Young Apprentice Vs The Apprentice

Remember when The Apprentice was a real thing? Remember when it was a legitimate contest to find the brightest business brain in the country and hand its owner a dream job working alongside Alan Sugar?

That’s not really the case any more. The series has orbited further and further away from that kernel to the point where it’s a now a show about 16 aggressively moronic dimwits burbling and drooling and bumping into things until all but one of them has died of stupidity, at which point Alan Sugar flings them some money and prays that he never has to see them again. It isn’t about business any more. I met Stuart Baggs the other week. I wouldn’t trust him to work a kettle, let alone run a company.

But there is salvation, and it comes in the form of Young Apprentice, which starts tonight. As anyone who saw last year’s series - Junior Apprentice as it was called then - will know, it has a sweetness and lightness of touch that’s lacking from the original. You’d never find one of the grown-ups describing their job as ‘selling eggs and sweets’ like young Emma Walker did last year. They’d call themselves a confectionery magnate or a poultry offspring deployment CEO. And you’d hate them for it. Rightly.

However, the Young Apprentice contestants are a slightly more sympathetic bunch, largely because they’re treated with a tenderness that you just don’t find in its parent show. Take tonight’s episode, for example. Rather than jab his finger about and yell “BLADDY” every fifth word, Lord Sugar is forced to tone down his approach to the extent that, no word of a lie, he actually tells the candidates that he loves them about three seconds after meeting them. Likewise, Nick refrains from screwing up his face like a bloodhound sucking on a battery - which is his entire reason to be - quite as much as usual. And if Alan Sugar and Nick Hewer can’t hate the Young Apprentice candidates, you won’t be able to either. Right?

Well, that’s a tricky one. On one hand, all the candidates are genuinely gifted and successful and regularly display more insight than their adult counterparts, and manage to do so at a time in their lives when their bodies are deliberately flooding with hormones that make them gangly and awkward and confused. To do what they do at their age is both impressive and admirable.

But on the other hand, they’re still Apprentice candidates. They’re still obnoxiously confident. They still make outlandishly preposterous claims about their own ability. They still turn up to the boardroom dressed like extras from an R Kelly video. They still lack the ability to satisfactorily haggle or do maths. If they were five years older you’d hate them all with the intensity of a thousand suns. But you can’t. They’re children. You can’t hate a child. You’re not a monster.

It’s this complexity of reaction that, in my opinion, puts Young Apprentice just ahead of the original. The candidates might be awful but - you know what - you were probably just as awful when you were 16, too. And at least you can hide all the photo evidence of that. These poor sods are broadcasting it to millions of people. Their bad hair and unusually large tie-knots are going to haunt them for the rest of their lives, even if they go back to selling eggs and sweets. The least you can do is share in their humiliation.

Which do you think is better: Young Apprentice or The Apprentice? Head over to our Facebook page or Twitter feed (@TVOnVM) to let us know!

Young Apprentice starts on Monday 24th October at 9pm on BBC One.