Lumbering on into its thirteenth series, you can’t help but wonder why Lord Sugar hasn’t packed it in and retired. Yet he still chooses to subject himself to stupidity, chaos and bad planning, all packaged up in the form of 18 loud-mouthed, egotistical contestants. The thought of it alone is enough to make anyone recoil, but I am living for it.

Look, no-one likes watching ‘The Apprentice’ these days. Or at least, no-one likes to admit they still watch it. There’s something about watching ridiculous, terrible people make ridiculous, terrible decisions that provides endless entertainment. This week saw the candidates designing luxury hotel rooms. A tight budget and only a couple of days to complete the task is always a recipe for disaster, and oh boy did it deliver. Whether it was Elizabeth’s bumbling about every inch of the room, brandishing her measuring tape like a weapon, or Jeff justifying his creativity (or lack thereof) with his ‘background in breakdancing’ at every point, this episode was comedy gold.

The results were disastrous as always, the girls’ choice of ‘golf’ as a theme left much to be desired, the ‘abstract’ golf ball wallpaper being a highlight. The boys, however, left the room looking like it had been designed by five-year-olds, with walls the colours of the Union Jack – red, blue and… yellow? As if that wasn’t bad enough, they paid an actual designer to do a freehand sketch of the London skyline on one wall, and it was so bad that they may as well have just scribbled on the wall themselves. Lord Sugar’s final decision was more a case of which one he hated the least. The girls’ team managed to scrape a win, whereas Jeff got the boot from the boys’ team – a total crime. I was hoping to see him breakdancing his way to the final.

Ananya Sriram

Image: Digital Spy