Well i have been watching series 4 again and this guy has to be the most useless candidate to date. There have been quite a few hopeless candidates in all 5 series, people who promised a lot and failed to deliver, but Sophocles takes the biscuit. Its incredible that he managed to keep surviving the boardroom week after week. He didn't even have Syed's ability to bullshit his way out of things week after week. He should have gone in week 7 or 8 but he was given another chance on two more occasions. Week 7 the whole team was a joke so maybe you can let him off. Week 8 he fails to sell anything. He is just as bad as Saira but Saira goes.week 9 he and Raef get carried away and fail to remember the point of the task but in the boardroom Sophocles turns it all around on Raef when they were both as bad as each other in truth. poor old Raef gets the bullet.
Week 9 was definately the week he should have gone.
He asks to be made team leader to prove himself so week 10 he is team leader and again he messes the whole thing up. He is attempting to hire out expensive cars and he takes it to some tatty market where the people are poor and can't afford it. One guy shows an interest but then says he can't afford it and tries to leave but Sophocles suggests that he go with him to his meeting and then starts following the poor guy up the road. What an embarrassment. He says week after week that he is a good salesman but on 2 occasions he failed to sell anything. He was given more chances than practically anyone else ever on the apprentice and each time he failed, how on earth did he manage to last so long?

Because Sugar 'saw some of himself' in him. Pisses me off that does. To get back to the title of the thread though, Philip would give Michael a good run for him money!

I know that some posters have been declaring amorous feelings for Ben in another thread, so perhaps now would be a good time to admit the shameful fact that I fancied Michael Sophocles.

He was right up there with Noorul as one of the most useless candidates ever, but he did provide plenty of laughs along the way.

He ruined the entire second half of series 4 for me.

He should have been fired over Jennifer M in the Morocco task, she defended herself better than him and he had been just as much to blame as Jenny C. Jen M wasn't brilliant either, but had more potential than Sophocles and did better on the tasks.

After that the series went way downhill, Sara AND Raef shoud have stayed over Michael - they had one bad week but overall they were both so much better than Michael and he had done just as badly as they did in each of the tasks. He should have been on his last chance after the Morocco task anyway. It turned the series into a complete farce that Michael stayed for so long, and makes me question Sir Alan's judgement...

Michael actually had NO strong weeks. He wasn't good at anything. If he'd have gone when he should have gone (week 7) then the final four might have been so much better than it was.

I'm still not over Raef getting fired over Michael. It remains an outrage.

I agree with this. It does seem abit indulgent on Suralan's part: "Oh - you remind me of myself at that age so you stay." He only ever says this to the young men and not the younger women, so the men are already at an advantage if they misbehave. Suralan kindly putting their behaviour down to the indiscretion of the young. Jenny M certainly didn't deserve to go then but she went anyway. It's rather like indulging a spoiled child because he is your secret favourite.

Michael definetly was completely useless - though you had to laugh at just how useless he was - at first, especially when he spent four hours trying to work out where an apostrophe should go.

But when he got through instead of Raef - well let's just say for me, it was no longer a laughing matter. Michael's ridiculously prolonged stay was emblematic of the loathsome, abysmal nature of the series 4 contestants as a whole.

He is definelty the most useless candidate ever ("I know it's half a pizza - the chef told me to do it!" "They're just dum dumbs" "I'll come with you to your meeting" "Everything you liked about this advert came from me!"). He made me laugh, but he sickened me. My family and I cheered very loud and went wild when he got fired!

And for me, he holds that position alongside Kevin Shaw ("we're having record sales - I've sold two mugs", "if you don't buy these cards, it's the same as the US saying 'we don't care about global warming'")who was also hilariously useless, and showed himself to be totally pathetic when he got steamrolled by Jenny C into creating "environment cards", and into turning on Sara in the boardroom.

OH DEAR GOD. There is no good time to admit that, ever. I AM JUDGING YOU.

(I'm not really judging you. Actually I admire your bravery in confessing this. )

I really disliked Michael, he's just one of those guys who makes your skin crawl. Well, mine anyway. 100% pure smarm.

ETA: I like your Antonia Forrest reference!

Couldn't stand the bloke - Losing Jenny M, Sara and Raef (my 3 favourites last year) instead of him made me dislike him all the more

I don't know if he was quite the most useless, but he was certainly one of the more repellent and inept contestants. He should really have been fired on the Marrakesh task along with Jenny C for the kosher chicken debacle and for their moral bankruptcy in trying to bribe the sports shop people to sabotage the other team. I know Jennifer M had managed the team badly and was probably really most responsible for the team's failure, but Michael's failings were really laid bare that week. I don't know how Sir Alan ever retained any illusions after that.

To be honest I felt sorry for him. He clearly had as little idea why he was there by the end as the rest of us. And whilst he was a pushy little sod, he wasn't in the same league of villainy as Celery or Wotherspoon.

There have been other candidates just as useless as Michael (or even worse), but he stands out because he stayed for so long. The other useless people normally got fired much earlier in the competition.

A few examples:

-Ifti, Series 3. Total breakdown in Ep.2 because he missed his family.

-Alexa, Series 2. No control of anything whatsoever.

-Sophie, Series 3. Seemed to have a dislike in making money.

-Adele, Series 1. Rude, ghastly, ineffective.

-Rory, Series 3. Need I say more.

And then, you also have the early firings that never got to show anything good, but we never got to know well enough (Nicholas S4, Adenike S1, Anita S5 et.c.)


I completely agree that Michael partially destroyed the second half of S4. I'll never forgive SAS for keeping him instead of Raef and the lovely Sara

To be fair to Alexa, whatever she'd done on that task could never have salvaged it after Syed's chicken-ordering screw-up.

And I'm not sure Sophie hated the idea of making money; she just hated the idea of ripping people off. Not so much useless as too ethical.

I agree. AS did say he held Syed totally responsible for the failure but poor Alexa was obviously never going to be comfortable in TA style shenanigans.

I think people who criticise candidates as 'hopeless' and 'useless' often have no idea of the gamut of personality types that are required in the world of business. For every 'barrow-boy' who will succeed on a lot of TA tasks there are quiet thoughtful people who very successfully mange vast swathes of business.

The main fault of these people is not realising that being very good in your own field does not necessarily equate to being good in the very artificial world of TA.

Oh - I'd forgotten the legend that was Kevin Shaw! How he made me laugh!

Yeah, he was useless but funny (Alex: Why are you shouting? Kevin: Becuase that's what chefs do!), and at least he went out at the right time.

Michael surviving as long as he did has to be one of the biggest Apprentice farces of all time.

I believe he was the only gay in the village.

Although that happened partly because poor time management left no time to talk to the supplier. Also, it looked like Alexa was determined to make the classic mistake of spending all money regardless - she was planning to do leaflets, which I don't think would have helped.


Agreed. And she'd done a great job on production the day before, when the other team had messed up repeatedly on it, so in my opinion Adam should never have brought her into the boardroom.

Leave Michael alone, he was funny