Ah Ok. I completely disagreed with this decision like I did with Raef, whereas in previous firings I have kind of agreed with SAS.

I'm loving your work Chisato Geeste

If you look at the ratings, most viewers disagree and the more bitchy and fighting it has become the more viewers it has gained.

And can anyone honestly say the ones that have been fired over the bigger characters could have won? I don't know about anyone else but I'd rather have extremely irritating candidates but a very entertaining series over boring candidates and a potentially boring series.

Debra will do things but upset people. Noorul will do less and upset less. Ben it seems to me is largely hot air with not much ability and is as likely as Debra to cause problems with much less upside.

So you'd rather have characters who are pretty useless which makes the actual tasks dull and then wait for the fighting.

It was more entertaining when Saira, Tim, James and Paul fighting it out using their brains and all making the tasks really interesting.

The ratings are only higher because:
- It is on BBC1.
- It is much better promoted than it was a few years back.
- The papers are all jumping on the bangwagon.

This is easily the worst series yet.

I obviously watch it for different reasons. I want them to fail, its more entertaining that way especially when they screw up very badly and they don't realise e.g. sandalwoodgate. It would be boring if everyone were great candidates, the tasks were successes and they all got on.

I much preferred it back when the candidates were intelligent with business acumen.

ie. seasons 1 and 2.

I'm with you on that one. I enjoy watching people that think they are so great at everything getting even the most basic things wrong.

I also like how they are always rubbish at the stuff they say they are best at. Top of the list being "natural leaders", which most of them aren't.

Most of the people that are on "The Apprentice" would also probably try for "Big Brother". It doesn't seem to have much to do with business acumen and it's not as though we get to hear anything about what the successful candidate actually ends up doing.

I agree Paula seemed very capable to me and he really didn't give her a second chance.

what makes me laugh is the bit during the intro titles when the narrator says "15 of Britains best business prospects", I have never seen such a bunch of cretins

Yeah. It's transparently obvious that the producer drives the agenda. Whatever Ben did or didn't do last night, he was never going to be kicked out until much later.

I am enjoying this series just as much as the last two.

Allthough last year's series will be hard to beat.

Claire , Lucinder Lee and Rayf made last years.

Ben should have gone last night as he is a rude abnoxious and slightly immature candidate.

Noorul was a candidate that waited for everyone else.

If two could be fired Ben should have gone with him.

No. In the first series there was some pretence that Sir Alan fired on the task, but that ended pretty quickly and now he's clear he takes past performance into account. In fact he made the demarcation explicit when Ben said he was bringing Nooral in for his past performance: "No, that's my job".

Ben was only supposed to consider the task for which he was leader. It's part of the leadership test: can he identify who on his team is the weak link, as well as Nick and Margaret can? It's a crucial skill in business. How you deal with the loss at least as important as whether you lose.

Sir Alan is free to consider past performance. In the later tasks he also considers "where you'll fit in to my organisation", which might mean a good candidate is fired simply because Sir Alan doesn't have a role for them.

He doesn't fire based on ratings, or who is entertaining. He doesn't care about that stuff. Plus he doesn't really know; much of that is down to the editing.


He's not a hypocrite. He's just not in the same position as Ben. (I can't believe someone doesn't realise that.)

After all the previous series, he and the producers, know the type of candidate that raises the programmes profile and gets the papers talking... and remember he has Nick & Margaret to let him know who they are..

I'd be interested to know what Siralan's thinks this programme is achieving anything other than good ratings

So 7.5m for last night isn't good? I think its the most watched series yet.

He thinks it raises the profile of business and favourably influences young people towards a career in business. He has some evidence that it works, in the form of letters from school kids etc.

Erm.....Ben is arguably as weak as Noorul as he hasnt shone in any task. He has zero chance of winning. If that was series 1, Ben would have gone. My reason is Raj. He didnt do much yet he made it to around the last 5.

He had the only idea in the fitness task. He had the core idea in the cereal task. He's generally pretty creative and hard-working. Until this task his main faults were personality-related, not business-related. Nooral was far worse.

he may have ideas but his ideas were rubbish! Hence why they lost those tasks! He is quite funny really "Sandhurst....!"

Most of the tasks do involve business acumen or creativity, eg last week's show. The problem is unlike earlier series 1-3, the quality of candidates has noticeably deteriorated. Last year maybe 2 or 3 candidates showed suitable Apprentice qualities well before the final stages. This year, so far not one really seems to be standing out.

And it was complete and utter rubbish.

Also, we don't know if there were other ideas. We only know that the edit just showed one.

I can't believe anyone thinks this year's crop show less business acumen than the legion of numpties that made up series 2.

Alexa? Samuel? Tuan? Sharon? Nargis? Mani? Ansell? JO BLOODY CAMERON? I can't remember half of those people being able to distinguish their arses from their elbows. I'd take anybody left this year over any of those losers (and quite a few of the people fired already)

And the idea that quiet capable people being fired over the loudmouths has just started now, when series 1 saw class A loud-mouths and drama starters Paul and Saira bulldozing over Sebastian, Ben, and Miriam, and relatively intelligent and quiet Miranda being bullshit fired in favour of ADELE of all people... boggles the mind.

Some people really do have very selective memories.

What good business skills has Ben shown?

It was after Series 2 that Suralun told Talkback they had to dramatically increase the quality of the candidates (from a biznis point of view).

JJ

SA is such a hypocrite. I'm sorry but that is something that has been going on for long and is very noticeable. He changes his criteria on what a candidate should be like week in week out, to certain people. I remember last year, he would either tell Helene she was ridiculous, pointless and boring, or "you have a very good chance", and these opinions would fluctuate from week to week. Or like how he kept changing his opinion on Raef, from "great competitor" to "what's the point of you", which led to him getting fired, from not making a bad mistake, just to save Michael. It was "indicisive", as he seemed to have changed his opinions over his candidates very finely.

He is either very biased, very indicisive or is being told what to do. It makes sense. You cannot just quickly and blatantly change like that.