[Neil Jones]

I believe they're the only broadcaster outside of Australia and New Zealand to show the series, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that is.

Um... because they're not the first and second seasons of the show?

Despite the conspiratorial tone, that still doesn't explain how it is supposed to "catch people out".

The more reasonable explanation is that they have bought the rights to show the revived series on the strength of Lord Sugar's presence. Because the chances of them showing the previous series is precisely zero, they have numbered it accordingly.

Yes, for their benefit. There will be viewers who will have been unaware that there were previous seasons and decided to watch for reasons I already explained. That is what is called catching people out.

I think you're reading too much into it to be honest.

By the same logic when BBC Four wheeled out episodes of Joy of Painting they were all labelled as "Series 1" and "episode 1/26", that could be interpreted by as you "catching people out". Anybody who saw them and knew anything about that programme could tell a) it didn't look anything like Series/Season 1, b) it was never made in 26 season batches in the first place, and c) it was effectively a compilation of episodes from about four seasons worth and near enough random. Mention was made of "Welcome to the 10th Joy of Painting series" (or whatever) by Bob Ross but we didn't see anybody complaining that it wasn't series 1 of that show.

The point being it is not the first time that a broadcaster has bought something and pushed it out as "Series 1" when chronologically it wasn't. But as above if there is no chance the original first series is going to be seen, its pointless shoving it out as "series 3" or whatever as all that does is cause people to think they've missed something they haven't.