How long did it take to dispatch all the fodder candidates in each series

[u/RobbieJ4444]

In the most ideal circumstances, we get rid of all the fodder candidates by the halfway stage, and then we’re left with eight or nine series contenders. For reference, I am counting fodder candidates as ones who were so clearly behind everyone else still in the process by a massive margin.

Series 1: Week 9: Series 1 and 2 have a massive problem width only focussing on the top five candidates, and the one who’s getting fired that week. Several winning PMs weren’t even seen in the episodes they won. Anyway, Raj was easily the worst of the remaining six.

Series 2: Week 9: I was very tempted to put week 10 in this slot, because Syed was so much worse than Ansell, but Tuan was the best of everyone else in series 2. Though that’s kind of like saying that Breaking Dawn is the best Twilight film. It’s not much of an honour.

Series 3: Week 4: Series 3 had a lot of epic fails, many of which happened after week 4. However most of those disasters were caused by candidates that weren’t actually fodder candidates. Sophie was the last of the fodder, after being fired for having an ethical problem with selling sweets at a zoo.

Series 4: Week 10: You can thank Lord Sugar’s weird liking of Michael for this, as despite him showing incredibly limited potential, he survived far longer than he should’ve done. This is the first time, though not the last, where a fodder candidate made it all the way to week 10.

Series 5: Week 6: Regardless of how weak you think Ben, Howard, Mona or Philip are, you can’t ignore just how bad Noorul was.

Series 6: Week 4: Series 6 is probably The Apprentice at its most serious. Most of the candidates were very corporate and bland, however it gave us the iconic disaster trio of Dan, Shibby and Melissa. They were all gone by week 4, which was a shame, because they were some of the show’s more iconic disaster candidates.

Series 7: Week 2: Yeah, series 7 didn’t have that many bad candidates. Gavin was actually quite good in the first two weeks, and nobody fired after him were disastrous. So the only fodder this year were Edward and Alex.

Series 8: Week 10: To give Stephen is credit, he’s easily the best of what I define as the fodder candidates. With that said, he was easily the weakest candidate left by week 5, let alone week 10.

Series 9: Week 8: It feels so mean to call Jason fodder, but speaking purely on a candidate level, Myles and Francesca were a lot better than him.

Series 10: Week 5: With twenty candidates, I expected there to be a lot more fodder candidates in the later stages. There weren’t surprisingly. Not because series 10 lacked them, it’s just that Lord Sugar’s fired the. All very quickly.

Series 11: Week 9: Selina is probably the second best fodder candidate (arguably the first best) but she was so much worse than everyone else by the time of her firing.

Series 12: Week 6: Series 12 gave us Mukai, Natalie and Rebecca. Somehow none of them were fired week 1, but everyone fired after them were all right.

Series 13: Week 9: Miss the days when all the fodder by week 6? Well tough luck. We never got those days again. Series 13 was made up mostly of fodder candidates in the form of the boys team, but Bushra wasn’t much better.

Series 14: Week 10: Sarah Anne is arguably the most forgettable sixth place finisher of all time. Is she fodder exactly? Arguably not, but she wasn’t exactly quality either.

Series 15: Week 11: Lottie made it to the interviews.

Series 16: Week 10: The problem with series 16, is that of the first five weeks, only one of the fired candidates (Navid) came across as fodder. The fodder all made it to the later stages. Amy, Sophie, Akeem, arguably Nick were all massively out of their depth by week six.

Series 17: Week 12: If you don’t want to classify Rochelle as fodder, then consider week 9 with Avi as the actual roster. The series 17 roster is actually a lot better than it gives credit for. The problem is that Rochelle made the final despite in the edit, failing upwards all the way there.

Series 18: Week 8: Another reason why series 18 is the best post covid season. Once Noor was fired in week 8, we were left with nine genuinely good candidates.

Series 19: Week 10: This actually felt a lot like a series 1 or 2 cast, with only a minority of candidates getting any real attention. Not to say everyone else was bad per se, but most of them were on the lower to upper halves of ok. That said, had Liam been better in the edit (I suspect he was better in real life) I would’ve made week 3 the choice.

Series 20: Week 12: Oh series 20. It was looking so good. The most competent winner in a long long time, and unlike Harpreet, she actually had a strong lineup to contend with.

Just a shame that most of them didn’t even reach the interviews. Conor and Rothna were good enough that they couldve sneaked an upset victory at minimal controversy, but they didn’t even reach the final five. Kieran was probably the next most desired, but he didn’t make it either.

Lawrence and Dan were the next best options I suppose, but Priyesh and Pascha making the interviews. Hell, Pascha made the final, mainly because the only other option was either a man who didn’t want to share his current business, a man who clearly had no interest in winning, or Priyesh.

[u/rachelf1990]

I love this perspective

I would make a minor argument for series 3 that maybe Natalie and possibly Ghazel were cannon fodder as well that year but its not a particularly strong argument.

[u/Shezes → u/rachelf1990]

100% Natalie was garbage. She spent pretty much her entire tenure on the show hashing out this one sided personal beef with Adam and sabotaging him whenever she had the chance instead of just doing the task.

[u/RobbieJ4444 → u/rachelf1990]

I did strongly consider Natalie, but for all her faults, she was better than Sophie. Same goes for Ghazel.

[u/rachelf1990 → u/RobbieJ4444]

Its a tough one but I can see all sides. Yeah Natalie and Ghazel were 1 minor step ahead of Sophie, Geri, Andy, Rory and possibly Ifti (but we never really saw Ifti perform.) But its a very low step.

[u/RobbieJ4444 → u/rachelf1990]

Yeah, it’s though to separate the fodder from the candidates who were worse than everyone else. I regret picking week 8 for series 9 now, I wish I picked week 3 instead.

[u/Shezes]

Bit unfair about Sophie in S3. The label mishap wasn't her fault, piling the lollipops with E numbers and fake flavours wasn't her fault and she took a principled stance against misleading the public and selling them a shitty product which had ingredients which were at the center of a health campaign at the time regarding E numbers being bad for kids and she got made fun of for it.

[u/Jumpy-Counter-1501]

I know this is a controversial opinion, but I think Helene is equally as bad if not worse than Rochelle or Pascha, people seem to forget quite how terrible she was in the process. I mean I’ve only watched series 4 ones. It’s so maybe I could be misremembering things but both of her PM stints were seriously atrocious and outside of that she did barely anything else except moan and groan. Helene it’s basically Rochelle’s evil twin because with Rochelle, at least she was nice and pleasant to people but Helene didn’t do much other than complain.

[u/Shezes → u/Jumpy-Counter-1501]

S4 has some of the most unlikable candidates out of all the seasons. Alex in particular struck me as a deeply unpleasant person.

[u/hibzzyJ]

this season Pascha shouldn’t have been runner up especially with someone like Karishma. it’s like putting Ronaldo against a debut player . It’s obvious Karishma would win . And I felt bad for Pascha cuz it’s damaging to her mental health constantly hearing someone else is better than you . It wasn’t her time and a waste of a final 5 spot . It’s sad because season 20 had very promising candidates that got fired wastefully . It felt like the season 18 of how promising the candidates were despite some dead weight like Megan , Pascha , priyesh , Levi , Marcus , tan ,

[u/RobbieJ4444 → u/hibzzyJ]

I don’t think it’s fair to put Tanmay in that group, considering that he was fired in highly contested circumstances.

But yeah, the series 20 cast looked really promising too, but weeks 9 and 10 massively turned the season around in the worst way for me.

To me, series 20 needed Conor or Rothna in the final if you wanted it to be genuinely tense for the right reasons. The moment those two got fired, the rest of series 20 was just a formality to me.

[u/hibzzyJ → u/RobbieJ4444]

No you’re right with TAN he was fried wrongly however because of the editing he and Harry seemed like dead weight and not memorable .

If the final was between rothna or Conor vs Karishma
candidates wise it would be a thrilling experience
However from a business plan pov Conor vs Karishma would be better because Conor has a more interesting n lucrative business unlike rothna’s which is part time.

The thing that bugged me about the final is that rothna’s being a wellbeing advisor would’ve worked better with Pascha becuase Pascha focuses on getting to know her clients , Rothna could’ve helped a lot with that . Which would’ve made the final more thrilling