I don't mean to slate the series, I do enjoy it, but AS has always just taken the one that he wants for whatever purpose. I don't agree that Tom is the weakest - but I do admit he has a weaker personality than some of the others and people like Melody and Jim accentuate this. But there are always more aggressive types on the show, and while they make good telly, they're never taken on - he always goes for more reasonable types that others can actually work with.

He must have a reason for changing the prize this time round, and I think the contestants need to react to this change. He has said he doesn't want a sales person, but they are all so focused on sales, particularly Melody. He is looking for someone with a slightly different set of skills than before and while I agree that if the winner wins it on their proposal then the series will have been a bit of a farce, but he picks and chooses at a whim at the best of times ('I don't think I can work with you - You're fired!') so I don't see him acting any differently here.

I saw that as rather admirable. Tom is data-driven. So often we see candidates ignore objective market research in favour of their own brain-dead opinions, it was good to see someone be persuaded by the hard facts.


He shouldn't have let Melody get away with that. The time she spent making appointments, he spent researching products. If she wouldn't give up her appointers, he could have refused to let her have any products. That shows how stupid her position was. In addition, Melody was the person best placed to get new appointments.

It's hard to see how Tom can win it now.


What bothered me is that he didn't approach it from the angle of giving it to the best pitcher. He was more about quality of opportunity, and less about getting the best result.

I was about to say the same thing.

If Sugar liked the idea of investing in an inventor, all this year's candidates should have been inventors. Otherwise, it makes the series a bit pointless if the type of winner he was after was decided on day one.


Yasmina was pretty aggressive. I remember her proudly announcing that she'd shit over anyone to get ahead in the game. And she won.

Yasmina was a nasty piece of work she was probably the only really dislikable winner, most of the winners have been pretty safe

She said, after a difficult boardroom with her best friend in the house, that she'd realised that she'd have to turn on everybody in there at some point or another. I don't think that's aggressive - it's common sense. I certainly don't remember her ever being aggressive or even particularly pushy on a task. She was always very professional.

I don't think it will work like that, at least not until the final stages. I also don't agree that Tom has been the weakest over the series. Each of the 7 that remain are at least as strong as any of the 9 fired, and most of them are much stronger.

I think Tom is good. He's intelligent and he knows how to delegate to people's strengths. For example, he knew that Melody was a French speaker, and good at getting appointments. How could he have anticipated that Melody's complete selfishness would jeopardise the entire team's efforts? Of course he could have gone for the car seat, and found that none of the rest of the team would make an effort. He's not the best seller, but he has presumably pushed his own products through, albeit without team members constantly trying to sabotage his efforts.

Its not so much that he was wrong to mistrust his instincts, but he was definitely wrong to trust her, and in fact the rest of the team. Helen is one of the few to have realised that the most important issue is to make sure that the team wins, because as an individual you can be part of the winning team, and if you put your best effort in you can shine as an individual.

Even more reason, IMO, why he shouldn't have let her keep all the appointments she made. Even in normal circumstances he was foolish to allow her to keep appointments she was supposed to be making for the team, but the fact that she was the only French speaker in the group made it nigh on impossible for Tom and Natasha to get their own appointments, as we saw. Surely better that he take the appointments with English-speaking clients (as there were) and let her get some more.

I don't think what he did there was intelligent, I think that was a massive oversight.

Tom's problem is that he is a team player rather than a real leader. He does what Jim was accused of a couple of tasks ago - not making a decision unless it was backed by the majority of team members to cover his backside in the boardroom should it come to that. He is also clearly someone who avoids confrontation whenever possible. That said when Melody hogged all the appointments to herself (and hogged the sales of the higher priced items on the pitches too) it was 3 against one - and Leon, Natasha were just as spineless as Tom.

They were all totally mesmerised by the fact that Melody spoke French - and let that one fact rule all the early decision making. They seemed to think that that was the deciding factor - when in fact it gave Melody another weapon to use against the others. With none of them able to understand what was going on - she was able to lie to Leon about what someone said in her "Market research" interviews with him being none the wiser to the fact that the person thought it was a good product and Melody told him she didn't like the idea.

As has been said - he should have put Melody and her language skills onto finding more appointments for everyone on the second morning while they started off on the ones where they could speak English, rather than letting her walk all over the rest of the team.

However - in the boardroom he behaved admirably - not allowing Melody to shout him down and quietly stating why he deserved to stay.

The other team had no French speakers and yet Jim and Helen managed to get appointments with their minimal French - and their team got more sales than the one despite the apparent language barrier.

I don't think that was quite true. Leon secured a prime position, especially compared to Tom and Natasha (although Tom did at least make sure he and Natasha had the main pitch before chucking it in the bin through lack of ambition) so it probably wasn't spinelessness so much as expedience that got him where he was. He was part of the majority of the pitches, and as Melody herself showed in the final pitch of the day, he had an item it was perfectly possible to sell for a greater yield than the teapot. He then persuaded Melody to change items for the final pitch, purely because the teapot had been performing better up to that point, so he was capable of looking after himself when necessary. Trying to get Melody to give up pitches to Tom & Natasha would have been cutting off his nose to spite his face - he mostly acted in his own best interests. Positioning-wise he just didn't think to cover his arse sufficiently on the first day by doing something.

Agreed. On the other hand, in the past on sales tasks we've had candidates claiming they facilitated sales without actually making any. Lord Sugar doesn't like that, partly because he is keen on individual responsibility and partly because it makes it hard to assess what contribution that candidate makes. It makes it too easy for poor candidates to fly under the radar.

So now he puts a stop to it by giving the candidates their own order books, and no-one gets credit for other people's sales. It still doesn't matter if you win, of course, but it does undermine team spirit. Especially when he stresses it at the start of the task, as he did this time. Melody merely picked up on a signal Lord Sugar sent. As was sort-of confirmed at the end, when he wouldn't criticise her for it. I'd like to think she'd show more team spirit (and not need to be forced) in contexts which were more team spirit oriented.

That is a very good point and certainly mitigates Melody's attitude to some degree. She worked hard getting the appointments and it was by no means impossible that if they'd taken a couple each she might, from sheer random chance, have ended up with those for whom the product was never going to work. Then Sugar would have pooh-pooed all her hard work if they'd lost.

I thought Melody was far more generous with her appointments than Debra was in Series 5 under the same system. She let Leon have an equal role in most of the pitches. Debra wouldn't let Howard do anything from what I recall.

Susan had no French at all, but in no way did this stop her from being the first in the sales team to breeze into the room with an excruciatingly pronounced "bon shoueeeeure". Helen was in no way intimidated by her lack of French.

I suspect both understood they were selling products from Angleterre of great interest to the French, not attending an interview to select bilingual saleswomen.

Both had confidence and passion in their products. I am not sure either Tom or Natasha had enough confidence in themselves or in their products, hence neither were eager to pitch, and when given a chance Tom suggested selling 10 items. This lone wolf inventor behind his glasses could be an introvert. Hard to see him landing £250,000 Sugar money.

Tom is so weak it's unreal. I think he is very likeable, he is like the class geek at school that everyone kinda liked because he was harmless. He can't wn this especially when there are others like Helen who is really good at almost everything. Besides Melody and Jim would eat him alive if they were in the boardroom with him.

Yes, Tom is nice. Yes, Tom is an inventor. However, I hope he is not the winner this year. He just does not deserve it. What has he done exactly? Yes, he gave some good advice, but what's the point? He could not convince others in believing what he said.

Exactly!

After going through Michael Sheen, Egon Spengler and Mr Muscle, now Tom seriously reminds me of Brains from Thunderbirds. The way he dodders through his sentences is slightly reminiscent of him. Now I keep looking for his strings.

I agree and people call Susan quiet?