The Apprentice 2013: series 9, episode 1 - the shipping container sales task, review Last year's contest, won by Ricky Martin (a wrestling recruiter from Hampshire rather than the Latino pop star), was no classic and ratings fell. This run looks more promising. The glamour factor has certainly been raised. Huge hair, nude high heels and glossy pouts were de rigueur for the girls. Luisa Zissman said she had "the energy of a Duracell bunny, the sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit and the brain of Einstein," clearly unable to think of a clever rabbit to complete the theme. The boys were slick, coiffed and sharp-suited. Cocky Cardiff company director Alex Mills had preposterous over-plucked eyebrows and reckoned he resembled Freddie Mercury. A team-mate pointed out he was more like Dracula. I was thinking of a surprised David Gest. Mills is shaping up to be a panto villain and in the trail for tonight's episode, was shown shouting, "Be quiet, you silly s---." The opening task saw the 16 hopefuls steer their wheely suitcases into Lord Sugar's boardroom at midnight. The grumpy walnut split them into boys v girls and gave each team a shipping container crammed with imported old tat: loo roll, cat litter, ukuleles and Chinese lucky cats. They had to work through the night to flog the lot, which descended into the usual desperate dash around London, while Sugar's sidekick Nick Hewer squinted disapprovingly and doodled insults on his notepad. The boys won and as leader of the losers, Ampaw-Farr looked doomed. What really marked her card, though, was calling the boss "man." "I'm not man, I'm Lord Sugar," he barked. The half-machine was out of order. "You short-circuited," agreed Hewer. She became this year's first victim of the famous firing finger. A Chinese cat waved forlornly as she climbed into the black cab of failure. Lord Sugar's search for a business partner has begun, and it looks like it could be a return to form.