You’re hired!

WHEN I started watching The Apprentice on TV3 over 12 weeks ago, I can’t remember seeing Noel Rowland. Having tuned in for about another four weeks, I still don’t have any recollection of him whatsoever.
When I tuned in on Monday night to see who Bill Cullen had named as his new business partner (although a quick trawl through the internet would have informed me, seeing as the winner had already revealed himself), low and behold, Noel is among the last men (and woman) standing. 
Cullen may have pointed the ‘You’re Hired’ finger at Eugene Heary in Monday night’s finale, but the dark horse award definitely goes to the Mayo man, who put in a storming final furlong. The monosyllabic man from Crossmolina managed to find his voice and pulled off the best business pitch of the night. He also turned out to be quite a funny chap, highlighted further by his brief appearance on the follow-up show with Anton Savage, The Apprentice – You’re Hired.
While the solid Joanne Sweeney was heartbreakingly told that ‘were it the normal Apprentice’ she would have been a shoo-in to win, the medal for spoofing ability would have to go to Maurice O’Callaghan, who had no more of an idea about healthy eating than the man scoffing cheese on the moon.
It was Heary, though, that was awarded the €200,000 business package for his new auction company, Auction House, despite having displayed a rather warped sense of humour in the interview process by naming Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler and Simon Cowell as people most unlikely to give him a glowing reference. Hmmm, maybe Cullen saw something else in his CV to warrant investment.
A few of the Christmas ‘ones to watch’ that was highlighted here a few weeks ago have, depressingly, already fallen flat on their faces. 
The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff on BBC2 had all the trimmings for a riot laugh through Victorian London, with more than one, usually, reliable face making an appearance. Robert Webb, Katherine Parkinson, Stephen Fry and Celia Imrie tried their best, bless them, but the shocking script made any attempts to raise a laugh nigh on impossible.
Equally disappointing was the All Creatures Great and Small prequel, Young James Herriot. Set in 1933 Glasgow, it centres on Herriot’s hoofing around in veterinary college – his mouth and ridiculous over-confidence getting him into all sorts of trouble with professors and locals alike.
It should have been the perfect form of Sunday evening viewing that Glenroe offered more than a few years ago. Whereas Glenroe had heart, or at the very least Dinny Byrne, this just owned his oversized, clunky boots. Which is a shame; I was a fan of All Creatures Great and Small but Christopher Timothy’s James Herriot is nowhere to be seen in the tic-filled performance of Iain De Caestecker. I think he was supposed to be the bumbling but loveable sort. Instead he came across as an utterly incapable idiot.
Mind you, I had just finished watching The Killing II on BBC4, so anything I was going to watch after that was always going to pale in comparison. I really think they might leave well enough alone with these types of series. Making a ham of well-loved classics is always a dangerous business and with the news that Morse is to get the same treatment, the pitchforks and lanterns could be at the ready.

One to watch: Sherlock Holmes is enjoying a good cinema spin this week with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in the principal roles, but a more modern take on the Holmes formula, with fewer explosions and more intellect exercising, returns to BBC 1 on New Year’s Day.
Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia kicks off the second series of the Stephen Moffat/Mark Gatiss creation, with Benedict Cumberbatch swapping the deerskin and pipe for an overcoat and mobile phone. Joined by Martin Freeman as Watson, the first series aired to critical acclaim. That was summer 2010 however and the follow-up series has been a long time coming.
When we last saw our heroes they were facing down the barrel of a gun, or rather several barrels courtesy of arch-nemesis Moriarty and his band of snipers. A Scandal In Belgravia picks up where the previous series left off and introduces a lady interest for Sherlock in the form of Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), a well-connected high-class dominatrix, who displays a similar penchant to Holmes for cat and mouse-like games.
The second episode could be an absolute cracker as one of the more famous of the Arthur Conan Doyle super sleuth classics, The Hounds Of Baskerville, gets a day out.