The Apprentice just hit a new low with the most stupid episode of all time

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that The Apprentice is a deeply stupid show that relishes making its candidates look even more deeply stupid. This is normally part of the draw to even tuning in to Lord Sugar’s 12 week ego stroking competition. We’re all on board for making the candidates look a bit daft – it’s what we’ve signed up for. But last night’s episode proved this show is long past making interesting scenarios for us to watch the candidates buffoon around to. Gone are the days of coming up with creative, tech savvy tasks that force the candidates to make a video game or even a little TV commercial – and instead The Apprentice has just gone with the nonsensical and sheer stupid.

If you were blessed enough to miss last night’s second episode of The Apprentice 2024, then I’ll fill you in on what we were treated to. Even the least seasoned viewer of The Apprentice would know that every episode starts the same: One of Sugar’s subordinates bells up a candidate who answers the phone in the house in his boxers with a quick demand for them to meet the Amstrad mogul somewhere pointless in London in a ridiculously short space of time. They’ve got 20 mins to get their Moss Bros suits on and meet Sugar at London’s Royal Exchange – previously the country’s first purpose built hub for stocks, and now somewhere Tories go to spend a lot of money on food vendors.

So here we are. The candidates are stood in formation and Karren and Tim look suitably snooty as the diminutive Lord Sugar waddles in. He says that the task this week will be capitalising on the latest food trend, which they’ll be flogging on the streets and to corporate clients. Before he declared what food trend it was that’s apparently got the country in a chokehold, I pondered what it could be. Biscoff, poke bowls… I was drawing a blank. The hot food item right now that’s taken the nation by storm according to the stupid Apprentice? Mini cheesecakes… Okay.

I have not seen a single soul eating a mini cheesecake of recent, or discussing them in any, way, shape or form. So who are the corporate clients who the candidates have to flog their luxury mini cheesecakes to? Perhaps a high street bakery, or even a supermarket chain with a popular bakery aisle! Nope. The corporate clients are Innocent Drinks, aka smoothies and – wait for it – The London Dungeon. I feel like I’ve fallen asleep and woken up in a surrealist nightmare – and I’m just rotting on my sofa watching this hell. God knows how the candidates must feel.

Because this was the lethal blow this episode needed – it didn’t really matter where we went from here. Because why should we care? I am not arsed about seeing people who aren’t in the food industry try and cook. First of all, we saw that last week – and it was a mess. What are the corporate clients buying these cheesecakes for and why should we care? I literally don’t give a crap what the staff of The London Dungeon are munching on.

And more to the point – the mini cheesecakes are charged between six and 14 quid depending on where the candidates were flogging them. I think the bare minimum I’d expect for that price was the equivalent of a little Gü pot dessert. The cheesecakes the candidates have produced look less than bite sized, like a canapé at the shittest wedding you’ve ever been to.

So when it comes to who wins and who loses, we actually really don’t care. Half of this lot came to The Apprentice with businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with baking or cooking and yet that’s all they’re being shoved out to do. At one point on the ingredients table, I saw crab sticks. This show is just making a mockery of everyone, including the viewers for tuning in – the only problem is it isn’t funny.

The Apprentice 2024 Series 18 continues on Thursdays on BBC One and BBC iPlayer – for all the latest reality TV and entertainment news, memes and gossip, like Pop Culture Shrine on Facebook. 

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