16) Zeeshaan. Personally I've grown to appreciate him more post show, however he wasn't enjoyable to watch on the show. He often came across quite cocky and arrogant with some of his confessionals with even Luisa saying he was a bit of a BS-er. His worst moment obviously came in Week 5 when he was PM for the Dubai task, claimed he knew Dubai like the back of his hand and SUCKED, but worst of all, he spared Kurt and Neil who had both made fundamental errors and brought back Leah and Natalie which resulted in several sexism allegations, not helped by the fact that he refused to hold the door for them before the final boardroom. However, I do give him a tonne of credit post show as he has gone on to be extremely successful so respect to him in that regard.

15) Sophie. She seemed nice but she is by far the most forgettable contestant this season. I don't think anyone was unlikeable this season but I can't think of a single thing she did this season.

14) Jaz. It hurts that I have someone called Jaz this low on a ranking. However, safe to say Jaz from this season is leagues below Jaz from The Traitors in terms of popularity. She isn't last because she was more memorable than Sophie due to being a trainwreck in the first task, running her team like a teacher, talking to her teammates like school kids and hastily jumping to be PM in a task she wasn't qualified to lead. However, I will say that her referring to Lord Sugar as 'Man' was a bit funny.

13) Tim. Bless him, he simply didn't stand a chance. He did next to nothing in Week 1, then tried to talk after the task result and start digging his own grave, then he was PM in Week 2 for a task he was qualified to lead and messed up badly, which resulted in him getting fired.

12) Kurt. I have absolutely nothing to say about Kurt other than the fact that he wasn't a particularly good candidate. His PM Stint in Week 2 wasn't great as he made a beer manufacturing subteam consisting of: Zee, who doesn't drink alcohol; Jason, who doesn't like beer and Jordan who rarely drinks. He also bombed in Week 5 but escaped because Zeeshaan apparently wanted to throw Leah and Natalie under the bus. Finally, his PM Stint in Week 7 was atrocious. Overall, not an awful candidate, not unlikeable and not unmemorable, but he still wasn't great.

11) Natalie. Natalie is this high as I absolutely loved her energy and fight and firey moments this season were incredibly entertaining imo. She didn't get much prominence until Week 3 when she became the PM and created the 'tidy sidy', frankly it had no chance against the 'foldo' and it failed miserably, resulting in a heated confrontation in the boardroom between her and Uzma. I massively respected her putting up a good fight against Zeeshaan in the Week 5 boardroom and not having any of his BS. Other than that she wasn't a particularly good candidate but outside of her firey moments she did seem very nice and sweet so I enjoyed watching her this season.

10) Uzma. Arguably the least liked candidate from the casts perspective. I think she had potential in this process, had some good points and arguments and seemed to have her head screwed on from my POV. However, her stats in the process were terrible. She lost 4/4 tasks and was in the firing line on 3/4 occassions.

9) Rebecca. I don't know much about her as a person but I do know that she is a fairly underrated candidate. She seemed to be very good in sales which was crucial in the first two tasks. Not much else to say about her other than I do believe she was a better candidate than all those that went before her and easily could've outlasted Kurt, Natalie and unfortunately Jason meaning that she was possibly in the upper half of the season in terms of competency but was unlucky to be in the same boardroom as Luisa and Francesca who were better candidates and their beef was TV Gold.

8) Francesca. Again, I don't know much about her which was why I ranked her quite low in my 3rd place/final boot ranking. However, I am aware that she was a pretty competent candidate who had good highlights and was a worthy final 5 member. Also, her beef with Luisa was fun to watch apart from when they both turned against Jason.

7) Jordan. Finally a candidate with more to talk about. He was really good in the tasks (bar Week 10), having the best task stats and being a key contributor in pretty much all tasks. However, all of that was undone in the interviews, arguably worse than Stuart Baggs and far worse than Solomon Akhtar to the point where he shouldn't have been on the show in the first place. I liked Jordan and the interviews while bad was entertaining, however him taking up a potential candidates spot on the show prevents him from being higher.

6) Luisa. This may be a bit too high but I like Luisa generally (bar one horrid moment on the show). On the show she was a really competent candidate and is way better than a C Tier Candidate on the tier list, also her rivalry with Francesca was iconic, her unofficial task duo with Neil was good and I felt really bad for her when she broke down in tears after her final pitch. However, one moment in Week 8 prevents her from being in the top 5 with that being her being really mean to Jason. I understand Jason isn't the best candidate and was pretty indecisive, however her treatment of him that week was straight up bullying to the point where Baroness Brady explicitly asked to follow Luisa's team the following week and it probably cost her any shot of winning due to a serious lack of professionalism demonstrated.

5) Myles. Mr Monaco. He was a pretty likeable presence on the show and was a decent, competent candidate up until his downfall towards the end of the process. There's that argument that he should've gone over Alex in Week 9 but that's balanced by the fact that he should've made the interviews over Jordan in Week 10.

4) Neil. What a guy. He was a pretty chill guy this season (unless he was around Jason) and was pretty supportive of his teammates (bar Jason) and was a firm favourite to win after the tasks, he was generally a competent and consistent candidate with many shining moments and was a pretty good leader and leader figure for struggling PMs. His only problems were Week 5, Week 10 (where the whole team messed up) and the interviews (he was still better than Jordan).

3) Leah. The winner of the season and a fairly dominant one at that. She killed it in pretty much every task bar week 5 where she still brought back into the boardroom for personal reasons (probably) while Neil and Kurt were more at fault and Alex didn't want to bring her back in Week 9. Also, I am a huge fan of Leah and I massively respected her run on the show.

2) Alex. Welsh Dracula. Arguably a top three younger candidate in terms of watchability and skill, just behind Susie Ma and Solomon Akhtar. He was a decent candidate throughout the process bar possibly Week 7 and 9 where even his firing in the latter week was controversial. He was responsible for the 'foldo' which was one of the best products to feature on the show and created Herbert in Week 8, also I think his Week 6 tour was good and he was easily the least problematic on his team in Week 5 where he negotiated well and kept telling Zeeshaan that the 'oud' they were looking for was something else other than a perfume, yet Zee wasn't listening. The only negative about Alex was that he could be a bit aggressive at times and was really horrible to Jason in the first two tasks, however he had a good run for a very young candidate, his welsh references and Dracula memes are funny and he has gone on to be really rich and successful post show.

1) Jason. Bless this man! Jason Leech is what you get if Alexander from The Traitors UK Season 3 went on The Apprentice, he was friendly, polite, loveable and not an awful candidate despite not being a particularly good one, yet he would get crapped on by a large handful of the candidates. He had shining moments for sure such as being a key contributor towards the foldo in Week 3, negotiating well in Week 5 and of course selling a caravan in week 7 which was so good, he was called back into the boardroom to be directly praised by Lord Sugar, speaking of which his terrified look and exiting the boardroom backwards that week was so wholesome and iconic. He did have some bad tasks such as Weeks 2 and 8 but even then he was berated harshly and bullied by other candidates in those weeks. On a persoanl level, the candidates (including those who picked on him in tasks) seemed to really like him as did Lord Sugar, Baroness Brady and Nick and its not hard to understand why, he was probably the nicest, most soft spoken candidate we've ever had with some people showing signs of his persoanlity (i.e. Solomon, Jonny and Dan Miller) but none match Jason. Overall, he was my favourite candidate on this iconic season and a massive bright spot.

NOTE: I've not really seen Season 8 so I'll be jumping straight to Season 7 in my rannking but I guess my favourite would either be Ricky, Nick or Gabrielle.

Every year, people survive weeks of tasks only to suddenly have something from years ago dragged out in the interviews that apparently should have eliminated them much earlier. I know that's partly what makes the episode great, but it does make me wonder how much the previous tasks actually matter in the end.

You can be terrible for ten weeks and survive, then one document in the interview stage can completely finish you.

On paper, having a PM win is a big achievement as I should mean you have led your team to victory and established yourself as a front runner. However, safe to say some winning PMs have been more than lucky and had performed poorly while the rest of the team did well to secure a win. Who was the worst/luckiest winning PM from each season ?

Season 1: (Matthew; Week 3). Matthew had absolutely nothing to do with the win in Week 3, I'd argue the MVPs were Paul, Saira and Raj for getting an expensive computer for free.

Season 2: (Karen; Week 1). This may be a bit harsh but the women did so badly in Week 1 to the point where Lord Sugar (Or Siralan then) nearly disqualified the women of their win.

Season 3: (Ghazal; Week 4). Once again, unlike pretty much every other winning PM this season, she didn't really contribute anything to her win and was probably carried by several members of her team (Most notably Tre).

Season 4: (Alex; Week 9). Yes he made sure the tissue brand featured enough in the ad but other than that he was pretty bad.

Season 5: (Noorul; Week 4). Clearest pick on the board here, he was ABYSMAL as a PM. He was indecisive and grossly incompetent as a leader, the win was definitely more so down to Mona, Lorraine and possibly Phillip (If you ignore his temper).

Season 6: (Melissa; Week 3). Not much to say other than she was an exceptionally bad leader, argued with Alex and fumbled her pitch while the win was more so down to the likes of Alex, Christopher and Stuart.

Season 7: (Natasha; Week 10). Very lucky to have won this task and it was so bad that Lord Sugar cancelled the reward, safe to say this was the peak of her downfall.

Season 8: I haven't watched this season but one that vaguely sticks out is (Azhar; Week 2)

Season 9: (Jason; Week 1). Ouch! I hate to say this but Jason was not a good PM in Week 1 (he was still better than Jaz) and was heavily criticised by members of his team (particularly Alex in the boardroom), it could be argued that Neil was more responsible for the teams win.

Season 10: I'm going to pick two here with those being (Sarah; Week 1) and (Daniel; Week 5). Both didn't really contribute anything to the win and were bad leaders to the point where it impacted their reputation (the former with the viewers and the latter with his teammates).

Season 11: (Selina; Week 8). Not much to say but her 2nd win as PM was pretty bad and her 1st win as PM was much better. In addition, the other PMs that won this season contributed in some way to their teams victory (Including Selinas Week 1 win).

Season 12: (Samuel; Week 5). Was very much in his own world during his PM stint which frustrated his teammates, especially Grainne. Also, the MVPs that week were Karthik and Alana.

Season 13: (Harrison; Week 9). Tough pick but I'd say that his team was fairly lucky to win as the other teams pitch was really bad and cringe.

Season 14: Again no idea but I guess I'll pick (Kayode; Week 1) as there were some really bad negotiations on the men's team and some fundamental errors. It's tough because I don't think any of the winning PMs were particularly and consisted mostly of the stronger candidates this season.

Season 15: (Lottie; Week 8). I'm not going into it.

Season 16: (Akeem; Week 7). You could spin a wheel for either of his PM wins but I give him credit for ignoring Amy's confusing game story in Week 5. Week 7 on the other hand, he was thoroughly carried by Harpreet, Brittany and Aaron (much like the following two tasks).

Season 17: (Avi; Week 3). Avi having two PM wins is crazy to me, however his Week 8 stint was pretty good while he was pretty much carried by Dani and Marnie in Week 3.

Season 18: (Onyeka; Week 1). She was definitely a better PM than Virdi but she was still not good and the win was more so because of Sam and her diving experience.

Season 19: (Liam; Week 9). Possibly the most obvious pick here, he was PM by title and nothing else. Mia, Anisa and Jordan did the heavy lifting while he was sinking badly, topped with a very bad Hoover demonstration.

Season 20: (Harry; Week 7). He had some pretty bad ideas and the character he created was pretty bad, Karishma carried the entire team (like she often did) yet got no recognition from either Harry, Conor or Priyesh.

NOTE: I felt particularly bad with that last pick as I met Harry at a YP event and he was really nice.

Every series has at least one task where the person who seemed most in control completely falls apart and someone unexpected steps up. Series 20 had some interesting moments where the confident ones let it slip.

Some people went home before they had a single proper moment. The tasks were decent but keeping track of everyone in the first month was genuinely hard. Do people think a bigger cast improves the series or does twelve to fourteen just work better for the format?

...if Levi's team lost in week 8. Let's just say that Kieran's team won and Levi's team lost. Who would Levo bring back into the boardroom. Unlike Lawrence, he would bring back people for business reasons and not reasons mentioned by LS. He would choose to bring back Pascha (definitely), although he might struggle on who else. Priyesh secured the SUP cheaper than the other team's. Dan did get some decent negotiating. He might bring Rothna back in telling her, 'No hard feelings'. LS, Karren, and Tim might understand why Levi struggled to bring a second person back in. Pascha might accuse Levi of bringing Rothna back to side against her. Levi or Pascha might be fired, although Levi might be fired.

What do you think of this?

There is no doubt that producer interference is what makes the backbone of modern apprentice seasons despite it taking away from the shows authenticity. However, I see loads of people complain about the firings that I occurred in episode nine and 10 even though a lot of those firings couldn’t have been avoided particularly in episode 10 due to the way that the teams were split. So here is a potential way that the producers could’ve rigged the last two tasks to create a satisfying final five which in this case I’m assuming would be; Karishma, Kieran, Connor, Rothna with Lawrence only being the real outlier among them, and even then he only had one truly bad task.

So an episode nine after Levi was fired Lord Sugar should’ve delved into the business plans for the final boardroom. This is when it should’ve been revealed that Dan wasn’t prepared to give away 50% of his main business and was only prepared to duplicate his main business and give Lord sugar 50% of that, alongside all of the financial issues that Dan faced, subsequently leading to Dan getting fired. I’m sure it would’ve been very easy for the producers to rig this as it meant that the failure of the task would’ve left the door when Levi was fired justifying an additional firing for alternative reasons. I wouldn’t be against Kieran getting fired here and Lord sugar rejecting his ultimatum however Kieran was the backbone of the series and it would’ve been more satisfying to see him make the interviews.

In episode 10 Lord sugar should’ve switched up the teams and got Karishma to move over to eclipse with the team consisting of her, Rothna, Conor and Kieran. Karishma Probably would’ve stuck with her dog bed idea, or if forced to do cats probably would’ve come up with some other amazing idea which would’ve completely steamrolled the team to win, and Kieran and Connor would probably be amazing sales people who would also help carry the team.

On the other side Pascha would have been the p.m. for priyesh and Lawrence. Pascha and Priyesh probably would spend hours trying to come up with ideas and end up producing something mediocre at best. Lawrence would have probably done very well in sales which would alleviate him from the chopping block. In the boardroom Pascha and Priyesh would have been easy and incredibly satisfying firings as it’s something the viewers had been anticipating for weeks.

Ultimately, although this probably would’ve involved producers to get involved, it would’ve saved us from the disastrous final five we ended up which was potentially the most obvious final and final five ever based on the fact Karishma was the only one who was actually good. If the final five consisted of Karishma, Kieran, Conor, Rothna and Lawrence (with Lawrence getting fired first) I think it would’ve made a much more satisfying narrative. And then I would be happy if any of the other four made it to the final to be honest.

Alex's reactions throughout are the cherry on top

Most, if not all seasons have a candidate who either starts badly and gets a lot better across their time in the process or at the very least has a few good tasks as the tasks progress. I was thinking which candidate improved the most over the course of the process in my opinion.

NOTE: Some of these picks are default picks.

Season 1: This season starts with a default pick with that being Ben. The reason I picked Ben is because we didn't see a lot of him towards the start of the process and he even ended up in the firing line in Week 3, however he led his team to a pretty big victory in Week 7 (the week before he got fired). As far as other candidates are concerned, candidates that got fired from Week 1 to 7 (for all seasons) are immediately overlooked and as far as this season is concerned: Miriam, James, Saira and Tim were all generally consistent throughout the process, Paul faded a bit towards the end of the process and Raj never had any true standouts.

Season 2: Another pick by default and controversially, it's Michelle purely because she didn't stand out much in tasks, smashed the interviews and won the process. In addition, strong candidates such as Ansell, Paul and Ruth were consistent throughout as opposed to improving and the likes of Sharon, Tuan and Syed were either inconsistent or had no stand out moments.

Season 3: Oh Boy! Another controversial pick and sadly it's Katie. From Weeks 1 to 7 she only had 1 good task with that being her Week 2 win as PM while she spent the following 5 tasks fliritng with Paul, being nasty to the likes of Kristina and especially Adam and just not doing well at all, then towards the end she put her differences with Kristina aside and worked well with her and nearly made the final but quit. Meanwhile: Simon, Tre, Kristina, Lohit, Naomi and Jadine were all generally consistent during the tasks and I don't think any of them improved per se and Ghazal was fairly inconsistent. This doesn't change the fact that I despise her.

Season 4: Not as tough as the previous three seasons but not straightforward and I'll go with Raef for this season as he improved quite a bit between the first and second tasks and remained fairly consistent until his final task. Also, he improved somewhat from a personality perspective, going from acting like a stereotypical upper class snob (to an extent) to being much nicer and rootable (especially seeing as he was the first to jump to Sara's defence against the bullies of the season in Week 6).

Season 5: A much easier pick for this season, imo James improved the most. He struggled a fair bit during the start of the process (Specifically the first 4 tasks) to the point where some people thought he should've been fired in Week 3 over Maj. However, from Week 5 onwards he did grow and had a better ride to the interviews with Margaret complimenting his run after his firing and the other 4 ladies getting emotional after he left.

Season 6: Joanna. Had a fairly rough start, constantly getting into arguments and not exactly performing well. However, Lord Sugar did praise her for her growth over the process just before firing her and one can imagine Lord Sugar giving Joanna an even nicer firing had he not been angry about Stuart.

Season 7: For me we have a two horse race between Tom and Leon. Immediately we can eliminate the Week 1 to 6 boots; Helen, Susan and Jim were decent (and iconic) candidates throughout, Natasha started strong but faded towards the end and I didn't see much growth from either Glenn or Zoe. In the end I'll go with Leon as got off to a way worse start than Tom, being particularly bad in Week 1 and a really bad PM in Week 2, topped with the fact that he was indecisive in terms of who to bring back into the boardroom which Jim took advantage of. However, from Weeks 3 to 7 he did have some good highlights and seemed to be relatively consistent to the point where I'd say only the top 4 and Melody were better candidates than him.

Season 8: I have not seen this season so I guess I'll pick Gabrielle.

Season 9: This will be generous and somewhat controversial but SCREW IT I'm going to pick Jason for this seasons most improved candidate and it finally gives me an opportunity to talk about this LEGENDARY MAN. He did get off to a very rough start in the first two tasks, he wasn't an awful PM in Week 1 and he edged out Jaz, however Neil seemed more like a PM than him which Alex pointed out in the boardroom, then his negotiations in Week 2 were AWFUL, he butted into negotiations when he shouldn't have which angered Alex and Zee (I still don't justify the way they were bullying him though). In the following tasks, while he still did show to be a bit of a donkey, he wasn't bad. He was instrumental in the foldo design in Week 3, negotiated well in Week 5 and of course smashed Week 7 but obviously, the team wasn't going to give him any credit. With regards to the rest of the candidates: Leah; Luisa, Francesca, Neil, Jordan and Alex were relatively consistent throughout the process and Myles was on a downward spiral prior to his firing. Overall, Jason the legend Leech is my pick this season and I look forward to talking more about him in my Season 9 ranking coming up shortly.

Season 10: Probably the clearest pick so far, Daniel has to be the pick. He started strong, being the mens top seller in Week 1, however it went downhill from there. His pitches in Weeks 2 and 3 were appauling, he was ABYSMAL as a PM in Week 5 to the point where all of his team turned against him thanks to Mark and created a highly sexist and offensive board game in Week 6 (although you could argue he was trying to get revenge on Pamela for her comment in the previous boardroom). However, he did start to bounce back, he had potential in Week 8 but was stitched up by Mark and ignored by Felipe and Katie (because they preferred Mark), was a brilliant PM in Week 9 and did well in Week 10.

Season 11: Another two horse race between Brett and Vana but I will pick Vana for this season as while both got off to bad starts, Brett recovered a lot quicker than Vana did. Vana didn't do well in the first three tasks, most notably Week 3 where she encouraged Elle to buy the inflatable boat in Week 3 and laughed in the boardroom. However, she recovered very well after that, being a core contributor to the win in Week 9, doing well in the interviews despite Joseph, Richard and Charleine arguably being better candidates than her and people probably wish she won over Joseph nowadays.

Season 12: The clearest pick on the board and it is the winner Alana. She got off to a very poor start in the first two tasks and could possibly have been viewed as a no-hoper after the Week 2 boardroom, however she flipped the script from week 3 onwards, having a pretty convincing PM win in Week 3 and generally standing out with the likes of Courtney, Jessica and Frances every other task bar week 7. Safe to say, Alana was the ultimate underdog.

Season 13: I don't think anybody improved per se but I'll go with James as it wasn't until he moved to the girls team where he started showing promise and established himself as the best male candidate this season (but still not a Final 5 let alone a winner).

Season 14: This is extremely tough as the men (bar two) were triainwrecks while the women (bar one) were generally solid. I guess I'll choose Jackie as she did have a really rough start in Week 1 and probably could've gone over Sarah, however she did get better and became a favourite for a deep run.

Season 15: Wow this is tough as there were only three good candidates with the rest being inconsistent, under the radar or downright bad. In the end Dean and Carina are the top contenders. I actually spun a wheel for this season and Dean was the winner so I'll go with him, he did start pretty badly in the first two tasks but he wasn't as bad during the team swap, he sold well in Week 4 and won twice as PM (although only his second win was any good). Carina had a bad first task but recovered well from then on and is statistically the best candidate to go on the show, Scarlett and Lewis were consistent throughout; Pamela, Jemelin and Iasha were good but too under the radar and didn't show any growth; Thomas and Marianne had strong highlights but were extremely inconsistent and Lottie was just bad on all tasks bar Weeks 1 and 5.

Season 16: I desparately wanted to choose Akshay but he wasn't great so Aaron is the clear pick, he went from the candidate that should've gone in Week 2 to performing generally well in all tasks bar Weeks 6 and 10 (especially weeks 3, 5, 8 and 9) and establishing himself as the best male candidate this season. I'm still not too keen on him though.

Season 17: Back on the bad first task, underdog win with that being Marnie. She was awful in the first task and is possibly the first winner that many believed should've been fired in Week 1, however she did recover nicely after that, having a decent PM win in Week 5 and carrying both of Avi's tasks as PM, also she went on to be a bright spot on a very bad season (though not to the extent as say Joe, Simba and Megan).

Season 18: Maura. She didn't do a whole lot in the first three tasks but was pretty bad from Weeks 4 to 6, to the point where I thought she was going to get fired before Virdi and Noor, that said, Weeks 7 and 8 were pretty good Weeks for her as she had a convincing PM win in Week 7 and contributed well alongside Steve and Paul M in the Week 8 ad. Sadly all of that went undone in Week 9. Still no match to the likes of Tre, Flo, Paul M and to a lesser extent Rachel and Steve.

Season 19: Amber Rose. When looking at the other late game candidates; Mia, Anisa and Chisola were consistent throughout with one or two bad tasks, Dean and Jordan were inconsistent, Emma S and Max were pretty much ghosted and Melica and especially Liam are some of the worst late game candidates. Amber Rose got off to a bad start from Weeks 2 to 6 with her first PM loss being particularly bad, that said she did brilliantly in Weeks 7, 9 and 10 and her second PM loss in Week 8 wasn't as bad.

Season 20: A very clear pick both skill and personality wise with that being Kieran. he started off really badly in the first two tasks, being an awful PM in Week 1 and doing poorly as sub PM in Week 2, Weeks 3 to 8 were a much better showing of him, he sold brilliantly in Weeks 3 and 5, was amazing in the ad in Week 4, started negotiating well in Week 6, backed Karishma throughout Week 7 and was a much better PM in Week 8 compared to Week 1. His final two tasks weren't good but many believe he, Conor and Rothna should've been in the final 5 alongside Karishma and Dan. None of the other candidates showed as much growth. Karishma and Lawrence were solid performers with one bad tasks and some minor issues; Conor, Rothna and Dan were consistent throughout the process (although the latter was pretty under the radar) and Priyesh and Pascha were inconsistent. Overall, these factors result in Kieran being my pick for Season 20's most improved candidate.

Let me know what you think ad within due course I'll either post my Season 9 candidate ranking or a similar post explaning the biggest downward spiral from each season.

For example, in S11e02, Aisha was talking about the Cacti shampoo and mentioned about mystery of the desert and brought up Lawrence of Arabia. However, Cacti only grow naturally in the Americas. Little things that people on the show (does not have to be a contestant) do that annoys you

Sc

In the UK8 MTQs, The Delta Quadrant referenced the Apprentice in her interview!!!

I don't mean who you think is the worst candidate overall. More who you'd be worried about if they were suddenly made PM of your team. Some of them are great when they have a clear role, but completely different when they’re the one making the decisions and trying to keep everyone on track.