Right well now we are into November and its not long before Christmas and New Year are around the corner so its time get another post on this blog and this one will cover the latest episode of the new series of The Apprentice (episode 5) where Lord Alan Sugar seeks out his new business partner out of 20 candidates. So let's suit up and head for the boardroom.....
OK so this week's episode saw both teams Summit and Tenacity been given the task by Lord Sugar of setting up and selling their own coach tours in London. So far in the process Tenacity were leading the wins as they had won 3 out of the 4 tasks. For team Summit, Sanjay was the project leader who came up with the idea of a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Meanwhile Daniel lead team Tenacity and their tour was set around a tour of Oxfordshire. The teams both had mixed success in different areas, for starters Daniel's aggressive decision to become project manager quickly saw him veto Mark's candidacy for project manager and Daniel insisted that he was the best salesperson out of all of them, however during the task he did not sell a single ticket! Despite this and the fact that they had only sold 20 tickets for a 25 capacity tour bus, Tenacity's tour went very well with Lauren in the team giving a professional tour guide and she did her research for the tourists and they also priced their tickets fairly well at just under £100. However the team did struggle somewhat with the catering as the sandwiches they provided where very subpar and anyone could have done a better job at putting together one and Felipe bored people senseless with his flatlining tone of voice when giving his guide to the tourists. Daniel also struggled to keep the respect of his teammates while working on the task, especially Pamela and Mark.
As for team Summit well they had their share of troubles the main one being that on the tour they were completely disorganised and James who it has to be said is the clown of the series (or prize dick more like!) kept going for a hard sell with the tourists in getting sales and getting their bums literally on the seats! James also provided the series with one its most cringe inducing scenes so far where he took it upon himself to sing a nursery rhyme to the tourists on the bus "The wheels on the bus go round and round!" and I'm positive most of them would love to have shoved that microphone down his throat! During the tour James and particularly Jemma both embarrassed themselves with their complete lack of knowledge of the tour as Jemma couldn't even give a correct answer on the tour of Hever castle and they later also got lost in Canterbury leaving the tourists less time to look around. Sanjay also did little to contribute to a convivial atmosphere on the tour as the info he provided to the passengers on the bus was putting them to sleep! And another issue was to do with the pricing of the tickets at just £60, which was in the end too low to make a substantial profit.
In the boardroom however it was revealed that team Tenacity trumped Summit once again as they had made a larger profit of £1037 as opposed to Summit's £813. But despite the team winning, things were not smooth for Tenacity as Daniel had not been given much encouragement from the rest of his teammates and Mark later accused Daniel of lying. Daniel was also not too impressed with their treat, which was abseiling down the UK's tallest sculpture and during the descent he said "How is this a fucking treat?!". True enough, but let's face it some of these so called treats are pretty stupid in the show! As for Summit well Sanjay brought Gemma and Bianca back into the boardroom, as he felt Bianca made a poor decision to let the customers negotiate the prices during a pitch in order to sell them and Jemma made very little contribution to the task as she hadn't done much throughout the process. But despite Sanjay's poor decision to not set a higher price for the tickets, which ultimately cost them the task, it was Gemma who was let go as Lord Sugar felt she had little to contribute to the process and didn't see her as his business partner.
So this sees them down 11 candidates now, and its funny to think that the show started with 20! So over the space of the first four weeks eight candidates were given the boot with all three team members on the losing team last week fired, which marked a first for the show. But I think this is of course all engineered by the makers of the show to give it an even more no-nonsense approach than in the past by firing so many candidates so early on. And when it comes to Lord Sugar well he has never suffered fools gladly and this allows him to get rid of any "deadwood" as he himself says in the show. And this series so far has seen a couple of firsts, such as one of the candidates, Robert, being fired for turning down Lord Sugar's suggestion to lead a task for which he appeared to be well suited without even bringing him back into the boardroom and also firing all three candidates last week in the boardroom, Steven, Sarah and Ella Jade for not being worthy of the opportunity to be Lord Sugar's business partner.
But there is no doubt that the show is pretty contrived and we know that they have to keep in certain characters, such as James, who has certain potential but is ultimately just on the show as he makes for amusing TV as is prepared to act like a twat for the cameras (or perhaps no acting is required there!). James actually revealed to have previously had a criminal record and it depends how far he get's in the process before that is unearthed! But so far James is lucky to still be in the show as he really has proven to be a loud mouthed loose canon and this week Lord Sugar only kept him in because he sold well on the task and he give him one final warning to "clean up your act and stop being a bloody clown!". But no doubt he will be kept in for a few more weeks or even until the interview stages where he will doubtless get fired (maybe!).
The series does have some good potential candidates such as the Aussie, Mark, who I think is a bit overly confident in his own abilities and a bit of a knob as well but still he has shown promise so far in the tasks. Lauren is also another very capable candidate, although it was later revealed that she had a relationship with James during filming of the show! And there is also Solomon who so far has proven to be quite a shrewd guy and being a technology entrepeneur this no doubt will appeal to Lord Sugar, depending on how well his business plan stacks up of course.
As for Jemma well it was the right decision that she had to go as in the end she wasn't much use in the process and her lack of contribution in any of the tasks was ultimately what got her fired, had she done more in the past maybe she would have stayed in, but such as it was she was the weakest candidate (but quite a nice looking one though ;-)).
So that's it for my look at the Apprentice for now and I will be back with another one maybe next week as the series starts to unfold and becomes more intruiging although if Lord Sugar continues his ruthless firing streak there might not be anyone left come the end of week six!
So until my next post see you later.
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