The Apprentice
The Apprentice intertitle
Genre	Reality television series
Created by	Mark Burnett
Starring	Alan Sugar Nick Hewer Karren Brady Margaret Mountford (See dates and series)
Narrated by	Mark Halliley
Theme music composer	Dru Masters[1] Prokofiev
Opening theme	Dance of the Knights
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of series	8
No. of episodes	84
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	Mark Burnett Productions
Distributor	Boundless
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One (2007-) BBC Two (2005-06)
Picture format	1080i HDTV
Original run	16 February 2005 (2005-02-16) – present
Chronology
Related shows	The Apprentice (US version) The Apprentice (Irish version) The Apprentice: You're Fired! Young Apprentice
External links
Website

The Apprentice is a British reality television series in which a group of aspiring young businessmen and women competed for the chance to win a £100,000-a-year job as an apprentice to the British business magnate Lord Sugar (previously known as "Sir Alan Sugar") in series one to six. Those winners went on to work at Amstrad, an electronics manufacturing company founded by Sugar (but since sold to BSkyB),^[2][3] or one of Sugar's other companies, Viglen,^[4] Amsprop^[5] or Amshold.^[6]

In series seven, the prize changed to a £250,000 investment in a business of the candidate's creation, with Lord Sugar as a 50% owner. The Apprentice, billed as a "job interview from hell", is very similar in format to the American series of the same name, which stars entrepreneur Donald Trump.^[7] On 5 July 2011, a show source detailed that the "interview" round will feature in the final show and that instead of the usual two finalists, there will be four.^[8]

Both American and British versions of The Apprentice are produced by Mark Burnett.

The first and second series aired on BBC Two in 2005 and 2006 respectively and the third series ran on BBC One in early 2007,^[9] the success of which led the BBC to commission two more series.^[10] The fourth series began in March 2008 and the fifth began in March 2009. A sixth series ran from October to December 2010, the seventh series ran from May to July 2011, and the eighth series started airing on 21 March 2012.

The programme has spawned three spin-offs, The Apprentice: You're Fired! (a studio-based programme which acts as a companion to the regular series), plus celebrity versions for Comic Relief and Sport Relief.^[11][12] Occasional 60-minute special episodes, often concentrating on particular candidates and their stories, also air.^[13] Apprentice-related merchandising includes a magazine, podcast, and official books.^[13][14][15] The programme has led other production companies to produce shows that follow a similar format, including Tycoon, Beat the Boss.^[16][17] and Election. It has also been compared to another BBC series, Dragons' Den.^[18]

Format[link]

Candidate selection[link]

Open auditions and interviews are held across the country before a season begins,^[19] attracting thousands of applicants.^[20] About 75 candidates are called back for a second round in London, for assessment in groups, asked to do various exercises to test their business skills and how they work in a team. After this, between 20 to 30 candidates are assessed by a psychologist, references are taken and other checks made. It is from this group that the final line-up is chosen.^[21] The first and second season featured 14 candidates, increased to 16 from the third season onwards. The fifth season was also meant to have 16 candidates, but went ahead with only 15 after a last-minute withdrawal.^[22] The BBC Comedy website published a spoof video at the beginning of Season 6 revealing more about the candidate selection process.^[23]

Tasks[link]

The successful candidates are split into two teams, initially by gender (as candidate numbers are whittled down, the composition of the teams is periodically rearranged). The teams are then given a season of business-themed tasks designed to test their skills in salesmanship, negotiation, requisitioning, leadership, teamwork and organisation, with each episode covering a single task. At the start of each episode, the teams each choose a project manager to act as the team leader for the duration of the task,^[24] though in later episodes the project managers are sometimes nominated by Sugar himself. The teams are followed in the execution of their tasks by Lord Sugar's advisers, Nick Hewer and Karren Brady.^[25]

Each team within the apprentice candidates will create their own team name and that name will remain for the rest of the season.

Lord Sugar's aide for the first five seasons, Margaret Mountford, did not appear in the sixth season as she had decided to continue her studies (PhD) in papyrology.^[26]

Boardroom[link]

After completion of the task, the teams report back to the "boardroom", a studio mock-up of a real company boardroom.^[27] Here Lord Sugar, with the help of his advisers, reveals the results and discusses the teams' performance, exposing flaws in the candidates' strategies and personalities. Sugar, who is introduced in the programme as "Britain's most belligerent boss",^[28] frequently delivers scathing criticisms couched in colourful language ("that was a total bloody disaster" ... "you haven't got a bloody clue" ... "I'll fire the whole bloody lot of you if I have to").

The team members are usually first asked to comment on the performance of their team leader, and the team leaders are asked how their team members performed. Sugar's assistants then reveal which team has won, based on whatever criteria were used. Members of the winning team are then told by Sugar that he has laid on a special treat for them such as a dinner at a fancy restaurant or a music recital, and they leave the boardroom.

The losing team are dispatched outside and usually convene at the Bridge Café where they generally discuss their failures in the task. When they return to the boardroom they are subjected to a further detailed examination by Sugar, after which the team's project manager is required to choose two team members to accompany him or her into a final round of interrogation.^[24] These are nominally the two poorest performing members of the team, but in practice the project manager may act treacherously and seek to remove more able members of the competition, or make choices based on personality. The discussions often become acrimonious as each candidate tries to divert blame towards the others. Finally, Lord Sugar dismisses one of the three with the catchphrase, "You're fired!", and that candidate is eliminated from the competition.^[24] On four occasions, two candidates have been fired in a single episode.^[29]

The fired candidate is then shown being despatched into a waiting taxi for the 'journey home'.

The fired candidate is then briefly interviewed in the taxi to reflect on his or her rejection from the competition. The surviving candidates are sent back to the accommodation that is provided for the duration of the show.

Interviews and Grand Finale[link]

When only four candidates remain (or five in later season), they undergo individual interviews with trusted aides of Lord Sugar, including Claude Litner and Bordan Tkachuk, resulting in the selection of two finalists.^[30] These two proceed to the Grand Finale and perform one last task with teams chosen from the previously fired contestants, after which one is told, "You're hired!", and wins the highly-paid executive job working with Lord Sugar.^[24] The person to be hired is not always the person who won the final task, as the decision is based on all the tasks. In Junior Apprentice, the format for the final was slightly different: instead of two, there were four contestants in the final, with each team having two joint project managers. At the end, the project managers of the losing team were automatically fired, leaving Sugar to choose which of the remaining two contestants can win.

In fact, two versions of the final boardroom sequence are filmed—showing each of the finalists winning. Between filming and transmission—a period of about six months—both finalists work for Lord Sugar in temporary jobs. Lord Sugar does not reveal his decision about who he is going to hire until shortly before transmission, and this determines which ending is shown. The BBC has issued contradictory statements about the decision procedure. The first version of events is that Lord Sugar makes his decision on the day that the final boardroom sequence is filmed, based on the contestants' performance in the final task, and keeps it secret until just before transmission.^[31] The second version is that Lord Sugar decides after the six-month trial period.^[32] Former contestant Saira Khan also stated that "His final decision is not based on the programme that people see. His final decision is based on these two people [who] have been working with him for the six months."^[33]

Schedule[link]

Unlike most reality television programmes, the whole of The Apprentice is pre-recorded; typically the season is shot during the autumn for transmission the following year.^[34]

The candidates live together in a large rented house or apartment for the duration of the competition.^[35] Owing to the twelve-week broadcast schedule, the audience is given the impression that the candidates stay for 12 weeks in the house and that there are breaks between tasks. The season is actually filmed in about two months,^[32] and the filming schedule means that the tasks are generally performed one after the other.^[36]

Compared to the US series, the British version has a more rigid format that requires twelve episodes per season and at least four candidates for the final round of interviews. This meant that in the first two season multiple firings were not allowed at all (which was acknowledged in the second season when Lord Sugar expressed his desire to fire both Alexa Tilley and Syed Ahmed, but could only get rid of the former), and subsequent season allow Lord Sugar to conduct either two double firings or one treble firing, the latter of which has occurred in the interview weeks, albeit not yet in the regular tasks.

Series[link]