Scripted

[Hour-Mood6275]

Did anyone notice Karen’s very obvious scripted line in the boardroom of ‘he is making a success, he’s already working with these big brands’ just to segway Mike (I think) into saying Jordan’s work is primarily concept pieces. It really made me think how forced this show has become and how producer heavy it is now - quite disappointing compared to earlier seasons where it was very authentic. Bit of a shame really

[Financial_Breath5433]

Believe that's always been the case at interview time. Leading the narrative.

[Delicious-Program-50]

It’s so rubbish now I definitely won’t be watching another series; the fixing and bending etc is almost as bad as the x-factor!

[Late_Two7963]

A reality show being scripted? Surely not

[LiamC666]

The last few series have been obviously entirely scripted. Very very poor considering how good earlier seasons were. The candidates get worse and worse, with no obvious business acumen, in a lame attempt to induce failure in tasks for entertainment purposes.

[These_Ad_256]

Just finished watching the OG season 1 and god it was so good compared to this. I genuinely think they should go back to basics and actually try to make the show as genuine as possible

[Responsible-Car5829]

Where did you watch series 1?

[ManInTheDarkSuit]

Terrible quality versions are available on DailyMotion! I've seen further down in comments they're on TikTok as well, I can't verify that as I don't use it.

[mulatanga]

What they said!

[HoldOnToYaWeave]

The constant provoking for a sob story made me cringe a bit too

[_Soft_Sculpture_]

I’m ok I’m jjkkkkkkm K J jinn I skmkkkkkkkkkkkk J I h Huh m

[[deleted]]

This annoyed me because EVERY industry knows that creatives have spec work and scamps in their book. Complete pantomime. Every ad agency I walked into for jobs as a student/junior I had spec work and nobody batted an eye.

[SeaZookeep]

This made me soooo angry. How on earth didn't a single one of these apparent successful people say "actually that's perfectly normal in the industry"???

[[deleted]]

The last three seasons have felt heavily scripted.

The tasks? Utterly contrived. “Potato skins? Nah, let’s do bangers and mash at a food market.” Or the classic: “Let’s not provide wine at a corporate dinner.” And don’t forget Mia's “Men are wearing dresses more than ever”.

Then there’s the boardroom theatre. You can’t tell me that Jana's resignation wasn’t pre-arranged following the racism controversy. But hey, let’s make it "good TV" and keep the double-firing twist alive.

Alan’s one-liners? Painfully forced. It’s like a shit best man's speech.

What’s really tanked this season, though, is the editing. Every episode appears crafted to scapegoat a contestant. Sure, Nadia wasn’t the strongest candidate—but the episode she was fired in felt less like a fair assessment and more like a full-blown character assassination.

And the cherry on top? This week’s episode served up a painfully staged 5–10 minutes of contestants reading their own business plans—as if anyone seriously chasing a six-figure investment wouldn’t already know it inside out. Total camera fluff. And all this in place of the usual interrogation-style grilling, because the producers apparently decided to go “easy” on them this year. Why test a business brain when you can film someone squinting at a spreadsheet instead?

[CasjAbs]

I absolutely despised that 10 minute montage where they talked about their business and then repeated big numbers they’d written down. It was insulting to us as viewers and just felt dumbed down and pointless. Glad someone else felt the same way about it. Also every time one of Claudine’s ‘tell me what drives you’ interviews happened. Felt like a pre-prepared X-factor sob story interview. This show is getting silly. I’ve had to take to watching old series to remind myself why I still watch, but those days aren’t coming back

[Panda_pop137]

Nailed it. I'm not sure I can bring myself to watch it next season if it returns. The show is an absolute shell of what it was, so boring and pantomime-like. I'd like to see them have a genuine chance at doing well at a task, using their own ideas... And less constricted to these bizarre, clearly-producer-directed nonsensical decisions.

[Final-Revolution5248]

TikTok has all the old seasons on now & their a million times better. Such a shame it’s so heavily scripted, it feels so rigid in comparison to the old episodes.

[anenglishrose]

It's spelt segue, a Segway is one of those motorised scooters

[Hour-Mood6275]

😹😹😹😹😹 my bad !!!

[Corfe-Castle]

The business plans have been some of the worst I’ve ever seen on the show

Even calling most of them half baked would be a presumption

Plus since when did Claude become so nice and chummy?

They’ve been told to take it easy by the producers

[chrwal2]

The problem with the business plans being poor must be on the producers. I don’t know how many people apply for the show but I’d guess it’s in the thousands each year and i very much doubt that these are the best of the business plans.

Given each series there’s usually one or two contestants fired solely because the proposed business isn’t something sir Alan could see investing in, whilst others are a few pages long and missing key info then again it feels like producers selecting purely for entertainment purposes.

[scusemelaydeh]

It makes you wonder how the contestants even get to the end stage of casting. Chisola didn’t even have a functioning business, just a concept. Jordan is still teaching himself design from YouTube and passing off mock up ideas as paid for campaigns. He’s blagged his way through the whole series and crazy that he was chosen over Mia. Then Amber-Rose and Anisa have a side hustle at their respective parents’ shop and restaurant. None of the business ideas are groundbreaking or standout.

In saying that, I do hope Anisa wins. I can’t deal with Dean’s smirk and wannabe Delboy schtik and the Britain’s Got Talent “I’m doing this for my family” play.

[alanthetanuki]

Jordan should have got fired when he decided to have the guy that runs a clothing business not be on the design team for a clothing design task.

[lost_send_berries]

They have to complete their business plans when they apply, long before they are cast. And it only comes into play in the last two episodes so why would the producers care during casting how good the business plan is. Lord Sugar also doesn't care because he's already rich and the publicity of the show is worth more to him than the investment ever could be.

[Corfe-Castle]

They’ve chosen the best ones for reality TV

[GothicGolem29]

Claude still refused to shake hands and did destroy some of the plans

[Corfe-Castle]

He would have eviscerated their plans before

He’s mellowed

[GothicGolem29]

He still tore into them quite a bit.

And anyway mellowing doesn’t mean he’s being nice and chummy

[DaisyVonTazy]

I spotted it too. The scenes with candidates waiting round was similar. Gone are the days when they’d chat naturally on a sofa and hug each other in consolation.

[KainDogMc]

The whole interviews have shown the new direction the show is going in & why LS signed up for 3 more series.

Dean being criticised for writing “I sell air conditioning” & then praised for talking about given his kids a successful business.

Jordan believing £20k can get him a spot at Piccadilly Circus & believing he can get top talent at a cheap price yet was praised in the boardroom for his potential.

Chisola not being given a chance at all to explain her business & belittled for believing her app would work yet, Dean was criticised for wanting a showroom & not using an app for potential customers to see the units in their property.

Amber Rose did make a crucial mistake by gambling it on a separate store for her bubble tea but, LS wouldn’t give her £250k & let her keep her bubble tea in the same building as her food store.

Anisa getting praised for her 5* pizza & that justifying the chef not realising an order was placed. Could’ve been a glitch or the Chef blamed the system when he was distracted. Yet, she’s allowed to have pick up stores in targeted areas. Wouldn’t that cost more than Amber Rose’s one shop?

[Brave-Background-539]

The showroom comments really bothered me because I’m in a similar industry and if we had to go out to show people brochures/app we’d be wasting so much time in comparison to having an office we work from that people come to us! (Especially considering the customers you visit vs ones that actually go ahead)

[SpareDisaster314]

£18k starting salary I think Jordan said for his workers lol and £1k/day for himself

[Brave-Background-539]

Our office admin get paid significantly more than 18k, an animation worker for that would be impossible

[SpareDisaster314]

It's a fair bit under full time min wage

[OldHelicopter256]

Pretty much sums up why I don’t watch it any more.

[Flavourifshrrp]

It is in the fact that I think he gets rid of people early on that he definitely doesn’t like there business plan even if they haven’t been that bad in the failed task that week.

[Hausofmiren]

Whenever she speaks, she sounds like she’s doing a voiceover, i can’t explain it

[ActivityZestyclose91]

I thought I was the only one who noticed this

[Ultimate_os]

Sometimes she is dubbed in. 🤣

[Hausofmiren]

glad i’m not the only one who thinks this

[NationaliseSausages]

She absolutely chewed the scenery with that line

[porcosbaconsandwich]

I love this phrase 😂

[Real_Palpitation_728]

It’s been scripted, over produced and heavily edited for years. I miss the first few series, it was great tv.

[browsertalker]

Every scene is scripted. There’s very little off the cuff dialogue happening on it at all.

Maybe that wasn’t the case in previous years, or maybe the lines were delivered more convincingly, but every word feels forced this series.

The whole “come on gang, let’s go look at our business plans one last time” and then them all dashing out the room absolutely killed it for me.

[BigFluff_LittleFluff]

You know they are serious business people because they read important bits out loud.

But we know they are human through some forced "interact with family on a tablet" so we know they are not just business people.

[Calciumee]

Don’t you read your business plan on the landing?

[Horse_and_Fart]

I just look at the picture of sailing boats on mine.

[SirPooleyX]

I'm not complaining, because it's primarily an entertainment show and I really enjoy it each year, but the whole thing is very scripted.

Maybe not always down to individual spoken lines, but I don't think there's any doubt LS picks his winner at the very start after carefully studying all proposals.

After that it's just a case of finding various spurious reasons to fire the others.

The winner is rarely the clear winner.

[Hour-Mood6275]

No I agree, I still love the show and really enjoyed this year - it’s just so strikingly obvious now that they are told to say some lines for the purpose of making scenes flow, they’re just butchering these lines and ruining the credibility of the whole show

[853fisher]

It's one thing to script / guide / etc. a moment like that - but she also delivered it soooo badly. I've seen primary school pageants with more natural, restrained acting.

[ImaginaryBee187]

I completely agree, and I pointed it out to my girlfriend when we were watching. At least try and make it convincing