Trump leads his disciples into hell

The Donald is a hard man to fall in love with.

Donald Trump has a warning for the wannabe apprentices in the new season of The Apprentice (TV2, tonight, 7.30): "For the next 16 weeks you're going to be living in hell."

Sixteen weeks? One episode felt enough like a living hell to me.

The trouble with the formula is that you already know that the assorted wannabes are all going to be ruthless bastards or bitches, and The Donald is a hard man to fall in love with even if he has become a caricature of himself.

He says things of such mind-blowing banality that you wonder how he ever got to be, by his own assessment, "the largest real estate dealer in New York, by far". He says: "Success breeds success". He says: "You know everything about me".

Could we want to know more? Apparently. There is no Donald detail to be left retold if you are a toadying sycophant.

At a private dinner at 21 for last week's winning "corporation", one of these toads wanted to know if the story about Trump paying off a couple's mortgage after they stopped to help when his limo broke down was true.

It was, confirmed Trump, who was hopefully but probably not, giving toady a big black mark for blatant sucking up.

This season there is a, gasp, twist. The teams are not divided up into male versus female. They are divided up into those who have college diplomas and those who don't. These are the "book smarts" and the "street smarts".

Another, double gasp, twist. The "street smarts" have a combined greater net worth than the "book smarts". What will this prove? Oh, probably nothing.

The ghastliest grasper will win and this will have nothing to do with how many books he or she has or hasn't read.

We're supposed to admire them, whether they've got higher education or not, because they're already successful.

Well, Todd, team leader of the losing book smarts team used to be. Before he proved, after a disastrous attempt to launch a new burger, to be a totally useless leader.

He got the sack, which means Trump got to say: "You're fired". This is the highlight of the show. I wanted to hear him say "You're fired" to the lot of them.

If they're so smart why do all the women say "Ohmigod" all the time? And why does one say "Phone! Phone!" when, aah, the phone rings?

And why, if team street smarts was so much smarter than the learned ones, was there a difference of only US$43.74 ($61.96) in the numbers of burgers - sold, which was surely the point of the exercise?

All the players are pretty much interchangeable which makes watching the thing pretty much intolerable. But far worse is when one of the players decides he's a bit of a character.

This season there is Danny, who likes to wear quirky clothing. In The Apprentice this means he doesn't wear a suit and tie. Danny is also one of those annoying gits who thinks he can play the guitar and likes to do so at any given, and inappropriate, moment.

Danny runs a marketing tech firm, whatever that is. His idea of marketing a new burger was to stand outside the store playing his guitar and getting people to chuck a ball through a hole in a cardboard box.

Then he'd ask passers-by: "Are you hungry?" "No," said one. "Okay," said Danny. "Well, come back when you are."

I can't imagine being that hungry.