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what were your opinions on last years female candidates?
hownwbrowncow
Posts: 6,188 Forum Member
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I think it will be interesting to discuss how good (or bad:D) they were.
Bilyana- Fired too soon for the wrong reasons, and could have proved to be a very interesting candidate!
Maria- God, what a loudmouth. She really did show no business talent.
Jane- I think LS had no credible reason to fire her. She was also one of the most interesting candidates.
Katie- she was just useless in my opinion! She was given too many second chances. Imo, she should have been fired week 1.
Laura- Definitely one of the most credible female canddiates, it was unfortunate she was up against Tom in the BR though.
jenna- once again, quite entertaining but pretty useless, she got through the first few weeks, but after that she was carried. She wants to be a business woman and she can't di numbers?!
Gabrielle- Definitely the best, most rounded female candidate, it was ludicrous to fire her week 10, when the likes of Adam and jade were sailing through to the semis!!:(
Jade- Useless, Have no idea why LS saved her twice, two weeks in a row! :eek: He probably just liked her business plan! :rolleyes:
IMO last year definitely had one of the worst if not the worst standard of female candidates ever.
Bilyana- Fired too soon for the wrong reasons, and could have proved to be a very interesting candidate!
Maria- God, what a loudmouth. She really did show no business talent.
Jane- I think LS had no credible reason to fire her. She was also one of the most interesting candidates.
Katie- she was just useless in my opinion! She was given too many second chances. Imo, she should have been fired week 1.
Laura- Definitely one of the most credible female canddiates, it was unfortunate she was up against Tom in the BR though.
jenna- once again, quite entertaining but pretty useless, she got through the first few weeks, but after that she was carried. She wants to be a business woman and she can't di numbers?!
Gabrielle- Definitely the best, most rounded female candidate, it was ludicrous to fire her week 10, when the likes of Adam and jade were sailing through to the semis!!
:(Jade- Useless, Have no idea why LS saved her twice, two weeks in a row! :eek: He probably just liked her business plan! :rolleyes:
IMO last year definitely had one of the worst if not the worst standard of female candidates ever.
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That and the fact that she told the other contestants to bring her into the boardroom next time round, as she already had a target painted on her back.
She is also one of the few candidates to lead the popular vote (on this site) whilst being voted out (to point out that she was pretty popular).
Apart from Maria and Jenna, I think that Laura was actually one of the more useless candidates last year (or at least unmemorable; does anybody know on which task she was fired.....without looking it up?).
And Jade might just be the most useless female candidate to make it that far (well, unless you count Helene Speight in series 4, did that count as the same round??).
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Laura was fired on the art selling task. For me she was the most memorable candidate last year. I always remember the good-looking ones!
Adult series:
Bilyana - had credible business ideas, but had a personality Sugar could never have worked with.
Maria - we didn't get to see enough of her. Clearly bright to have set up her own restaurant and everything. I thought she was set up in the boardroom (after all, dropping off for a few moments in the car is hardly a good reason to get rid of someone), but she should have focussed on defending herself properly instead of just shouting 'OH MY GOD!' in response to everything said about her.
Jane - didn't like her at all. Came across as annoying, not a very nice person and didn't seem to have many talents. Although according to her CV, she clearly can do better than she showed on the programme.
Katie - I thought she was very credible. Drew the short straw a bit as she was in the boardroom so much, but should have gone further.
Laura - wasn't terrible, but wasn't great either. Her former partner and father of her son was murdered during filming, so that was probably playing on her mind quite a lot, and may have affected her performance.
Jenna - initially couldn't stand her, but she did grow on me. She could never have won, but after the first few weeks she came across as being quite bright.
Gabrielle - stands out as possibly the nicest candidate ever on the show. Regardless of anything else, she seemed like such a lovely girl. On the tasks, she was wonderfully creative, but went at the right time because she had reached the end of the road.
Jade - I don't understand all the Jade hate, I thought she was very good. She messed up the first time she was PM, but she didn't mess up any of the other tasks, and if she had had a better business plan, I am confident that she would have won.
Young series:
Amy - was actually okay on the tasks, but was very aggressive and didn't seem like a very nice girl.
Alice - went far too early. I liked her most of the time, but she was vile to Lucy on the cookery book task.
Navdeep - was credible, articulate and clever, but wasn't the type Sugar was looking for.
Maria - obviously clever, but I went totally off her on the cookery book task and she never worked her way back into my good books. Didn't like her.
Lucy - one of the strongest candidates there has been. Organised, articulate, and had good people skills. Lovely girl.
Ashleigh - was happy for her to win. Personable, honest, and had a good head for numbers. Since the programme, she has done a number of interviews talking about her opinions on things such as the budget, which I really respect. Good on her.
Maria - I'm not surprised she was given a chance on the show, given previous success of young candidates, particularly Susan Ma, but she was too immature to be a credible candidate, as seen by her giggly YF interview. Again she should have survived that week but I don't think she'd have survived more than a few further weeks.
Jane - Her qualifications and impressive week 1 performance suggested she'd go far but completely wrecked her chances of winning in Week 2. Yet again, I don't think she should have been fired when she was but since she should have gone in Week 2 I wasn't too upset to see her leave.
Katie - Honestly one of the more credible women of the season. Should have been fired in Week 1 BUT she genuinely improved and she was unfairly scapegoated from the second week onwards. She came up with a potentially great idea in Weeks 2 and 5 and was a better PM than Duane in Week 3 in my view. All this for me meant that she should have survived Week 6 and Adam should have gone instead but she was sadly scapegoated again.
Laura - She was good in the early weeks but was bad for her PMship in Week 4 and should have been fired for it. I never really liked her after this but she was right in her argument with Duane in Week 5. By Week 7, her card was heavily marked and she just burnt out by Week 8 but I do feel as though she slowly lost her motivation week on week after the terrible news about her partner.
Jenna - Oh, I really disliked her after the first two weeks, particularly Week 2 where she pushed Jane against the good tap cosy idea, made a huge mess of the finances and tried to blame Katie for the failure of the task. However, she did improve and by Week 4, when she was the second highest seller, I grew to like her and was delighted when she beat out Adam in Week 6. I did think that, though Stephen should have gone the week she went, Top 8 was her glass ceiling.
Gabrielle - I loved her. Right from the start and her PMship in Week 1 up throughout the tasks, I think she was, arguably the most creative one there. Her firing seemed horribly unfair when it happened in Week 10 as, in Week 9 she had been responsible for the most positive aspects of Sterling's campaign, Week 8 was her PM victory and Week 7 had been a strong sales week for her. Could have credibly made the Final and arguably further, but sadly, it wasn't meant to be.
Jade - My favourite woman of the series. Apart from a major failure in Week 7, she was consistent throughout and was the creative front-runner from the start. I consistently defended her and was delighted that she got a second chance, which she took well. Came up from behind in Weeks 9-11 to be a favourite and could have won it in the final if her business plan had been better. A terrific candidate and one of my all-time favourites! (Though I know Sherlock Holmes doesn't agree!)
Oh you and your hate for Jade!
Come on, she wasn't that bad. You have to admit that she was the best performing candidate between Weeks 9 and 11.
EDIT:
Now, I just have to defend her! I honestly think that far, far too many people's views of her were skewed by Week 7 where she was a bad team leader and she threw Azhar under a bus. She wasn't that bad. Regardless of your personal feelings towards her, there is no denying that she improved remarkably after that week:
Week 8 - Sold the second most on the team (only losing to professional salesman Adam) and advocated Copywright (which accounted for 100% of Phoenix's sales) and SPSQ which was a good idea but Tom ignored it.
Week 9 - Completed most of the work on the website with Nick whilst Adam and Tom were getting pissed. Completed a competent video even whilst Adam was breathing down her neck trying to be a "choreographer".
Week 10 - Single-handedly won the task with an excellent strategy as PM and successfully negotiating the Spa and restaurant deals (accounting for 100% of Phoenix's huge victory margin). Let her team (particularly Tom) off the hook in this task. There is no one else who can take credit for the win this week. NOT the work of a "useless" candidate.
Week 11 - Managed the team pretty much by herself as Adam was devoid of any management skill whatsoever. Made the jellies, came up with the idea, did the branding for Adam and Nick and nearly pulled off what would have been an unlikely win.
There is NO WAY you can say she is useless by looking at these weeks and looking further back she came up with the excellent design in Week 1, did effective (but ultimately ignored) market research in Week 2, came up with Infusion idea in Week 3 and positively contributed to the team in Weeks 4-6.
Sorry guys, but I just want to nip in the bud the ridiculous myth that Jade was "useless". You may not have liked her personally or the fact that she survived Week 7, but one bad week does not make a bad candidate. Just ask Yasmina (Week 4), Stella (Week 9), Ricky (Week 3/5), Tom G (Week 8), Ruth (Week 5), Kate (Week 7), Helen (Week 10), Susan (Week 7), Kristina (Week 5), Arjun (Week 5), Zara (Week 6), Nick (Week 11), Joanna (Week 2), Liz (Week 9), Miriam (Week 8) and Ashleigh (Week 5) amongst many others.
Sorry, but I'm just annoyed at this ridiculous idea that Jade was "useless". She really, really wasn't.
I think you've just hit the nail on the head, as usual, George!
As I mentioned earlier, I loved Jade as I thought she was an incredibly credible candidate and across the last three or four weeks she outperformed Nick, Adam, Gabrielle, Stephen and, Yes, even Tom who everyone seemed to love. I think Ricky performed better across the whole process and certainly can't begrudge him the win, though.
I love it that you've just described her as 'incredibly credible'! Great description.
Why did people like Tom so much? I can see why people didn't dislike him, as he was a consistent performer, but I didn't see that he was that fantastic compared to people like Jade and Nick. And it seemed to me that people wanted him to win right from the off - even before his first PMing in Week 4, he had a lot of supporters.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1666883&highlight=jade
In this thread, hownowbrowncow defends Jade and says that she is his favourite out of the final four, so quite surprising that he now describes her as useless. Maybe it's to do with her business plan (admittedly weak)?
What was I thinking...
To be honest I was still gutted Gabby was fired, so Jade was the closest thing.
Oh, I see...
Well as you can imagine, I agreed with you more on your initial opinion. As I have stated above, I don't see how Jade can be described as useless.
What problems do you have with Jade now then?
Drawing penguins was a good thing - they lost that task, but they had a much nicer product than the boys and that was mostly down to Jade.
She did do a very bad job in Week 7, but that was the one and only time in the series.
Conflicts with Adam occurred over numerous issues but (in my opinion at least) Jade was usually right.
I can't remember when that quote occurred...
And don't worry, I know Adam was more useless than Jade.
Adam had some good qualities to him... people think he should have been fired over Katie in Week 6, but I would actually have fired Azhar over him, as even by that point Adam had at least done something, whereas Azhar had contributed nothing of any value.
I think many people's views of Jade are unfairly skewed by that one week. As I made the point earlier, she was consistently decent. I'm not trying to rant at you! I was just Annoyed with the idea that Jade was useless. I've found many people have selective memories as far as she's concerned. Sorry if I was a bit excessive earlier!
Ohh I'd debate that. Adam spent the first six weeks trying to put his own stamp on everything whether it was wrong or right. He was an excessive glory-hunter. The thing that annoyed me was that he was all too keen to take credit for stuff but quickly backtracked when he realised that it could result in him getting fired (the production of the condiment in particular comes to mind). In spite of this I can't think of anything he did overly well in the first five weeks competency wise that would mean he survived the Week 6 boardroom.
Azhar, in my view, was central to two victories (Week 2 and Week 5) and, on a second viewing he got absolutely stitched up in the Design task. He was terrific in the Week 6 boardroom (less so in Week 7) and I would have kept him for that.
I disagree (though it has been a while since I watched it.) Azhar's strongest weeks (Weeks 2 and 5) he still arguably did badly on. When he was Project Manager, like with Noorul and Melissa before him, and Stephen and Andrew after him, they won in spite of his leadership, not because of it, and he was heavily criticised during the treat. Duane was more responsible for the win. As for Week 5, they won by a sheer fluke. Everyone thought that the other team should have won, and Azhar's video was much worse than Laura's.
I thought that in the first six weeks, while Adam was pretty bad and did a terrible job as PM, he still had enthusiasm and tried to get involved with doing constructive things, which in my opinion put him ahead of Azhar - though only marginally, I agree. If I had been Lord Sugar, I would have fired Azhar over Adam and Katie, or done a double firing and got rid of both of them, but there is no way I'd let Azhar get past that week.
I can remember off by heart the names of every candidate who has ever been on The Apprentice (including Young Apprentice), when they were fired, what the tasks were, when each person was Project Manager and who was in the final boardroom each week. I can't always remember who was on what team though, but I'm getting there.
Me too and I can remember who was on the teams.
But I'm an Apprentice nerd.
I can remember who was on some of the teams, but I'm not completely there across all the series at this point. I'll get there eventually I think.
Out of interest, do you not consider boardroom defence when looking at who you'd fire? In that boardroom, Azhar schooled Adam and Adam performed atrociously. I would have kept Azhar based on how well he did in ripping Adam to shreds.
I do look at it, but I think the task is more important. I imagine myself being a candidate, and what I'd say if I was asked who I thought should be fired.