A lot of the candidates on the Apprentice have been hopeless. Do you feel weak candidates are deliberately chosen because it is more entertaining when people make a mess of things.

No, but they are deliberately set up to fail by being over-worked, sleep-deprived, given ridiculously short deadlines, arbitrarily restricted rules, etc

I dont buy the sleep deprived/overworked stuff. If these are top business people they would be used to extremely long hours and having to perform with little or no preparation. Even after doing an all-nighter at work it wouldnt take me 20 minutes on a calculator to announce that a single bread roll costs £1.98 etc.

I think the only explanation is that candidates are chosen for comedy value etc rather than work skills. Another explanation is that they consider being good at hard selling/cold calling to mean 'good at business'. The skills that get you to the top in business are relationship building, presenting, teamworking, innovation etc. Thats how sales are made, not by imitating a used car salesman, or calling every number in a phonebook.

I thought at the beginning of the series that the 'candidates' chosen for this series were more like a dole queue than serious contenders. A couple of them seem to have their job title pre-fixed by 'unemployed'.

The only stand out candidate left for me is Liz. Paloma I think was pretty decent, but got a bit dragged down.

I'm shocked at how much credit Paloma got. I thought she looked the part, sounded the part but made some of the biggest errors we've seen this season:

In episode 2 she loudly championed Laura's decision to not even enter into negotiations with Boots on exclusivity - which lost them the task.

Episode 3 she was promising the hotel chains/coffee shops everything under the sun with no frigging clue whether they could make the order or not - the compensation they had to pay lost them the task.

On the selling modern products task she promised exclusivity to the guy in soho which meant all her sales were void.

On the fashion task she failed to secure the best line of clothes - which lost them the task.

She looked and sounded like she knew what she was talking about, but as far as I can see she was cocking up all over the place.

Even from series one its clear a truly capable and ambitious business person wouldn't waste their time on "apprentice" - its for a job after all, not a lump sum and the job has often turned out to be pretty mediocre.
Its just a bit of fun - though selecting a clearly idiotic candidate like Melissa is perhaps making it a bit too obvious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ss-59fi4nM

This explains everything.

I totally agree. People on here seem to think Paloma being fired was solely down to her self-sabotage in the boardroom. That didn't help but she had far more black marks against her than just that. I think people are taken in her looking the part.

I love it.

We're the ones watching ironically, right? Aren't we?

I think it's all just a game, the same as any other reality show and it's not about the end result ie a job with Sugar, imo, it's again about the entertainment factor. Are we being told that these are some of the best business people/brains that's on offer? They are selected due to the furore they will cause, the debate that will ensue and the drama; the Junior Apprentice represented more of an adequate portrayal of the business world than this 'senior' lot. We were told that the Apprentice, in this difficult financial climate, was going to be incorporating people who had been made redundant. It may have done and that was in the shape of Alex. Sorry but including a Doctor and people who have their own successful businesses, and not given the TRUE people a chance is just a cop out. What about those people who have been made redundant from non-business environments? What about giving them a chance, taking on the candidates who have the potention to make that transition from manual to commerical work - that would have made far more interesting viewing.

Yup.

When I saw that clip my boyfriend said "Eh, you do realise they're rip of the piss of you too there?"

You get 50 Paloma's in every large organisation. Well presented and articulate, but with no end product and no true business sense. Anyone who can't work in a team is a liability and that's why she was picked last for the final.

Exactly. She was openly comtemptuous of her fellow candidates. I found her ugly actually because of that, good-looking or not.

Wonder how Steady Eddie and Cautious Carol are getting on?

Fired, replaced by Dynamic Dave and Workaholic Wendy. Although Wendy suffered a breakdown so was seen by Counsellor Charlie and replaced by Drugged-up Darren, who then went on a bender and was section by Psychiatrist Phil and replaced by Ruthless Rick who met an untimely end when he was stabbed in the gonads by Demented Davina.

i would say they are being cautious and steady but not too ready to take on sugar who appeared blank when Dara asked him why the name carol?

He said 'it rhymes'.

(Actually, he meant it's alliterative but we'll forgive him as he's just a East-End boy made good.)

Excellent.

I imagine Claude the interviewer's outfit runs a bit like that as they are probably all constantly stressed out by him refusing to shake hands with them, telling them they are not fish etc.