Am I missing something here? In the last series' finals did not the candidates have to organise an entire gala event, from start to finish? Surely that is a much bigger challenge than the one the finalists were set this year? In effect, the drinks thing was quite similar to a previous task, wasnt it, where they had to make and sell their own crisps? Hardly a huge task for the final job??

They had a gala event. We just didn't see much of the organising of it.

I did notice the cameras lingering on the opening dancers, and I presume someone on each team had the job of hiring and choreographing them, but we just didn't see it.

Those dancers seemed out of place at the event - rather embarrassing, really.

Ah not really, not compared to other series. This was just a launch for the drink, with some accompanying dancers/events and a presentation. When they organised an event previously they had to do EVERYTHING, from food and entertainment right down to the seating and the ambience. I didn't feel this was either of them arranging an event, merely a launch for a product, much like previous tasks. Cop-out, I feel.

I also think that, given the prevalence of underage-binge-drinking and the explosion in alcohol-related crime recently, this was a bad concept to focus on. I know they had the industry standards to adhere to, but why not make it a new cheese, or a new pair of jeans, or maybe a new toy for kids? Why drink? Not like there aren't enough alcoholic beverages on the already-saturated market. Bad choice, imo,.

The drink was specifically to be aimed at the over 25 market, and they made a specific point of focusing on advertising standards during the task.

Personally, I think designing a new brand is much more complicated than throwing a party as well...

My point is that during the series they already had done this, firstly, to a somewhat lesser extent admittedly, with the sausages, and then later with the crisps. So how did this differ really from those tasks?

The final task is supposed to be The Big One, where they need the help of former candidates to help them. On this I didn't feel that was addressed, and with a little effort they could have easily both tackled this task alone. Running a high-profile gala event, like a concert, cabaret or auction, would have tested them far more and show the Dark Lord more of their abilities, or the lack of them,

I just don't understand why it was changed this year...

As for the drink, it may be AIMED at over-25s, but do you seriously think people under that age are not going to be able to buy it? Anyway, the point was I believed they should not have put the focus on alcohol at all. Just what I think.

It's been more or less exactly the same task for the last four series now - design a product, then live-pitch it at a "launch event" which the teams have some input into setting up. Series 5 it was chocolates, Series 4 it was a "man's fragrance" and in Series 3 it was a building for the South Bank. Even the kids version had the same thing for its final task, with the "bottle of water".

It hasn't been a US Apprentice-esque "host a gala-event/charity fund-raiser" since Series 2. I'm guessing it only started off that way because the show was still clinging to the US model back then to a certain degree. To be honest, to me it always came across as basically a test of being a party planner (unless you were Tim, and got blitzed out of the water in terms of money raised so you had to blag at the last minute there was some sort of "long-term business plan" going on) and Siralan (as was) never seemed that bothered by anything that happened in it. Certainly both times it happened the person who raised the least cash on their team got hired.