I'm boggled by how this series is progressing. Alan Sugar sets a task, the feedback from the professionals and/or other team members is that the leader didnt understand or grasp the concept of the task, thus didnt fulfil the requirements laid out by Sugar, yet, they get off scot-free.

Blatant favouritism and appears like fixing.

Two weeks now definitely, this week where Tom has to raise awareness and comes up with a sales pitch, and the week before where Jade had to implement an evolving strategy and didnt. And yet nothing happens. No punishment. No telling-off in the boardroom.

It may well be an entertainment show, but surely it should be in some way reflective of real life?

To put it into perspective, its like someone going on the X Factor and standing in silence while the backing track plays and then getting a standing ovation. There's keeping within the rules and aims and then there's downright ludicrousy. Not impressed BBC!

I was a bit confused with the result aswell. Both adverts were bad, but Toms team missed the whole point in the task. Surely that is unforgivable? It just sems like they do tasks, if Sugar doesn't like the team they lose. Really strange decisions.

Tom's team did miss the brief - an awful error, although it is hardly the first time this has happened. What we don't really know is whether Sugar went with the panel's final recommendation or not - this was deliberately left unclear.

As this task had no quantifiable result, it's certainly open to favouritism on Sugar's part. But the real point is that with the new format there is simply no relation between task performance and the overall result. Remember, Sugar will have seen or been briefed on the business plans in advance, so from week 1 he knows who he wants to keep - as with Tom Pellereau last year - and who has poor plans and is effectively disposable.

That's why I believe Tom and Gabrielle, despite the odd wobble, have been bullet-proof so far. I expect they have good plans, so they are allowed plenty of latitude on the tasks. (It helps that they are far more credible generally than candidates like Stephen and Jade too.) Despite the wobbles of the last two weeks, I genuinely think Tom and Nick are the two best long-term prospects by a mile, as both think long-term and are well structured, despite the odd error in tasks.

More thoughts over on this week's review at my blog:
http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/...glish-bubbles/

He did go with the wine panel's recommendation, and told Phoenix that their campaign didn't really do what it asked them to do, but that Sterling's campaign was torpedoed by their bad advert.

Really, I think this is an occasion where it would be justifiable to declare both teams the losers, considering their respective foul-ups. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that Sugar isn't allowed to declare two losing teams, in much the same way as he wasn't allowed to do multi-firings until the aftermath of the "hundred chickens" fiasco.

Did he? Imust have missed that while scribbling my notes for the blog - thanks.

Neither team did well, did they? I agree they could both justifiably be considered losers. Although, to be fair, it is a difficult task because it isn't solely reliant on selling. Throw a bunch of amateurs into doing website deisgn and advertising - a job most companies pay specialists a lot of money to do over much more than a day - and it's always going to be a disaster.

Having said that, I was really impressed by Gabrielle's rose-as-wine-glass motif. Worked on many levels.

Agreed, the 'logic' was baffling and ludicrous and made me think they could skip all the tasks in future and just decide in ep 1 who has the best business plan.

Whilst I do think Toms team slightly missed the point, they did include many elements that would raise awareness such as the sticker on the bottles and the website went into detail about the awards and areas of Britain where wine is made. If I went on Tom's website, it would've definitely raised my awareness of where and how to buy. I'd be a bit annoyed at a website that told me all about it but then didnt indicate how I can but it.

Tom's was more focussed on selling the wine but I don't feel that his campaign completely missed the point at all.

When compared overall to the other campaign I think Tom's would need less tweaking to be a useable campaign. In effect he'd just need to add more information about the wines.

Whereas I think Ricky's team would have to completely reshoot their add change their name, and for me include information on where to find suppliers.

Having said that if it was a real task I'd probably use Tom's website, name and ad with a few tweaks but I'd def take Ricky's tag line of "less fizz more sparkle" that was excellent.

I'd say as well though, Tom's team did have ALL the industry experience in all the relevant categories and STILL missed out on doing what the brief required, whereas Ricky was working uphill from the beginning with two dead weights in the form of Stephen and Jenna and no industry experience. I thought it was uncalled for for Sugar to criticise him for being defeatist when he was being realistic and putting things into perspective. If Sugar had criticised me in that manner after making the best of a bad bunch I'dve not wanted the job any longer. But its not a job any more is it? Its an investment, you dont have to worry about working with or having an interest in Sugar. Maybe this is why he's getting away with more and more often being directly rude to the candidates and telling them what to think. Definitely in this series he's been very patronising to Adam and Jenna who we have to remember are real people not just characters in a series.

As mentioned in a previous post, I too believe the "winner" has already been chosen by Sugar and therefore the tasks are just there to entertain us.

Just to clarify this, what I mean is....if Sugar has seen the business plans then he must know which one he likes most and can make work, ergo that person must stay whatever happens in the task.

I think Lord Sugar 'wanted' Toms team to win because he likes Tom, Nick, Adam and poss Jade( creativity, poss good business plan). I also think he dosent rate Jenna, or Stephen ( but is aware Stephen will make decent TV). So enginerred a task in Toms speciality to almost ensure he won, and could finally fire one of the dead weights.

Depends what Lord Sugar takes away at the end, The task was clearly in Tom's backyard - it was a good specific test of his ability. If i was his lordship I woyuld have noted that Tom has missed the point three weeks in a row including in his own field of expertise - he would be in my no list now - because he's in danger of putting people off, saying or doing the wrong thing and getting the strategy and costs wrong.

The problem is that Lord Sugar may not draw those lessons - although he seems to have invented another problem to do with Tom's motivation. Much of this series Lord Sugar has produced unconvincing arguments from one small piece of evidence - he thought Laura couldn't sell when she had done well selling on the previous tasks, he thinks Stephen is convincing in the boardroom - because he can't see thatt Stephen talks nonsense - and he sent Katie home for a bad idea without noting she produced more good ideas than almost anyone too. His judgement has always been questionable, but he seems to be getting worse - and the audience votes on BBC2 and DS polls seems to agree that .

On who wins, its more difficult. You could argue that amswering the wrong question is worse than getting half the answer right - i think I would go that way with you. Its possible though to argue that the video was so bad that the offering didn't work at all , while the other one had enough , numbingly dull, material that did some of what what was asked - although it wasn't focused on that.

The problem this series is that so many tasks have produced lucky wins by default, and so few performances have been good - let alone outstanding. I think only Nick looks at all competent - although Gabi has shown her creative ability and Adam has demonstrated that he can do what he does well and has enthusiasm.

I agree with this, I thought Ricky was simply being honest about the skills in the groups and trying to show that he was up for the challenge and putting a bit of a spin on it. Whether LS then chose to interpret this as he did in order to be negative about the team he knew he was going to pick as losers or genuinely believed Ricky was being defeatist is up for interpretation, but I certainly think it's a situation where LS could take either view depending on his personal feelings. It wouldn't have surprised me if someone else had come out with that speech and LS would have praised them for seeing it as a challenge. I thought it was unfair on Ricky tbh.

This.

Its just not making good TV. Obviously people can disagree with us on this, but none of the wins appear this series to be a) fair or b) appropriate for the edit we see of the candidates' behaviour on the task. Could blame either Sugar or the Beeb for that but fact is, its a TV show. Sugar's business reasoning behind the way he's behaving ironically doesnt have any relevance to the task in hand - that is, to create a show that appeals to the general public and appears to make sense. This series is doing alright only because it is so late-game. If this was the first series of the Apprentice it would be perceived as a shambles.

Its working on the premise that these are top business brains, experts in their field, who are competing in a test of wile and skill. And yet we have week on week the usual incompetence that we've come to expect from the candidates, but, none of the usual repercussions that come with it. Its making a mockery of its former self.

Basically this series it seems that every win has been flukey practically and down to not who did best, but who did less badly. The worst thing is that the edit we see of the task often doesnt square with Sugar's decision, That's just not good telly.

Editing team: you're fired!

Week 1 : Nick's team immediately produce a business plan, focusing on profit, sell well, and pay attention to price-points during the day, adjusting their strategy constantly to reflect feedback. Gabrielle's team have no business plan and half of them spend the day wandering around the streets outside London Zoo, not selling anything.

Week 2 : Azhar's team make a strong product, that gets good feedback, and pitch it decently once Duane gets involved. Jane's team produce a hunk of shit, ignore their market research and give ludicrous pitches full of incorrect figures and ludicrous projections.

Week 3 : Duane identifies the correct strategy, produces a quality product after some initial production line problems, and sells well. Katie identifies the incorrect strategy, her factory explodes, and her subteam sell next to nothing, led by a sweaty nauseous Michael.

Week 4 : Tom's team follow a clear strong strategy, eventually endorsed by Nick, and sell well. Laura's team overspend wantonly, spray-paint Union Jacks on everything, don't sell, and have to resort to screaming at people in the street to vainly try to offload their last stock.

Week 6 : Jenna goes for quality, in line with the brief, and her team sell strongly, moving locations at appropriate points. Adam makes shit in a box, sets a price-point far too high, selects the wrong location (TWICE!) and half the team spend all day climbing on and off buses dressed as Julius Caesar.

Week 7 : Nick smells what sells, Jade doesn't

All of those tasks were clear-cut edits in favour of the team that won. I genuinely don't get the argument that there's a bait-and-switch every week. If you can't find the winning team most of the time then you're not paying attention. You can add Week 8 as a fair edit as well, given that the margin of victory was only about 3%, and both teams got positives and negatives.

This week's task was the only one where Sugar decided the winner, and even that was in conjunction with the wine marketing board. In Weeks 2 and 5 the winner was decided on what the big companies ordered; all other weeks it's been down to what the candidates themselves sell to the public.

Besides, you can't blame the editors for how the candidates conduct themselves on a task. Take Week 4 for instance - Tom's team got annoyed with him because he wasn't letting them spend as much as they wanted, while Laura kept her team happy by letting them go crazy with the spending. Are you seriously saying the editors should have downplayed the conflict on Tom's team (or played up the conflict on Laura's) in the interests of fairness?

It looks to me like some pre-arranged gimmick that LS and maybe the production team have forged, not to sack any of the Team leaders this time, because on many occasions the blame for failure is down principally to the team leader.

Good ideas are 10 a penny. What makes a new business successful is the people. As long as their business model isn't completely stupid - and all the unworkable ones were filtered out before filming started - it can probably be made to work. And similarly, a good person will probably be successful whatever they do.

so you agree with my point?

Why doesn't he just have a 3 hour show where all the contenders get introduced and them grilled by them, and he then picks a winner. He is just after good business ideas so the whole process in not necessary anymore.

For example last years winner lost almost every task and still won. This time round the ones who shout the most seem to be kept in on the whole.

Ruth Badger lost almost every task in her series, yet I've never heard anyone claim her to be anything but pure awesomeness (well, maybe her ex-husband ). Just because Tom was on the losing side so often doesn't mean he caused them to lose.

Besides, Tom wasn't even the person who had the best business plan last year - that was Susan. Obviously Sugar had seen something across the eleven weeks to make him decide Tom was his man.

No, he had seen the nail file in Tom's CV at the beginning.

Ruth had a set of impressive performances gathered over the show - even when her team lost.You could iudentify that she had positive skills and those were more substantial than those around her. Tom varied between annoying to the group, ignored by the group when he half articulated an idea and being a prime factor in the team losing. He was probably the most ineffectual PM in Apprentice history - deciding by paper scissor stone being a particular success .

Even so then, you must admit that in very few of these cases does the person who actually makes the mistake that costs the task get fired. Even if the winning project manager gets it right its still also often the team with the most dross on it that wins. Most of the people that you correctly identify as getting the major wrong end of the stick are still with us!

This exactly! I think people forget that as the prize has now changed the type of person likely to win has changed. Tom is like all those creatives that LS used to fire because they weren't great at selling.

Being great at project management doesn't mean you will be a good entrepreneur. Tom was always going to be better at making money with new ideas (Helen was it?) would have been a great business or project manager for the old style apprentice or to run Tom's business with Tom being the creative drive, but she was never going to be an entrepreneur.

The apprentice, due to the investment, is always going to be a bit different now and it won't be the most organised fab salesperson who wins. It will be the most creative inventive entrepreneurial person who doesn't make a great hash of the tasks.

Also as has been discussed many times Tom only made a couple of mistakes throughout. The vast majority of times he made suggestions and calls that would have won them the task if they didn't think he was such a bumbling fool and kept ignoring him.

As the prize is investment it doesn't really matter if the others didn't listen to Toms good advice as long as he displayed it because if he won the investment he'd have creative control. In LS's business environment it would have been a problem that people dismissed him but investing in him it wouldn't be.

Another example is when Simon Ambrose won. Kristina was a far superior candidate throughout, but Simon absolutely wiped the floor with her in the final task which turned out to be exactly what the job on offer was. Why on Earth would he take Kristina when Simon proved he could do the job.

I don't think the show works quite as well with the investment, but I'm still happy that the tasks separate the wheat from the chaff and then the winner will be the person who shows entrepreneurial spirit and drive and not necessarily the person who performed best at organising and selling on the tasks.

No. Quite the reverse. Your point was that it's about the business plans, and/or CVs. My point is that it's about the people. The quality of the people is brought out by the tasks, and only a fool would decide the winner without seeing how they perform first. Nobody pays over $250k based on a CV.

Don't forget Tom's brilliant impression of a nodding dog !

He was the last candidate to put himself forward as PM, and only did so when he had no choice really. He was the most useless and ineffective winner there has ever been.But Sugar thought he could make money off his inventions.

As regards to this year's crop, well I am getting rather bored with it all. I think it's nothing more than light entertainment. The tasks don't mean a thing, everything is now so highly edited that it's all a bit of a waste of time. Sugar will have picked his winner before filming started and it's all a bunch of smoke and mirrors.