Or do you think that the production company are able to exert influenece to retain the characters that they believe will make good TV - largely because they are the ones most liked/disliked by the viewers?

I have often found it odd that a supposedly shrewd businessman seems to become obsessed by some trivial aspect of a task and have noted that this is often the case when there is a 'stand out' candidate to fire - but that candidate is one who is obviously (or is obviously going to) be one that gets everyone talking about the series.

Last week no sane person would have considered Anita more responsible for the girl's team's failure given the appalling showing of Debora but she was a far more 'background' player and thus more expendable from the TV point of view.

I think last week one of 2 things happened

A/ he knew he just wasn't going to hire any of those 3 (after even a 90 minute interview things become pretty clear and they spend a long time in there) so took the obvious entertainment decision

B/ although Anita was not the worst in the task, she also did very little to be the best. If that's her attitude to work in general, it's probably not what SAS is looking for (though many firms would, I'm sure, be happy to have her). Debra could turn out to be a bit of a Claire for all SAS knows and is in a way harder to suss out. Anita, a lawyer (which he doesn't seem to like anyway) didn't do anything to save herself so was the obvious choice on a general decision.]

This is why, IMO, Noorul is also out as soon as he's in that room for the first time. These people were picked as fodder if you ask me.

I think he's allowed to pick the winners, but he doesn't necessarily get a choice as to who goes earlier. I think he's given some to choose from, and told which ones he has to keep, but at the end of the day the winner is his choice

Indeed. At the end of the day I wasn't suggesting they dictated who he could hire, just very strongly suggested who got retained for the first episodes.

I think its somewhere in the middle.

As already said I don't think Mona, Debra or Anita will win so it didn't really matter who went.

I don't think its dictated as such, but perhaps he's advised.

I'm not sure Noorul will go so soon - he is like this series' Trey. Especially if he's going to be ding-donging with Ben.

At the end of the day, the likes of Sayid, Paul and the usual "he reminds me of me when I was younger" characters seem to have more lives than a cat.

Last year, with Lucinda, Jenny and Shazia, we had exactly the same situation, except Lucinda was getting full-on bullied by Jenny, rather than being called a 'puppet' and Shazia actually did nothing wrong (although she didn't get this across in the boardroom, or, at least, the editors of the show didn't show he telling him she did nothing wrong).

Lucinda, was clearly going to be the most entertaining character of the season, as she did turn out to be, and Jenny too was entertaining, because she bullied, and made a fantastic hate figure. Shazia was just...there, so he fired her.

What happened last week is probably a slightly less extreme version of what happened in the situation mentioned above.

I hope we don't get much more of this though. Last year, I found myself disagreeing with most of the firings (week 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9).

I think he mostly has a free hand. Obviously they have to manage the numbers so he can't fire too many people at once, especially early on, because they don't know how many will quit later.

However, I also think pretty much all his decisions are defensible. Last week, for example, the girls team failed on two points, over-spending and lack of income, and Anita was tied to both of them so she was logically fired. You can make an argument for other people being fired too, but she was pretty bad.

Also, he doesn't get to see what we see. He relies on reports from N&M and from the production crew, so he sometimes lacks information we have. On the other hand, they spend many hours in the boardroom so he has information we don't have. That can help explain why his decisions may not match ours. Plus he has his own little foibles, eg a prejudice against lawyers.

The show was filmed last autumn, so the production crew don't actually know who is popular with viewers.

It could be that he does have a free hand, but discusses things with the producers. And is prepared to accomodate the advice of the production team as he realises that it will keep the programme popular and viable for longer.

Of course he does not.

In fact in Series 3, Sir Alan wanted to fire Tre on the spot, before the first task because of his creating a false team name, and stealing it from the company he previously worked for.

The production team told him no, as he was too good to let go this early, as in too entertaining lol

Given that Amstrad will be paying the 6 figure salary, I'd be pretty surprised if Alan (he's the only KBE I've heard of who actually insists on being called by his title!) didn't get the person HE wanted to employ at the end of the show. He probably has a pretty good idea from the outset who he wants, and can steer them through to the final through judicious comments and firings.

With 3 candidates to choose from in each "firing" - he can protect those he wants to keep until the later stages.

I agree though - in these early stages he will play along to keep the good TV characters in - I think he would have loved to have got rid of Debra last week and James this, but they were bigger characters than those who went.

Like all these reality shows, there are clear contenders from the outset and a load of also rans who are there purely to go in the early weeks. Where it does go wrong is where the losing PM picks the wrong people to go into the boardroom with them, like Rocky did this week. He may well have survived against Noorul (completely useless) or Philip (backstabbing negativity), but he picked two of the stronger characters who had not done much wrong.

I'm also pretty sure that Nick and Margaret brief Alan properly before the final boardroom scenario. They are with the teams watching ALL that goes on, not just the edited highlights and are well aware of all that happens and who did (or didn't) do what - remember Nick's "I made it my business to watch you..." comment to Noorul? I would imagine that they have an input into who goes as the 3 candidates are known to them before the final showdown.

I wouldn't mind betting that the decision as to who goes is made before they come back in - unless they turn in an amazing peformance in the boardroom..

Although Tre may have been kept because it was too risky to lose a candidate so early, rather than because he made good TV. Especially as at that stage they didn't know he was going to be good TV.

I'm guessing you got that account from Adam Hosker's diary, where he writes:

If Sugar had any balls he'd have fired him the following morning. Well as it turned out he does have but the production team vetoed him on the decision, me and Andy both heard him say to Nick that he had wanted to fire him but he wasn't allowed, as we would later find out he was there for comedy value.

Notice that he doesn't give a source for the "comedy value" reason. Most likely it's Adam's own opinion of why Tre was kept, rather than the reason given by production.

Obviously Sir Alan can't just fire 6 people on a whim, because if he did there would be no show. They have to keep a reasonable number of candidates in the game, and they have to be especially careful early on because they don't know how many candidates will crack under pressure and walk. (Or quit for other reasons like Katie did, or need to be part of some double- or triple-firing later.)

I dont think Adam is that reliable a source - I seem to remember him being quite bitter about virtually everyone and everything to do with TA after he got fired.

But on the topic, I think he does have a free hand as such, but I think that perhaps he is given a few whispers in the ear. Ultimately, he will probably have already picked out 2 or 3 potential winners by this point anyway - the others are all gonna be picked off one by one unless they do a Claire and really shape up, so its probably the case of it not making a difference if the dull ones go early - they had no chance anyway, and keeping the entertaining no-hopers (eg. Syed) is just common sense for a tv show.

One thing is that the editing is being done with the benefit of hindsight. Anita would probably have come off as a big character and Deborah as a background person if he'd decided to fire Deborah instead. They wouldn't have bothered to set Deborah up as the big bitch of the series if she was going to get fired.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sir Alan is getting nudges about who to keep. But I do think it might be difficult for the production people to get a sense of who's going to make the best TV during the short space of time between the tasks getting filmed and the boardroom visit?