The Apprentice S04E12 - The Final

I'm not saying its a fix, BUT with everyone reporting a surprise winner of The Apprentice last night - is it really a surprise that a Sales Team Manager won a £100,000 job to...manage a sales team?

Last night's final was pretty pointless as the candidates performance seemed to have no effect on the eventual winner - Lee McQueen was by far the far the weakest out of the final four, his pitch was poor and the product was a shoddy 70s mess - yet the vague firing criteria allowed Sir Alan to choose his man.

I do think this could be the year that people remember that The Apprentice jumped the shark not just for Sir Alan hiring the man who told a couple of whopping porkies on his CV and can barely seem to speak, but for how the programme has descended into a parody of itself.

This year came over as every episode was straining to recreate infamous moments of previous seasons, with people seemingly chosen because they would fuck up every week or cause a ruck. The business aspect of the show was put on the back burner and this time around it became more of a reality show that in previous years with people showing their personalities more than their skills.

What set the show apart from others was the degree of credibility that it had - Sir Alan wouldn't suffer fools lightly - this time around he clearly did as Michael lasted so long and many of larger personalities stayed in with several quieter types fired for trivial reasons. Hopefully next time round they can redress the balance and it can remain one of the highlights in the BBC's year, but with the amount of coverage it now gets I can only see it carrying on further down this path.