Stuart was being pretty obnoxious at the time. It was all in the heat of the moment.

I like Stella and am glad she's won, but I did cringe at her VT about there being no question that she would win and her put-down of Chris in the boardroom. Paloma was fired for just such a comment, and she was lucky Lord Sugar liked her.

Stella did win and there's nothing wrong with believing she would. Besides, all the candidates must have thought the same about themselves at some point, otherwise they wouldn't have applied.

And Paloma chose to speak about other people's qualifications after knowing them for a few weeks. Stella merely spoke about a personal characteristic of Chris' after knowing him for 12 weeks. Fair enough, I say.

I'd thought Stella was going to win for weeks now and championed her as a worthy winner.

Her attack on Chris was more than enough, for that alone, Chris should have won. The task itself was very close and Chris proved himself as far more professional and a much nicer person all round.

I really went right off Stella, just at that moment.

There's a difference between saying you should win and you have a good chance of doing so and talking as if it's in the bag.

I don't see the difference between the two comments; both were instances of a contestant making derogatory comments about another's fitness without any real basis. I never thought Paloma deserved to be fired for her remark (she was the right person to go, but for other reasons) and see little wrong with Stella's either, but I don't see why one was acceptable and the other not.

I remember Alan Sugar getting angry at Paloma and firing her for doing something very similar.
I did think that regarding the Paloma situation that was the moment Stella lost the job.
But when has Alan Sugar been consistent on this show?

I think that Stella was a very good candidate, but if previous weeks were anything to go by then Alan Sugar by rights should have told her that he didn't like her doing his job and putting Chris down when she was supposed to be selling her own merits to get the job.

In that situation I believe that Chris showed much more integrity.

I don't care that Chris didn't win. He would not have enjoyed working for Lord Sugar.
Stella is capable of working robotically because of her corporate banking background.
Although she has more personality than that she will cope better when it comes to licking boots.
I thought that the smuggest person was Lord Sugar himself.

"Smug" is the new buzzword on here :yawn:

Agree.I have no problem weith Stella winning, though on the basis of the final task it should have been Chris, but her attack on Chris and her whole attitude in the VT and boardroom really left a lot to be desired. Chris was far more mature without resorting to cheap shots. I was hoping Chris would get the job just to wipe the smug smile from her face.

Very smug. Not my choice of winner at all. Not sure what LS was thinking letting Chris go.

Liz was also a threat so wonder why she didnt get the same treatment?

People talk about Stella "attacking" Chris. All she said was that she had more passion for the job than Chris. Chris immediately began talking over her, not allowing her to finish her sentence.

It didn't sound like an attack to me, simply an observation.
Chris, on the other hand, came across as extremely arrogant with his "....everyone came to me for advice...." "...I was the one which....." etc. Yet he had been on the losing team more times than the winning team.

I was really pleased Stella won.

In the interviews they did before/during the series, they were all talking themselves up so I saw nothing different about Stella's "I always get what I go for". In the boardroom that was hardly an attack on Chris, it was a comparison with her saying she had more passion than him. She did not say he was useless, arrogant etc.

I wonder if her control has been interpreted as smugness. Maybe that is how she covers her nerves, and I am sure that being in the Board Room and the Apprentice final is a very nerve-wracking experience. One poster suggested that Nick and Karren preferred Chris - I must have missed this as I thought they were championing both finalists and pointing out their strong points. In terms of the final challenge, Stella should have won this on the basis of the "Urbon" brand name alone!

How did she know ? Could she measure his passion

If she`d said about her experience over his etc etc fair enough.

Well, Sugar's not an idiot. She was just saying what she felt. There was no guarantee he would buy into it.

people have this funny talent of getting a good idea about others after sharing a house and workplace with them for a few months.

Didn't she say she was looking at Paloma for her opinion though?

She was merely looking at Paloma's facial expression, as she was delivering her pitch. And then Joanna tried to bulldoze Paloma into explaining her facial expression. Joanna comes off as extremely confrontational at times, I'm glad she didn't make it to the final.

I thought she'd blown it when she started saying she had more passion than Chris and having a Paloma moment

At the end of the day, she was the best candidate and the most professional= and won.

What's the problem?

She almost out-smugged Stuart Baggs & that's saying something.

That's exactly what I thought.

The first thing I thought of was Paloma & I was certain that The Baron would hire Chris when she did that.

Certainly it wasn't a vitriolic personal attack, but then neither had Paloma's final speech been. All Paloma had done was to suggest that Alex and Sandeesh didn't have her experience, and this was apparently sufficient to condemn her. And what Stella did was pretty much the same.

I'm not advocating that the comments should have got Stella fired, by the way. I'm glad they didn't. But I don't see why in that case Paloma's comments earned her a firing. (I feel Paloma was the right person to go on that task, but for other reasons)

Maybe she looked at Paloma for her opinion on boardroom tactics too.

I agree with Arty Attack. I still think Stella is ok and a worthy winner. I also always preferred Stella to Chris for the entire series. It's just that in that final episode I just suddenly changed my mind and genuinely felt that Chris would be the more worthy winner at the end. It was a bit of an eleventh hour decision, but I simply acknowledged the merits of Chris at the end. The funny thing is that I sort of always knew he had something of merit at the back of my mind, but it took the final episode for me to realise what I always kind of knew.

To me the comparision between the two candidates and how they presented themselves in the boardroom was the clincher. It was at that point I realised that I preferred Chris over Stella as I felt that Stella let herself down a bit and conversely Chris somehow managed to win me over.

It's true that Chris has a monotone voice, but I don't find him boring in the least because I find that the content of what he actually says can at times be engaging and very convincing. He did convince me at the end.

I do think that Stella is probably my favourite winner from all the different series. But I do like what Chris has to say for himself when it really matters and I think I would have preferred him as the winner.
But two good finalists I thought. No complaints from me.

She looked self satisfied certainly but that will wear off when she's stuck in some obscure office at the arse end of nowhere with no responsibility whatsoever!

I've just commented on another thread that Stella was my favourite, until her attack about Chris and his 'lack' of passion. Chris deserved to win that final in the end and I noticed that Stella's smugness overtook anything that she'd achieved beforehand when she had been sitting quietly in the boardroom during firings.