Television | BBC1 | ★★★★✩

You couldn’t ask for a more fitting herald to the new year than the return of The Apprentice; resolutions confidently stated, plans made, immediate collapse into chaos and retribution. Absent from our screens due to events of the last two years; like a rabbit poking its head out of a burrow and birds tweeting, the bleats of overconfident, over-enthusiastic, over-their-heads young business hopefuls is surely a sign of nature healing. Delusional humanity marches on, the joys of watching them come a cropper eternal.
Proving that if it ain’t broken don’t fix it, the recipe remains essentially the same from its first serving 17 years ago. The main ingredients are, of course, the contestants, and from this season’s crop the chefs have selected some prime plonkers for our pleasure. I imagine it’s a tricky process, candidates who are too misshapen, unpalatable or tart and the dish becomes a mockery of itself, but you still need the flavour.

I’m happy to report that with the opening introductions including such gems such as “I can’t hear ‘no’,x I hear ‘next opportunity’” and “I’m so confident, people think I’m deluded. And that’s my strength”, it looks like a vintage yield.

The tasks allow everyone to be stirred together so they can start to disintegrate, and in the opening episode the “girls” and “boys” teams are sent off to create and market a new type of ocean cruise. Interestingly, there are a few differences from when this dish was first served nearly two decades ago. Most of these aspirants must’ve been small children then, and they’ve learnt to avoid the various pitfalls of their predecessors. The “boys” don’t aggressively try to out-peacock each other. Mostly. The “girls” don’t descend into bitchiness. Mostly. People put themselves up for roles knowing that strategically hanging back won’t help them. Mostly. But still, a human being is a human being, and hubris will always be our downfall.
Expert editing provides every terrible decision with dramatic foreshadowing for the cascading disasters that follow. Watching through fingers, you cringe as the boys create a logo they think is brilliant, wince as they all ignore and talk over the one person who can see the unfolding catastrophe, and then howl as it finally dawns on them just what their “genius” creation, looks like.

I’d forgotten how hilarious this show is, how pleasurable it is to just openly and cruelly laugh at someone, because essentially, they deserve it. Sacrificial lambs are just yummier if they’re wearing business suits to try and fool us that they’re really lions.
Condiments are added in the form of advisors Karren Brady and Tim Campbell. Tim was the winner of the first series, and the pained expressions he makes must also be part self-recognition. Karren still has the best eye-rolls in the business, and you can’t but wonder why the candidates don’t just look in her direction and take their cues by doing whatever makes her look least exasperated. And then of course, tying the whole ensemble together is the seasoning, in the form of our very own Alan ‘Meshuggeneh’ Sugar. His delivery of a pearler like “You’re nickname is AK47? They get fired very quickly” might have the hamminess of a Catskills hack, but he gets the job done with a chef’s kiss, thus ensuring that this is one televisual feast, you can certify as kosher.