The Apprentice 2018, episode 1 review: after 14 years, is it time this show was fired?

One of the annual highlights of The Apprentice (BBC One) is the montage of boasting as we’re introduced to this year’s candidates – braggadocio that inevitably comes back to bite them when they’re fired a few weeks later for failing to sell enough sandwiches.

This time we met “the Beyoncé of business”, “a real-life mumpreneur” and “a human cash-machine”. One insisted: “My goal is worldwide domination.” Another had clearly attended the Alan Partridge School of Mangled Metaphors: “I don’t just grab the bull by the horns, I get him in a headlock and squeeze every opportunity that comes out of him.” Sounds painful.

The money-grubbing reality dogfight was back for its 14th series. Yes, 14th. That fact made me feel old and tired too. The opening episode found another 16 candidates wheeling their suitcases and monstrous egos onto our screens in the hope of winning a ￡250,000 investment from Lord Sugar.

As has become traditional, they were welcomed by a barrage of scripted one-liners from the boss: “The terms and conditions of partnership are to make me money and don’t p--- me off. If you’re unhappy, go and tell it to my HR firm, Diddums & Dontcare.”

Would there be any bold new format innovations? Of course not. The closest it came was shuffling the order of the weekly tasks, so for the first time, the series opened with a trip overseas. The two teams, split along gender lines, were sent to Malta. “Enjoy Europe while we’re still welcome,” was Lord Sugar’s parting shot. Cue the usual carnival of incompetence, high-fiving and use of the phrase “going forward”.

The boys’ team won by default.  The girls’ post-mortem descended into a row about social class. Sugar’s final decision was baffling, his firing finger suddenly veering from sneering Jackie Fast, who definitely deserved it, to chatterbox Sarah Byrne, who probably didn’t.

The Apprentice has become a curious beast – past its peak, but still pulling in enough viewers to justify its annual return. I wonder what could shake it out of this torpor. There’s so much superior TV around this autumn; could a ratings dip kill it off? Would 71-year-old Sugar need to retire to prompt a revamp?

In the meantime, it feels like a hangover from the last decade, like MasterChef or The X Factor – still strangely watchable, but not much talked about any more. And if Lord Sugar’s not happy with that description, he can go and tell it to my HR firm, Diddums & Dontcare.