Serepisos' mixture needs a good stirrer

The Apprentice New Zealand Tuesdays, 7.30pm, TV2 Reviewed by Victoria Guild.

Donald Trump likes to tell us that The Apprentice is the top-rating programme on United States television. That's a hard act to follow, but the Brits tried with their version, featuring electronics company entrepreneur Alan Sugar as the hirer, and now we have The Apprentice New Zealand, with man-of-the-moment Terry Serepisos.

He has similarities with both men – Trump and his property developing, Sugar and his ownership of a football team – and with the Phoenix going into the A-League finals for the first time, Serepisos is quickly becoming one of New Zealand's most recognised business faces.

By now, you're probably familiar with the format of The Apprentice. Fourteen people enter a 13-week job interview and are split into teams to perform tasks on which they will be judged in each episode. The losing team has one member fired.

The question is, can the New Zealand version live up to the backstabbing, arse-saving bitchiness that we've come to expect among the Trump wannabes?

It didn't start off that way. If anything, our interviewees were making far too nice an impression, but it hasn't taken long for some candidates' true colours to show through.

The men's team (No8), took on the women's team (Athena) at selling barbecued sausages in the first episode, and won. This week was all about women's underwear, and it was always going to be an uphill battle for the blokes.

Their ideas were good but they fouled up in the execution, using the wrong product and putting their model in knee-length red socks – which might have been suitable if they'd held their show on the floating pavilion and brought in a yachting theme, but didn't suit the gym environment they'd chosen.

You'd think that the bloke who chose the wrong undies would be out on his ear, but fortunately for him, a far more obvious candidate shone through.

Lee stood out for all the wrong reasons. Constantly arguing with his team-mates – at one stage, he suggested that the other six guys were the odd ones out and he was the only one in. Upset at not being listened to, and claiming he was bored because he didn't have enough to do, he helped himself to the wine and alienated himself from the group.

He rated himself quite highly – "as the most intelligent person on this team, I would have thought they would want to hear my opinions" – but was quite offended when Serepisos told him he thought he was arrogant.

Sometimes these shows are guilty of keeping an unsuitable person in to spice up the viewing (remember Omarosa from the US version? They brought her back for the celebrity show after her appearance on a previous Apprentice, and she nearly came to blows with eventual winner Piers Morgan), but not so this time.

While the girls were enjoying a chopper ride for winning the challenge, Lee was getting the chop. Let's hope he wasn't the only "character" worth watching.

- © Fairfax NZ News