I saw this comment posted on our article for this week's fired candidate and thought it'd be a good topic for discussion:

Does anyone else agree? According to our episode threads there have only been two firings where our members have agreed with Lord Sugar's decision... (for clarity the stats from our forum polls are: E1: wrong, E2: wrong, E3: right, E4: wrong, E5: wrong, E6: wrong, E7: right, E8: wrong, E9: wrong).

I'm finding the end of the comment that it's not very rewarding for the viewer to not have someone that has obviously mucked it up to the point of no return stay in over people that otherwise have potential.

Do you agree or disagree with the highlighted comment? Is Lord Sugar making the wrong decisions this series?

First of all, its important to noteb that unless the number of people who agree with the descision is less than a third itts not a given that he did pick the wrong person rather than it being the case that there was no so called "right" person to fire.

Personally, other than the Jade PMing task I haven't had any issue with Lord Sugar's descisions. Even then I didn't have a problem with Azhar leaving just Jade staying. I agreed with Lord Sugar that on the basis of the Wine task Jenna let the team down.

It's one of the things I enjoy about The Apprentice that it's not contingent on public opinion. It's not supposed to be Big Brother. The article cites people like Michael Sophocles, StuBaggs, Jenny Celery, Syed Ahmed, PantsMan, and Katie Hopkins as reasons that the show's been enjoyable in the past. How long would those people have lasted if the public or this board's members got their fat fingers into everything? About 2 episodes.

Are you the Monkseal that does the blogs? If so I absolutely love your blog, find it hilarious

The audience on Dara's show have also gone against LS in all cases except one I think.

An excellent point.

This tactic is also used on Hell's Kitchen USA when GR keeps all the irritants for their entertainment value.

i think its edited very carefully as well.. there's got to be a lot going on we don't see for his decisions.

in jade's task, clearly she should have gone over azhar who was probably having one his better weeks, and he went over her, so she must've done something well for him to keep her, despite her not coming across as well to us

I suspect Lord Sugar didn't fire Stephen because he didn't see the footage we saw. He was going on reports from Nick and Karren, and they must have failed to convey how bad he was.

Nevertheless, it was close. Stephen saved himself by playing the Alexa Gambit, pleading to be made PM instead. And it has to be said that Jenna was pretty useless and had no chance of winning. Her routine of diving in, cocking up and owning up to her incompetence, got old.

More generally, Lord Sugar's decisions have always been controversial. I usually feel I understand them and have often ended up defending them in previous series. What strikes me in this series is how often the wrong team seems to win. I've never felt that as strongly before.

This year he definitely seems to be firing candidates who he considers are hiding and not doing much.

It seems he doesn't mind mistakes as long as people recognise they've made them.

Although that doesn't fit with the fact that Stephen (Who's to blame? Anyone but me. That shelf-stacker in Tesco - she'll do - why didn't she know about wine?) is still there and Jenna (Yep. That was my crappy video. I did it. I'm totally responsible. Me. Stephen? Well he was there but I took the risk and I screwed up.) is not.

I confess to being slighly bemused by several decisions but generally, the fired candidate hasn't been exactly blameless (Jane probably has most reason to feel aggrieved) so I do see where the decision has come from.

Cummon guys...................lets not forget its not real.
Its an entertainmement package for telly.

Agreed,

I have never disagreed with his as much as I can remember. He always used to fire the correct peeps. I guess its cause he wants certain peeps in the final as they have business plans more suited to him.

Duane and Jane should defo be in over Stephen and Adam.

I think this 'business plan' concept has steered his opinions. He probably knows the business plans (of course he does) and his decisions as of who to fire will reflect this and since we don't know the business plans, we will often disagree with him. I preferred the previous format of a "six figure salary", which would have been a hell of a lot better for the likes of Helen!

To be fair, Stephen chasing a minimum wage student round Tesco asking them if they were a wine connoisseur is a moment of such TV gold that he had to stay just for that reason. that's without taking the 'Luxury oozing out of every pour' and 'Grandjour sounds a bit French' out of the equation.

Sugar seems to have forgotten that this is a TV show and needs to be entertaining. He got rid of one of the most entertaining candidates from the very first episode and hasn't let up. I hear from insiders that he has insisted on doing things his way for this series instead of being guided more by the BBC as in the past - which explains a lot.

Let's also not forget that in the 'new' format Sugar is looking for a business investment rather than to give someone a project management job. Therefore task performance isn't necessarily that relevant - although it does still have some influence. It's all about the business idea. Tom P didn't win last year because he was the best performer on the tasks, did he? Sugar kept him because he was smart, had a good business to invest in and came across as the sort of person Sugar could work with on a long-term basis. To a certain extent the tasks are just there to entertain us.

I agree with the comment. I'm not usually one to throw my toys out of the pram because a TV show didn't go the way I wanted, but this week when it looked like Sugar was going to keep Stephen in I said to my husband "I'm not watching this any more". It isn't that I was particularly attached to Gabrielle, it was the bullying, rude and childish way Stephen acted in the boardroom that outraged me. I lost any respect I had for Sugar when he didn't tell Stephen to just shut the **** up. I wouldn't have told him he was fired, I would have told him to get out of that boardroom and never show his face to me again.

You are probably right which means the whole point and heart of the show is pants.

Seems like many people forget that how we perceive the candidates has a lot to do with the editing. It is also wrong to guess what was or was not said or pointed out in the breifing by Nick and Karen. Just because we are shown someone making a few mistakes and nothing else, did not necessarily mean that they were like that for the whole tasks, it could have been that the rest of the time they were brilliant, its just dull TV to watch people doing everything right and we only get to see what the producers and editors of the show want us to see.

I've noticed a lot of people saying this about the Apprentice, but that's how TV works. It's how films work. It's how books work. It's how all creativity works, even the internets. You come up with an idea, then a rough version, then a first draft, and so on until you've got a version that you think is good enough for public consumption.

The edit is the reality as far as TV, film, literature etc are concerned. If you want raw, unedited truth go to an improvised jazz gig and see how easy that is to digest.

It depends on whether the show is as honest as it purports to be.

If it wants to present itself as a credible and honest insight into how business works and teach us valuable lessons, then maybe it doesn't work.

If it just wants to wrong-foot the viewer for the sake of trying to entertain the viewers who like that sort of thing, and fire some of who appear on the surface to be very good candidates for the shock factor, then maybe it does work.

But that's just the point - it doesn't work. The producers are falling into the Big Brother trap of failing to understand that shock value and bait-and-switch tactics only work when they're used sparingly and appear credible. If incidents occur almost every week, then they cease to be shocking or surprising and if they appear to be cynically contrived, audiences will respond with equal cynicism.

I don't know why any of us is remotely surprised or even questioning. It's all representive of the sad indictment of how modern tv works. Sparingly? Credible? Utter b0ll0cks. Why use something sparingly when you can thwack viewers in the face with it time and again to make sure they've got the point and then some? Why make something credible when the thinking is that your viewers are so brain dead they'll believe anything you sell them? Current thinking is more is more. If a certain amount of something is worth x, then double the amount must surely be worth 2x. The principle of diminishing returns is just something that happened elsewhere a long time ago and not relevant any more.

I think many of us get a little confused .....

Is it a popularity contest?

Or

Is it a contest to find someone who is good at the business tasks and has a credible business plan?

I fear that many of us judge by the former. Even if someone is the most annoyingly condescending contestant they should deserve t win if they have the best business brains.