Review – The Apprentice Australia

The Apprentice: Australia – Channel 9 – 9:30pm Monday – AUS

In a bizarre programming move Channel 9 are bringing us a local version of a reality television show that peaked in popularity five years ago. I hear that next on cards for 9 are Australia’s Average Joe and Temptation Island: Down Under. However, whether we need The Apprentice Australia is not really the question, the question is: Is it any good?

The answer is of course always going to be: No.

Replacing The Trump himself is Mark Bouris, a local self made millionaire and founder of Wizard home loans. Mark must be a very good businessman because he makes for a very very bad host. Mark Bouris is a poor man’s Donald Trump, a very poor man’s Donald Trump. Struggling with cue cards and lines like “you’ve got the show, but have you got the go” Mark flounders about the place looking for controversy where there is none. My favourite moment was when he called the girls team “completely dysfunctional” when from what we saw they were in fact “mostly functional.”

Which leads directly into the biggest problem with The Apprentice Australia; there is no drama. After we met six slick haired egotistical men who proclaimed themselves the best they can be, and met six equally egotistical women who proclaimed themselves the best they can be the girls and the guys were separated into two teams and given the task of… running a lawn mower business. Sorry “run a premier gardening service.” Um? What?

I was at a loss for a few minutes as the teams ran about thinking up business strategies. As they started going door to door in overalls asking to mow people’s lawns I still wasn’t quite sure if I had gotten the gist of what their actual challenge was. They were set the task of acquiring business and residential clients for their “premier gardening service.” Seriously, we were expected to watch a bunch of people run around asking a bunch of other people if they could mow their lawns.

I’m not sure what television shows the makers of The Apprentice Australia have been watching recently but most of them don’t start their series with the exciting prospect of gardening. For an hour we got to watch the two teams battle it out to see if they could finish their jobs in time to get the cash. Take away the suits and the douchebags and we’d be watching Mark Bouris: Backyard Blitz.

The Apprentice Australia suffers from the worst disease in reality television: WHO-CARES-itis. The phenomenon of the viewer at home yelling ‘who cares!’ at the TV screen whenever something happens. “Oh no! Will they be able to put the mulch on the garden in time?!” WHO CARES?! “You let down some clients and you shouldn’t do that.” WHO CARES?! “Welcome, I’m Mark Bouris…” WHO CARES?!

The biggest problem with The Apprentice Australia though, other than its existence, is the fact you can pick who’s leaving pretty easily. Mark has to choose somebody to be fired, which really means ‘the producers’ have to choose somebody to be fired. In the first episode we already know the girls are going to lose because we know that $400 plus $900 plus $200 is less than the $1,250 plus the unnamed figure for the two gardening jobs the boys did. We know that the Crazy Crying Lady is going to bring Miss World Australia 2006 and Old Jane into the boardroom with her.

We know that Miss World Australia 2006 is very attractive so she’s not going anywhere, and we know that Crazy Crying Lady is Crazy and Cries and that makes for good TV so obviously Jane’s going home, because Jane is boring. Crazy Crying Lady lost the team a stack of cash by underbidding, she tried to weasel out of a contract, she basically stuffed up at everything but what apparently that wasn’t as great Jane’s crime. Mark Bouris’s actual reason for her firing was that she “didn’t fight back” when people started having a go at her. Ahh yes, that old chestnut of ‘she doesn’t make good TV’.

It’s called The Omarosa Principle. Omarosa was a contestant on the first season of The Apprentice US. She was completely hopeless, but she was mental so she stayed on the show a lot longer than she should have. Even after she was fired she got brought back later on because she made good television. There’s the lesson for you.

At the end of the episode one of the many bland contestants says that their quickly learning that “we are here for a job interview.” No, sorry honey, you’re here for a TV show. I’ll probably never watch this show again but I’d put a bet that the next three contestants to leave are boring, easily forgettable, don’t cry and never argue, or even if they do argue they don’t argue crazily enough.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad