She is only too nice to people she doesnt know.

In my opinion, Lord Sugar could do far, far worse than employ the steady, intelligent, driven, professional, "corporate" Stella. She is a strong candidate, but does seem to lack that maverick spark of genius which, ol' beardy, places above all other qualities. If the job he has in mind requires a bit of the Del boy charm, she probably won't get beyond the interviews.

But in different surroundings people can change so I don;t see being too corporate a disadvantage. Its more difficult to get a Del Boy type to become corporate as they are use to the easy life

Agreed
Joanna is so like LS, started her own business, worked her way up etc.
She was loudmouthed and pushy early on but she has learned and is much more thoughtful before she speaks now. But then you don't have her success prior to this show by sitting quietly with your mouth shut

The only thing with Joanna is that there's her conviction for racial assault. I think Sugar would be reluctant to allow someone with such a stain on their record to win.

I'm still hoping that Stella could win. Yes, this week's task showed a flaw - she's reluctant to push too hard for a cheaper price - but all the girls fell into that pit. All the boys have shown flaws too.

I'm afraid there's no contestant that doesn't have something that counts against them.

The last ep was a gamechanger. Stella & Liz came crashing down and Chris became a contender though he still has that bad trackrecord. Could it be that Joanna actually looks most likely winner at this point.

Thank God there are normal thinking people out there. Joanna was unfairly labelled a bully in the first couple of episodes when as far as I can see she was just speaking up and giving her opinion. She never once came across as rude in my opinion.

Exactly my thoughts.

Stella remains a strong contender. She's cool under pressure. Corporate isn't a good criticism to level at anyone in business because it's actually what all the most successful companies are, so she'd fit right in anywhere.

Of the girls in the boardroom showdown, two of them turned on Stella largely for personal reasons - they don't like her rather than they didn't rate her. The series winner might well be the woman who was not sitting in the boardroom showdown, but Stella might get to the final.

Liz's reaction back at the house was emotional and immature- she couldn't drop what was said purely in the interests of TV and competition. She personalised it in downtime when she should have mended fences. It was a mistake because Stella is forewarned that she cannot trust Liz.

All the boys are pretty weak. They can win task but their approach is often unprofessional and shambolic. I don't think I'd want any of them representing my company as they are all loose cannons.

Great post - said what I was thinking, but put more eloquently. Especially the last paragraph about the boys.

Thank God there's a few of us hey! I never got the loudmouth bullying label she's been given.

I suspect that you'll find it's just a couple of posters who are a bit OTT.

Someone tried to start a 'hate' thread about here early on but it never really got off the ground.

You only have to look at the 'rate the candidates' thread to see that she is overwhelming considered the best candidate by people on this site with twice as many having her as first choice as the next most highly considered.

I do quite like Stella - I think she is one of the better candidates this year, and she does seem to have something. But I worry that she's being set up by the editing as "too corporate", which Sugar has frowned upon in the past (why he feels that way, I'm not so sure). She's solid, calm and hardworking, but is shown not to have much of a spark. I'm beginning to think she may not make it past the interviews.

Essentially, I think she's being set up as a more likeable and competent version of Helene.

Me too. Laura created an environment in which the women had to shout to be heard.

The other poster might have been thinking of week 1, when Joanna had an argument with Melissa - basically wanting to close a sale that Melissa had started. Even there, I don't think Joanna was as aggressive as she was painted, and later episodes showed how difficult Melissa could be to work with.


I don't think that's true. I'm sure they all rate Joanna pretty highly, and Liz did manage the task well, so it came down to Stella and Laura. I don't rate Laura highly myself, but I can acknowledge she often has valid criticisms even if she can't get them acted on. On this task, for example, the big mistake was buying truffles from the expensive resturant - once they'd decided to do that, £200 might well have been the best price available (and it was about 70% of the £270 asking price, fitting Jamie's policy). The location was picked by Stella, with Laura criticising it. It's not surprising if Laura continued criticising Stella's choices in the boardroom.

Liz could well rate Laura highly too. They've not been on the same team much, and if they've talked after tasks, Laura probably makes it sound like she's brilliant and the PMs waste her talent. A lot of what she says is valid. A big part of why viewers don't like her is personal: ie she bitches about people behind their backs - but by definition, that's not something the person criticised knows about. Liz hasn't seen what we see.

There's no reason to think Liz and Laura didn't turn on Stella in the boardroom for valid, professional reasons, with personal affection playing no part.

I pay little attention to balance of bitching 'to camera' shots shown for the different candidates because I know full well that the producers primary objective is to manipulate the viewers into forming certain opinions of certain candidates 'for good TV', and truthfulness plays no part whatsoever in their editorial decisions.

They can look over the raw camera output from the entire series after the event and decide in what light they want to present each candidate. And the general public are largely so thick that they fall for it hook line and sinker.

In the series in which Helene Speight took part her comments to camera were usually so astute that it almost looked as if she was an outside expert being paid to comment on the task.

Yet the general viewer had been manipulated into thinking of her in a certain way, largely on the basis of a a one off argument with Lucinda and an edit where she was often barely seen (largely, I suspect, because she was doing her assigned tasks without the amusing gaffes a lot of the others were making). And the crew of posters who seem to get more satisfaction in spitting their venom at a candidate than analysing the tasks had a field day.

I didn't like the way she couldn't give a monkeys about Laura being fired, twice she gave facial expressions making that obvious.

She and Liz where very lucky to have got away with this. They obviously went for the box ticking appraoch, accepting any little discount and failed to realise that they where supposed to spend as little as possible as well as getting all the products at a discount. This task has been in most if not all of the series so it makes me wonder if they have watched the previous series and if they have, how much attention they paid to them.
If Laura had one rpevious strong showing, she would have survived.

Laura had to go, she was dreadful- all she did was bitch.
Joanna has mellowed since the second week and I think she is the best female candidate. Stella won't win and I don't think she wants to either- she never really seems passionate to win the position. Liz might get to the final but I don't think she'll be hired- something kinda off-putting about her.

As for the men, I think Chris has the best chance. He's young and smart enough to do well as an apprentice. He calmer and more level-headed than Stuart but I think Herr Baggs is the dark horse and could pull it off.

I too think Stella is for the chop. But it could be a bluff.
I certainly wouldn't employ her in that kind of job. She'd be OK as a drone.

Stella is inflexible and not even half as good as people seem to think she is - she's not even in the top 4 of those left for all round business acumen. Put it this way, I wouldn't employ her.

Incidentally, the YF panellists have been pretty obtuse as none of them have backed or rated Joanna.

I noticed that this week. It was rather creepy - almost as if she'd been edited out of existence.

She's rarely shown on YF because she just gets on with things in a competent manner, doesn't make any amusing gaffes, and only really gets noticed when she's trying to make a point.

And yet she's the top pick for 18 people here compared to her nearest rival who is top pick for just 7.

It seems that a great many people realise her talents even if they are not shouting about it.

Yeah, I've been wondering whether any of them actually watch the show. Martin Lewis, the so-called finance 'expert', got on my nerves especially - didn't mention Joanne, bigged up Stella like she was God's gift to the business world and labelled Liz a bitch!

it's weird, every single person got a mention apart from Joanna on YF, even one of them said they'd like Stuart to be in the final two

The audience was asked who they wanted to win, and the subtitles I had up said - "Calls of 'LIZ', 'JOANNA' and 'STELLA'."

And to be fair I heard those three names aswell.