Hang on: is this a reality show or a haircare advert? Have you ever seen men with such overstyled barnets? Sir Alan Sugar may claim that The Apprentice is about business, but the beauty parade and combustible personalities of the contestants make a mockery of claiming a higher purpose for this ratings-winner. That recalls the hopeless vanity of the television soap operas which for years demanded to be called – if you don’t mind – “continuing dramas”.

The fourth season of The Apprentice returned with its customary, coloured-up, panoramic views of Canary Wharf and thunderous classical music, both of which are utterly misleading. For one, Sir Alan Sugar’s HQ is in Brentwood (here’s a challenge, BBC: we want swooping shots of Brentwood), and for another The Apprentice is really Big Brother clothed in the drag of “business”. Many business people must watch it askance - ineptitude and bullying almost always supersede teamwork and professionalism.

The Apprentice is about watching beautiful egomaniacs squabble, exhibit delicious hubris and eventually get skewered by Sir Alan in boardroom confrontations so tense that they are best watched with a cushion to clutch as the buck-passing and insults reach, with clock-ticking inevitability, that final growled: “You’re fired!”

If TV shows – and reality shows in particular – survive to their fourth season, they lose their way. Too many tricks. Not The Apprentice. It is masterfully conceived and tightly directed. At the outset we have the contestants’ grandiloquent claims: “The spoken word is my tool,” said Raef Bjayou, with a dangerous quiff and vowels so plummy he made Noël Coward seem a chav.

There was a cavalcade of impressive-sounding jobs. Sara Dhada is an “international car trader”; what is that? She has a short fuse and is already complaining about being interrupted. Lucinda Ledgerwood, in purple beret and well versed in Greek, seemed to be an extra from Midsomer Murders rather than a thrusting young executive.

“I’m quite happy to cut people out of my life if I think it will help me get success,” said the improbably named Michael Sophocles. Claire Young claimed, joltingly, to be like the aggressive family dog.

If, as many of the contestants claim, they are already almost running the world, or at least “sales teams of around 30 people”, then why do they want to become an apprentice of any kind?

For their first task, the teams – as in previous years, split initially along gender lines – had to sell fish at Chapel Market in Islington, North London. The swaggering claims of innate skill and superiority immediately crumbled: the fish were misnamed, mispriced and one particularly unfortunate animal had its head mercilessly bashed on a slab.

Sir Alan’s “eyes and ears”, Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer, looked on despairingly. In a hideous scene the boys’ team was thoroughly worked over in a solicitor’s office – not the place to get a brilliant deal of any kind. Rather than the desired £130, the canny, and thoroughly patronising, legal eagles paid only £50 for the last of the boys’ fish.

Class war ensued. The northerner Alex Wotherspoon, who led the losing boys’ team, laboured tiresomely over individuals’ mistakes. This led to a posh southern boys’ revolt, and when he took Bjayou and lawyer Nicholas de Lacy Brown back into the boardroom for the confrontation with the Grumpy Garden Gnome on High, de Lacy Brown, whose only failure to date was a B-grade GCSE, whinged that he felt alienated because he liked art rather than football.

Yes, he liked football, Wotherspoon said – but also had a degree. Sir Alan, not known for his love of educated people with posh accents, fired de Lacy Brown who, for a lawyer, displayed remarkably scant oratorical prowess. It’s early days, but the dangerous quiff might be the one to watch – or at least snigger at.

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