It has struck me that it would seem many of the "candidates" are useless. Fair enough it is still early in the game but I am sure that by the second episodes of the previous series' certain people stood out. Of course I will still watch it, it is very entertaining, but the competence of these people amazes me. How can you fail to sell coffee in Islington? It is coffee country!!
Also any business person worth their salt would know the major business would come from a chain store...

This is what makes the Apprentice so watchable. We are not really checking out the best business minds in Britain, we are tuning in to see how useless they are and how big their ego's are. I guess the genuinely bright business folk are out there, erm, being sucessful business folk and they don't have time or inclination to apply to the Apprentice!

Last years lot were much better buissness people and more entertaining

It is a bit early to tell.....but so far the candidates seem the most contemptuous and conceited bunch yet!

Yeah it's the BB effect. Early series they probably would go for people who could actually do the job. Now it's more about who will make the best telly.

There's also the fact that genuinely bright business folk are not quite so likely to want to work for AMS as they are Donald

personally i watch it to see the business aspect. im into all that sorta stuff and if anyone has seen the american version they will agree you can have viable applicants who know what they are doing and still provide great entertainment. that is what made series one great. all of them had potential but they still messed up. this series they all seem so useless. a guy pretty much gives up becuase he misses his kid. fair enough he is a family man but he knew the score. i really hope this doesnt turn into big brother ....

So far, I think the talent this series looks much brighter than the last one.

The girls team in particular seem to be working well together and are doing quite well. For now, at least.

This year's lot are definately less business minded than last year's. Hopefully as time goes on, we'll get a clearer picture of the likeliest Apprentice as so far noone has stood out.

I'm shocked that so many people are saying that. Who out of last year's rabble did you consider to be the big business brains then?

Wouldn't have it any other way!!!!

Best Series Ever!

I think we've had the best start so far. It is hard to tell who is a real business brain yet but that will become apparent.

Ruth was a good salesperson. Michelle was more all rounded businesswoman, Paul performed great in the tasks, Ansell was a good leader and Syed had his moments.

Who this year is better than any of the above? Noone yet in IMO.

how about james and siara (sp??) i relaly wantd james to win the first series. oh well lol

I disagree with most of the above. Won't go into all of them individually, but the only one I really rate from those lot is The Badger. And, it could be argued she's more of just a brilliant sales-woman than a proper business woman. Last year's talent was very poor. Season 1 was much better.

Katie did very well on the last task. Infact, all the girls worked very well as a team that task. Most of them have potential from what we've seen so far. Simon also impressed from the boys. Hard to tell with most of them though, since we've barely seen them. But so far, so good.

last year's show was better but this years is good too

I agree with all that, but I think little of it was apparent by ep2. Michelle didn't start to stand out for me until ep3, for example, and some people still don't think she should have won. Katie this year is arguably better than Michelle was at the same stage. Simon's had some good ideas, Natalie has been good. Tre is comparable to Syed but seems slightly better to me - he argues too much but he's usually right.

It's worth remembering that the programme is edited to show the failures more than the successes. For example, we were shown Ghazal freezing during the presentation, but we weren't shown how Gerri rescued it and landed the biggest order. Later in the series we may discover she's as great a saleswoman as Ruth.
Last edited by brangdon : 05-04-2007 at 23:21

I can't believe that some of the contestants have any common sense. It is very scary that these are some of the best. For me if you don't know which type of coffee to buy for a certain machine then really do they deserve to have a £100k job. Surely you would use your iniative and ask at customer service?
I felt that Tre is just being kept in for entertainment value, well for some, he is just an obnoxious& argumentative individual, IMO.

Its early days yet, give them chance

I think this "they all suck" employed by quite a few people is pretty stupid - doing things like creating a product in hours and selling 2,000 to a large store the next day is pretty impressive.

Groups of girls are always bezzie mates when they 1st meet each other, but soon the backstabbing, bitching and catfights kick in.

I think that the idiots come to the front very quickly in these kind of shows, and as time does go on there are less to focus on.

As soon as Tre goes, it will focus on the business and not the laughs, but its a good thing imo that it naturally works like this, if it were all business it would be boring, and when they do make mistakes later on, there big, and the firing means a lot more.

It's just another reality show, when all's said and done. Useless people in with a chance of winning a fair number of £thousands even though they are no better or cleverer than you or I.

We kind of like that because it makes us all think "that could be us, one day I could be doing that". It's like the lottery in that respect, except of course that we're not paying to support the Apprentice in expensive phone votes

Well, Sir Alan said before this series started that last year's bunch was rubbish compare to now, because he had a say as to who would be on the show this time.

Also, do you think we might encounter our first walkout?

I think quite a few of them are better than Michelle, really. She did nothing all series!