Not liking Debra either, two faced is definitely the term for her! But as for sneaky, the boys' PM Howard was another one, just look on the picture on the Apprentice website!

Just re-watched the Boardroom drama, and what Nick, said about Debra is very true, "she should count herself lucky, she screwed up badly." Odd thing re Debra, she's the image of a girl I once knew in school, who was exactly the same in character, and she eventually came a-cropper. I can see Debra doing same.

Yes, it's strange how that happens, i wonder if it stacks up that you can often tell what a person will be like by the way they look. I imagine it comes under the 'first impressions' label!

It seems that the girls bought a can of oven cleaner to use for cleaning cars.
They claim they didn't actually use it. Just imagine what would have happened if they had used it on the Ferrari.

Link

I thought there was a clip of the 'sub team' in the taxi saying so, in fact Debra and another (not Anita) said it although I do agree that Anita appears to be fall guy for the error that most of them didn't pick up on or didn't speak loudly enough about at the right time.

Yep, that was well after they'd spent the money, too little, too late.

Incorrect. Kate ("not a dumb blonde") said something like "we don't have to spend the whole £200" but was apparently ignored. Overall she seems the most positive of the girls featured this week to me, even if she didn't know a pressure washer needs a water supply.

The so-called project manager did no managing at all apart from assigning a lawyer to be a bean counter.

Something I noticed while re-watching on iPlayer..

They cut a lot out in the board room.. even as far as cutting a sentence off before it's finished. If you listen carefully people will say a word and then it cuts quickly to someone else and you get the impression they continued on but the production people cut it out.

Like for example:

SA: "Was you expecting Debra to be aware of her costs?"
Mona: "Precisely.." *CUT*

And then it switched to Sir Alan asking Derba

SA: "So what have you got to say about that then, besides laughing"

But what we don't know is what else Mona said because they cut it out.

I think any exchange in this show where it's people speaking immediately after other people means something has been cut out. Not that I'm complaining, it's only natural they have to cut some stuff out otherwise we'd be there all day watching the board room. It's just interesting to realise just how often they need to do it.

I was going to say this, I re-watched and Kate, with Debra agreeing, mentioned that they didn't need to spend all the money and it would cut into their profit. This was while they were still in the warehouse, before repeating it in the taxi with Debra, Anita and Alan Carr.

Im loving this year's show.

Debra is a bit of a cow, but that is why she MUST stay

Adenike was first fired, way back in s1. But it's been all boys fired in the first week since. So that's currently 3 boys, 2 girls: about even.

As other people have said, Kate pointed it out while still in the warehouse.

And Anita was closest to it; she was most aware of how much money was being spent. It doesn't matter what your job is, if you see a fire, you should shout "fire", especially if you are standing right next to it. Anita didn't. She even congratulated the team on their spending. It really was as if she was aiming to spend all £200. Rather like Alexa on the food task in s2.

Anita was also on the sub-team that made the least money. Mona's sub-team made £217, and Debra/Anita's sub-team made £140. If they'd made as much as the other sub-team, they'd almost have won. Personally I don't much care because I thought Mona's over-pricing was so ludicrous I wouldn't criticise someone else for failing to match it, but ultimately making money is something Sir Alan likes and that helped keep Mona safe. If we subtract the costs equally, then Mona's profit was nearly 3 times Debra/Anita's.

There was an argument for firing Debra, but nothing really got blamed on her. Mona tried to say she created divisions in her sub-team, but that wasn't true from what we saw (and Nick would know that). Mona's accusations of lying weren't valid either. (If anything, Mona was more divisive, at least in the post-task discussion.) So out of the 3 in the boardroom, Anita was the natural choice to go. She was associated with both of the two failings.

I agree Mona was a poor leader, but she did step up and Sir Alan likes to reward that, especially in the first week. (Cf Alex last year.)

He fired the project managers in the first task in Series 2 and 3.

I'm surprised at the support for Mona on here; she was a shambolic project manager, and frankly I didn't even find her very likeable. Debra wasn't very likeable either - that smug smirk of hers reminds me unpleasantly of Alex from lat year - but she really didn't do anything worthy of being fired. OK, her half of the team made less than the other half, but I don't think that meant much; as has been pointed out, Mona overcharged ridiculously.

The money spent on cleaning materials was what lost them the task, and it was right that the firing should have been based on this. Superficially, this looked like Anita's fault; she seemed to be "in charge of the budget". However, I think Mona was really to blame, as Anita had not been told to keep costs low, just to keep them under £200. Anita should have had the gumption to do a bit more than this, but so should they all, and hardly anyone did.

I think Mona should have gone, then, but firing Anita wasn't a travesty (as some firings have been).

Incidentally, what was Adrian Chiles talking about? There were plainly more Fired than Hired cards!

Maj to win

It can't be easy editing everything down to just one 60-minute programe. Maybe, as it's such a big ratings winner, the BBC should split it into 2 shows from next year. A 60 minute task programme on one night, followed by a 30 minute boardroom programme the next.


Of course, Sir Alan can only sack someone from the losing team. More than that, he can only choose between the losing project manager and the two people the pm brings back in with them. So the spread of genders sacked in the first week has nothing to do with Sir Alan.