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The Apprentice returned tonight for its 11th series. That's right: we've had 10 full runs of bonkers business speak, appalling acumen and Primark suits. Yet the candidates have still learnt nothing.
Tonight's premiere ushered in 18 new, innocent Apprentice babies - all eagerly spouting waffle about being Swiss army knives, disgustingly ambitious and Hugh Hefner-esque ("If my boyfriend said he wanted to be like Hugh Hefner I'd kick him where it hurt," one female candidate noted).
But all the big talk can only go so far, and even a simple task such as buying fish, tarting it up and flogging it to members of the public can see these paragons of the business world crumble.
Even choosing team names was a debacle. Poor Charleine suggested Illustrious but was overruled by Scott's pitch of Team Versatile, leaving her cheering the new name with less enthusiasm than Lord Sugar going to Piers Morgan's for dinner. At least she can be reassured that she wasn't Dan, who offered up the suggestion of the Sugar Babes (his team opted for the much blander Connexus instead).
April became project manager for Connexus, neatly avoiding the common Apprentice pitfall of being indecisive by making a series of terrible decisions very quickly. Over with Versatile, Selina was railroaded into being project manager after offering: "Obviously I cook, and I'm intolerant to loads of food." This was pounced upon as if she'd just confessed to having three Michelin stars and a fish farm in her back garden.
As for the task, where to begin? Team Versatile's foul calamari, which had been left to stew in the sun, rendering it literally dangerous to public health? April's baffling belief that anyone would willingly part with £9 for a dodgy tuna salad in a plastic tub? Mergim's attempts to sell fish to a vegan? (We should have seen this coming after he asked in the kitchen: "Is this an onion?")
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Elsewhere, Brett Butler-Smythe's desire to rigidly stick to the recipe was a thing of wonder, even when it produced towering fishcakes that rivalled the Shard. April questioned his methods ("I don't care about the ringlet!") but Brett could not be moved, and by the time the Boardroom was over our ears were ringing with the word "specification", which he spouted more often than Lord Sugar says: "Shut up."
Still, after Connexus missed the lunchtime rush and made a "pathetic" profit of just £1.87, both Brett and April survived, with hapless Dan being the one to get fired. Poor Dan - who incurred the wrath of Lord Sugar on their first meeting for having his hands in his pockets - is the sort of candidate who's just too nice and sensible for The Apprentice, the kind who hovers around the car trying to get his coat.
Dan's ultimate downfall, though, was that he cannot sell - even loveable Ruth, whose technique was dubbed "creepy" by Karren Brady, did better. We're sad to see a bumbling character like him leave so early on in the process, but on the strength of this first episode there are plenty more bumbles to come - because these candidates don't seem to have learned a thing. And thank God for that.
As always, the little moments are the special ones - Charleine brightly shouting "crab meat" to no-one in particular during a chaotic brainstorm; April throwing the phone down in a rage when her subteam dare to suggest her prices might be a little unreasonable; Mergim going on a Boardroom rant about how none of his colleagues dared to be project manager ("Did you put yourself forward?" "I didn't.").
Because that's the thing: this is all stuff that could have happened in any series of The Apprentice. But that's how we like it - the show is like a comforting fish finger sandwich topped with a nice garnish of feeling superior. We could do better, we all say - which is presumably exactly what those hapless candidates thought.
The Apprentice continues tomorrow (October 15) at 9pm on BBC One.
