The Apprentice scraps 2 major parts of the show and you never noticed
It's even re-used something from an old series instead!
The Apprentice series 20 appears to have made two significant changes to its format – but there’s a good chance you never even noticed.
The BBC show’s return has seen Lord Sugar’s new crop of candidates travel to Hong Kong and write children’s books. In this week’s task, they’re asked to cook chicken and egg dishes for corporate clients and the general public.
As well as record-low ratings, it hasn’t been warmly received by fans either (some have even declared it “dead”).
Viewers have been asking for a revamp – although they probably weren’t expecting these changes.
The Apprentice changes team names after last year’s confusion
Usually, once the teams get mixed up from the opening episode’s boys v girls line-up, they get to choose a name for themselves.
Some of them have been quite good, like Renaissance and Alpha from series 4, series 3’s Stealth and Eclipse, and Phoenix in series 8.
Others have been… dreadful, to be frank. Lest we forget some of the worst offenders: Supream (yes, that’s how they spelt it), Decadence, and Graphene.
So, series 20 asks: why bother? In episode 3, Sugar mixes the teams and gives them names: Eclipse and Alpha.
The candidates don’t get a say in the matter: those are the names (unless Sugar lets them decide themselves in future tasks).
Last year, it wasn’t always clear what the teams were called. Most of the time, they were just referred to as the same name as the PM. Apparently, each side had an unofficial name: Forest and Ice.
However, in week 4, it was revealed that they were called Ascendancy and Parallel. Don’t worry: nobody else remembered that either.
What happened to the winners’ rewards?
Each episode of The Apprentice used to end the same way. The losers would go for a sad cuppa in the Bridge Cafe, while the winning team would get some sort of treat.
Sometimes, they were incredible; trips abroad to Italy and Iceland, spa days, and private jets. Others have been hilariously bad, like letting the candidates loose in a soft play for a little while, indoor rowing, and karaoke.
Whether or not it’s a cost-cutting measure remains unclear, but series 20 appears to have scrapped the rewards altogether.
Instead, each week’s winners get to go back to the house (on Billionaire’s Row) and await whoever survives the boardroom.
“I mean, not that they’ve deserved them this series but they do seem to be gone,” one user noted on Reddit.
“The rewards were going downhill for years anyway and by the last series I watched, in some cases were basically either disguised punishments or at best disappointing nothings,” another wrote.
Read more: What happened to The Apprentice You’re Fired as Tom Allen is replaced in brand new spin-off
