Is this latest bunch of "Apprentice" candidates the nastiest we have had?

Where's the energy of Saira Khan, star of the first series? Or the sales skills of Ruth "the Badger" in the second? Where's the personality of the "Nutter" Jo Cameron, or the bare-faced cheek of Tre Azam?

It is now four weeks into the latest series, and all I see is cowardice.

While there were arguments and character clashes in the past, at least the candidates realised you had to pull together and work as a team to avoid losing and stay out of the boardroom.

But this lot just don't seem to have cottoned on yet. The laundry exercise in the second week was the only time we have seen it, when the boys pulled together under the leadership of Raef Bjayou.

This week, we even had the girls' project leader risk her team's success by putting the weakest technical person in the role of handling a computer.

For what? A personal vendetta? Just what does Helene Speight have against Lucinda Ledgerwood?

The only gelling going on, it seems, is on the boys' hair. I wonder if their vanity has anything to do with their vacuous performance.

This is a bunch after all who don't know how to spell "accent" and think the Wallace Collection is a clothes shop.

All that's left to watch is Jurassic Jenny and her prehistoric business skills.

Bring back Katie Hopkins. At least you could sneakily admire her.

"At a business level you have one speed setting and that's slow, slow, slow. Someone put the wrong speed dial in when they created you sweetie."

Ah, nostalgia.

"The Apprentice" has found its bully, sergeant major and army officer -- oh, and its first scapegoat.

So scary was the bully that she was even likened to the villain of the last series Katie Hopkins.

But at least you could watch and learn from Hopkins and admire her lucidity, if not her morals.

This bully -- step forward Jenny Celerier -- is just, well ... brutish.

Admittedly, the two women share the same naff dress sense -- white suits for Hopkins and ties and neck scarves pulled just a little too meanly and tightly for Celerier.

But Celerier just alternates between ignoring her team or shouting at them, reducing some to tears in front of others.

"I am the project manager and I have not finished speaking", must surely become her catchphrase.

Making Shazia Wahab the scapegoat for the laundry exercise was a masterclass in hypocrisy.

While Wahab showed enthusiasm and initiative, Celerier came up with the idea of charging five pounds to launder a pillow case and asking for tips from customers whose clothing had gone missing. 

Was this even more embarrassing than the kiss-o-gram policy adopted by the girls' team in the last series?

Unlike her comments on "The Apprentice" Web site, Wahab was not a "stubborn cow who wants to have the last word" -- she was too much in shock at Celerier's tactics and criticisms to put up a fight in the boardroom.

Under Celerier's leadership the girls, who won the first challenge, were reduced to arguing among themselves rather like washerwomen, as Adrian Chiles described it in the post-programme analysis.

The boys on the other hand were transformed under the leadership of Raef Bjayou, who really can't be that posh AND be on television.

After the first week of the business TV reality show, the candidates are beginning to stand out more than the boys' haircuts, and possibly even Alan Sugar's increasingly garish ties.

And an early likely winner is Simon Smith who slipped seamlessly into his former role as an NCO in the Royal Artillery, following the orders of Bjayou and putting in the hard graft.

As he said himself: "I'm the sergeant major and Bjayou is the officer. It's like the old days."