TV recap: THE APPRENTICE series 6 episode 1, BANGERS

Finally, it’s here! After what felt like a very underwhelming series of Junior Apprentice, we’re finally onto the original. Margaret Mountford has gone and is replaced by the formidable Karen Brady, but the rest of the formula is reassuringly familiar. And by that, I mean a batch of completely deluded contestants who are almost swimming in their own arrogance, paired with tasks specifically designed to expose those exact flaws. 

The challenge this week is to manufacture and sell sausages, and from the looks of it, the contestants will be making a pig's ear of it.

“Everything I touch turns to sold”, drawls one of the candidates, following up with “Where’s my glass ceiling?” Already, he has established himself as a self-serving, egotistical goon amidst a sea of egotistical goons. The episode truly kicks into gear in when Sir Alan divides the teams, as per standard, by gender. 

The first task for both teams is to pick their names. The women, after dallying with an atrocious “Winning Women”, plump for Apollo, because, as one of the candidates notes, for the Apollo, as for them, “failure is not an option.” Meanwhile, the men flit between Fusion and Synergy, before the latter is selected by the majority.

Next up, picking the project managers. Dan Harris, the oldest of the men, throws himself in the ring straight away, while Joanna volunteers for the women with a bit more reserve. The two teams then have to map out their strategies for manufacturing and pitching their stock. The men opt for bargain basement sausages, whilst the women decide the more delicate angle with premium gourmet sausages. 

Already the two project managers are starting to exhibit their true colours. Dan frantically waves his arms around and hollers the f-words repeatedly, whereas Joanna instantly flashes a patronizing streak. Karren Brady, observing the men, is far from impressed with Dan, noting that he is “very aggressive.”

“Who the fuck is it?” hollers Dan, in another display of unprovoked aggression later on in the task. By this point, the two teams have gone to the meat markets to purchase their raw supplies, largely failing to negotiate any decent bargains in the process.

The women's team opts for some fairly obscure ingredients for their sausages, choosing ham and mint for one batch, and chicken and chilli for another. When they put all the ingredients into the machine and produce sausages, I must say, the sausages bore an uncanny, rather phallic resemblance. Soon, however, Apollo have take-off, churning out a final batch that looks at least mildly presentable.

Elsewhere with Synergy, Dan pouts briefly, before resuming with throwing his weight around. The boys' team’s sausages come out of the machine looking like dried faeces, a most unappetising sight. Jamie Lester is truly unimpressed with his PM, noting that Dan “can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery”. Meanwhile, the women’s sausages are overstuffed with pricey mint, prompting the two candidates managing the accounts to realise that the team isn't churning out anywhere near the volume they had originally projected.

After that “night of hard graft”, the women’s sausages are actually looking fairly presentable. Unfortunately, when packaged, they look much like the men’s – sausages in a box. To exhibit their higher end ingredients, they must give tasters. 

The men start selling, telling people that the sausages are “Made by us” - not really a selling point if you ask me. Synergy hit Portobello market, complete with speakerphone. The deal they’re offering is £3.99 for a pack, 3 packs for a tenner. They are frying samples, which pulls in buyers.

Stuart Baggs on Team Synergy is very eager to let it be known that he sells a lot. “To be honest I sell the most here”, he drawls. When his intrusive selling style is called into question by another team-mate, he gets shirty. “Who’s selling the most?” he demands, with the  petulant air of a spoilt child. 

The women need to recoup their high production costs, but early sales are incredibly slow. Nick Hewer, watching their flat performance from the sidelines, observes wryly “You sell the sizzle, not the sausage”. It is a pointed reminder that the women have completely failed to grasp the concept of giving free tasters. After a while, they do realise what the cooking utensils next to them are meant for. “Better late than never,” he mutters.

The men then try to sell sausages to people in pubs. 90p a sausage, the guy in the pub is not having any of it. Dan just moves his arms about and swears in an attempt to be assertive. 

Meanwhile, in Apollo, friction is arising. Melissa feels she’s being usurped; she'd invested the groundwork into a customer, only for Joanna Riley to swoop in and hog the glory by closing the deal. While Joanna argues defensively that “As long as the deal’s done”, individual credit is irrelevant, the pragmatic logic does absolutely nothing to quiet Melissa's grievances. It’s “a matter of professionalism”, she complains.

The men, for some godforsaken reason, decide that when faced with a mountain of unsold, expiring stock, it’s the right time to do a stocktake, a masterstroke that’s guaranteed to make zero revenue. Throughout the chaos, Dan continues to bark at his team and wave his right arm about, left hand buried firmly in his apron pocket, as if this aggressive posturing somehow proves his leadership credentials. Dr Shibby Robati, a practicing surgeon, talks about how fed up he is with his project manager’s brash confrontational style. Soon, the day ends.

Apollo and Synergy enter the Board room. Sir Alan asks them how their names and project managers came about. “I put myself forward”, Joanna says smugly. Then comes the moment of truth. Synergy spent more, and made more money than Apollo, but the women's sub-team managed their overheads so meticulously that, overall, they clinched the victory by a razor-thin margin of just £15 in profit.

Nick gives some rare words of encouragement to the women who’d done the numbers, “Stella and Elizabeth are hot on the figures”. True enough; both women avoided chasing screen time, choosing instead to step back and execute their financial tasks with quiet diligence and mathematical precision. In a sea of otherwise insufferable clowns, Stella and Liz are undeniably the ones to watch as the process continues.

So, the women win, and are escorted back to their place of residence for the duration of the show – a Georgian townhouse slap bang in the middle of London’s west end. It is gorgeous, complete with a grand piano, a luxury sofa, a modern deco kitchen, sauna, and gym with treadmill. Downstairs, a chef is cooking sausages. Apollo can just about see the funny side, and tuck into (what looks like) some delicious finger food.

As for the men, they come home later, after the celebrations, as Sir Alan Sugar says he’s too tired for the recriminations to begin immediately. Stuart confidently declares “I’m going to take my suitcase in and I am not going to pack a thing. Because I’m not going home.” 

Once in the board room, the sniping begins in earnest. It is quickly revealed that Project Manager Dan only sold £14 worth, though his defence – and it is a defence he uses many times throughout the interrogation – is that he was too busy “managing.” When questioned on being “Out of his depth”, he doubles down, stubbornly declaring “I focused on being a project manager”. But his teammates aren’t having any of it. One of them immediately chips in with a blistering review, comparing his leadership style to “a bull in a china shop - so aggressive and so thuggish”.

Dan decides that he will drag Stuart Baggs and Alex Epstein back into the board room. Once they’re in, Stuart and Dan begin arguing immediately. The conflict provides a delicious layer of irony; after all that harping on, it turns out Stuart didn’t sell the most. As the dissent spirals, Dan desperately doubles down on the excuse that his hands were full with high-level project management. Stuart counterattacks with a brand of petulant sarcasm unique to a twenty-one-year-old (by the way, it is very hard to believe that he’s only one year older than me, such is his weather-beaten face and his disparaging remarks).

In the end, Dan gets fired, which I think is by far and away one of the best firings Alan Sugar has made. Before sending Dan packing in a black cab, Lord Sugar takes the opportunity to knock Stuart down a peg or two, telling him to only speak when he’s being spoken to. Thus concludes the first episode of a long-awaited season of The Apprentice. 

Next week, the teams are tasked with designing and selling package holidays. BRING IT.

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