there was only one civilian series. None of the other versions (including US) have appealed to me in the slightest - I have watched several first episodes, but rarely been inclined to go further than that.

The Irish one was formulaic. Jane McAvoy from UK season 8 was actually on it, not as a contestant but the groups had to do a marketing campaign for her ready meals (this was before she was on the UK one looking for investment).

It was more like the US version, with it being one week Cadbury's, next week some jewelry place they had to do the xmas ad for, and a lot of plugging Bill Cullen's cars.

That's interesting about Jane, I didn't know that.

Team nobody.

I like Trump's Apprentice more.

But I think it comes down to atmosphere of the programme. Trump's programme is more positive, but then its all celebrity's (as far as I've seen) whereas UK's is up and coming people. So I guess really the two shows, though using a similar formula have different objectives.

Trump is far better telly.

I liked Cullen best of all of the chairs - it's just the contestants that were so very bland. I'd agree about the advertising, but I think Mark Bouris is even more shameful with the aussie celebrity version. Half the tasks there are simply - make me an advert for my new product

I prefer Trump to Sugar though, just because he comes across as so pompous I can enjoy it when he gets frustrated. With Sugar I always feel a little bit sorry for him

For me, it is actually the other way around.

At least Sugar hasn't put his kids in the chairs beside him and Trump is such a walking billboard for those hillbilly conservatives that it just becomes tragic (not yet on the level of Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair, but close enough).

much prefer the shugs. I find him more likeable, and his one liners are hilarious at times. . I do prefer the tasks on the USA version of the apprentice though - on the uk version we seem to get a lot variations of selling tasks.

Sugar for me.

With the American one being 'celebrity' Trump seems to spend 40 of the 60 minutes kissing the celebrities arses. It grates me.

'So this is the task. I'm happy 'insert celebrity name' is project manager because I think she's amazing. Do you all think she's amazing and she's done such a fantastic job so far that I know she's going to do amazingly well on this task because she's just so great and I'm a massive fan and you know I'm a massive fan'


Cut to the Board room 'You know I think you're amazing and you're going to be brilliant and you've done such a fantastic job and raised so much money for your brilliant charity so I'm very sorry but, you're fired'

Cut to fired 'celebrity' walking out.

Cut back to trump telling his kids 'That wasn't good. She was amazing. You all know I thought she was amazing and she's done so well, I'm really sorry to see her leave because she was so brilliant.'

Sugar, whilst he's a bit of an arrogant nob, doesn't spent the majority of the show praising already over inflated egos.

I don't particularly like either of them for different reasons. However I never watched regular US Apprentice only celebrity so I don't know what Trump was like in the normal series but in Celeb Apprentice he is clearly biased towards certain candidates and gives them a pass when he'd never do it for others.

Sugar on the other hand clearly just wants a glorified salesman judging by the tasks, although in fairness this may be due to lack of product placement on BBC, on Trump's show they can have contestants come up with marketing campaigns and events for major companies which they can't really do on the BBC. Also Sugar's last choice of Apprentice was a business model from 2004, it was in no way fresh, innovative or new.

I'd love a Celeb version in the UK cause Sugar wouldn't kiss their ass the way Trump does which would be hilarious.

There have been two celebrity specials as far as I can remember. I think for comic relief. Sugar didn't kiss anyone's arse.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Relief_Does_The_Apprentice

Edit actually I think there was three. The third being for sport Relief because I distinctly remember Louise Redknapp and Kirsty Alsop being in the girls team. Google says they did the sport Relief one so there must have been three.

I remember one with Cheryl Cole back in the day.

I would like to see a proper full celebrity version like the American one. I also prefer how on the US one it all seems to be filmed straight away rather than the "run off to the coffee shop" bit.

you forgot to mention the part where the 2 kids - donald trump jr , and ivanka both sit their like nodding dogs agreeing with their father.

as an aside - has anyone else noticed how much make up trump wears? You can see how orange is he from the white sections on his eye lids