As likable as he is, the Paris task showed how spineless he is.

Wrongly ignored his instincts about the baby booster and took the conflict free choice of the tea pot light thingy, based on a poxy market research exercise.

He allowed Melody to pursue her own interests in the task. He should have demanded he and Natasha go to at least the appointments which the potential clients spoke English, and sent her and Leon to the big retailer and French speaking contacts.

The rock, paper, scissors bout for the right to pitch was hilarious from an entertainment perspective, but from a professional point, pathetic. No balls to say, "I'm project leader, I'm pitching!".

Also, in previous tasks he has never been forceful enough to get his opinions across.

I agree. LS seems to like him because he is a good man and clearly intelligent. But he has not got leadership skills and he struggles to make his presence felt

He was quite wimpy, but if I was going into business with someone I'd probably pick an inventor.

Like James Dyson?

True, I thought he had a chance to make the final beforehand,but now I believe he will be fired in the interview round.

Right now only Susan, Helen and Melody seem capable enough to reach the final.

As a man, he's actually quite pathetic. Leon is equally pathetic.

I loved it when Nick said 'Man', I think Karen was quite turned on by it, absolutely hilarious.

And i agree.

It's a bit sad two of the men on this show are so lame. I'm a guy and I'm a bit embarrassed to see my sex so useless. Some women have more balls than us guys! All credit to them but, I dunno, I thought most men were supposed to be more assertive than most women. This show sure proves that wrong!

The moment Tom let that carseat/rucksack pass him by he was a gonner.

Interesting that he accused others of arse covering in the boardroom when he was doing exactly that. He knew if he went with his gut instinct and it backfired he would be leaving.

So instead he made weak ineffectual decisions and let Melody walk all over him.

LordSirAlan must think he will invent some fabulous money making thing as ordinarily he would be having a taxi ride tonight.

I'm not so sure. Inventors have a habit of getting too close to the product and lose sight of whether it is actually a viable business - a lot of the pitchers on Dragons Den are like that. A useful product won't necessarily sell well unless the price is right and there is a genuine need for it.

In all fairness, as viewers we could see the market research was shoddy, but he was in the UK, DID tell them what to do and they ignored it.

I actually thought he did stand up to Melody in the boardroom, he just isn't loud as he does it. When she tried to overtalk him, he didn't even pause to say stop, he carried on with what he was saying and never changed his tone - that's not spineless, in fact, I think it's far more clever as he didn't get drawn in to bickering. He held his points well.

I never rated him to be honest, and tonight just confirmed each and every one of my suspicions. He was weak as a project manager by not following his intuition, didn't earn the respect of his team and also failed to play The Apprentice game as it were, by not bringing Natasha in. He has floated through all of the tasks and was finally exposed tonight as a weak team leader and a weak salesman.

He wasn't a good manager and didn't look particularly enthused at the thought of being PM, but he has good business instincts and is pretty much always right with his gut instinct.

Yes, I totally agree, He was totally spineless and it should have been him that went for making no sales at all. Not pushing the car seat forward more, as he really wanted it but gave in too easy and also letting Melody keep all of the appointments for herself. He should have at least asked for half of them, as he was the PM this week. He showed no authority at all and was totally useless. As for the paper, scissor game, how pathetic was that?

Although Leon was not much better, neither was the other lass with Tom either, but at least Leon got a sale in the end!

Yes, I totally agree with you! I would love to see Susan win but I do think that she is very young and not experienced enough yet and as it stands it does look like it will be Helen that wins. I do think that she has had a little luck along the way but she definitely has a good character at putting herself over very well and making a good deal and this is why she has done so well. Helen sells things in a way that is not agressive in any way but is intelligent and very polite and professional!

Melody on the other hand is agressive and a bit of a know it all and although I think that she is a fantastic sales person I cannot see Sir Alan wanting to work with her because of her attitude!

I'm so disappointed in Tom. I was desperate for him to be PM and to use the position to assert himself, show he can make decisons in which to stick by and show a display of strength (not the physical type) that would clearly show he had what it takes! He hasn't proved this to me and, while Melody didn't help him in the way she went about the task, he didn't show any ability in being to help himself either.

The other team booked appointments and got sales without being able to speak french and yet, when he was on the phone in the car with Natasha, they both looked so pathetic in not being to get any appointments of their own in the absense of not being able to use Melody's.

He probably understands the market related to child products more than Melody and any of his other teammates did and yet failed to impose his own knowledge in order to get the seat which he would of had a valid case for wanting more than the teapot thingy. I understand he cared about the views of his team and relied heavily on the false info that Melody gave him but surely he could rely on what he knew of the market already in order to stick by his gut feeling and show abit of authority. I am inclined to think that he is not a confident enough person to have real conviction at times but, not really good enough is it. Even Susan has more gusto than he does.

Surely that's the beauty of going into buisiness with AS? Tom will be the ideas man, and AS will be the objective one - both playing to their strengths obv.

Yes you're right. Normally, AS would get someone as rude as Melody,( who'd had her say and was interrupting an talking over Tom,) to pipe down and listen to the candidate who hadn't been heard yet, but AS had an agenda tonight, and that was (IMO) to appear to be strongly supporting Melody.

I don't think he's got any intention of taking Melody on, she's annoying, she rubs people up the wrong way and her instincts are not good and he's said, he's not looking for a sales person. But he does want to make a good show, and as this one is devoid of real characters, he's having to make his own villains and heros - Jim, Melody and maybe Zoe being the villains, and Susan, Tom and Helen are the heros. He will go into business with a hero, make no mistake, and as for the villains, he will release them at his will and for maximum dramatic effect.

As much as I do think that Melodys instincts are good a lot of the time I cannot see Sir Alan going into business with her! Personally I think that it will be Susan or Helen and the longer it goes on it looks more likely to be be Helen!

I agree, plus Tom's instinct as regards what will and won't sell or what strategy would be best to use has generally been pretty sound. The talents Tom presumably listed in his CV plus his overall proclivity to take the sensible/profitable route in most of the tasks indicate someone with whom it may well prove advantageous to go into business. Tom isn't going to have to battle with the likes of Melody/Zoe/Natasha/Jim in his early forays with LAS; his pedigree as an inventor coupled with his (mainly) sound intuition may well still serve him admirably for the prize that is available this year. That said, he hasn't shown any real leadership and it may be that LAS still wants an apprentice partner that can manage and direct others more effectively than Tom has shown he can do.

Absolutely. How he has lasted this long I'll never know

Worse than that we had the nonsense about him going to be bigger than Dyson - when he seems to have invented inconsequential things like a curved nail file or whatever it was. That was worrying. In addition we had the completely ridiculous idea of offering 10 items. Even if he didn't know how big the company was, wasn't it incredibly foolish/childish/small scale to think the name of the game was to sell 10?

But it makes a nonsense of the series and concept if the winner wins on his proposal despite being the weakest over the series. Tom, or Jim, as a winner just looks so wrong on the story we have seen. Helen not at the final stage also now looks wrong, regardless of how strong or weak her business proposal is.

Sad to see Tom implode like he did last night, but when you are up against a shark like Melody, all he could hope for is a bigger failure, and poor Leon provided it!.

That was classic, 10!
I just can't see Tom as a leader type figure at all, he will always be the creative employee in R&D type.
If Tom wins, he would be working FOR Shuggs rather than with him. Too much baggage for Shuggs.