Just wondering with sugars problems with previous winner's, we get a year with the worst female contestants to date. One female in the last five Jade who is pretty deadful to be honest

Agreed

And apart from Gabrielle and Jenna, they haven't really been very likable either.

LS made a mistake of getting rid of Bilyana in the beginning of the show.

Agreed. Potential winners usually go in the first 2 weeks when he doesn't really know them

Agreed. Potential winners usually go in the first 2 weeks when he doesn't really know them

Katie was the favourite in the polls (on this forum) before she got fired.

I agree with this and I also thought Maria had potential. Two strong women gone one after the other.

Actually, I would have argued for Jane as the one who was fired too soon - so the first 3 weeks lost strong characters who potentially could have made a splash.

Hardly the worst. Just not exceptional and less able to cope with some of the demands of what are really pre-series 7 tasks still. He's not got the super sales women (Ruth) or someone who has already been very successful (Michelle) or the smart lawyers, or the successful corporate performers (Kate, Liz, Helen) Thats possibly because he's gone for people who have a plan rather than being high flyers who can sell and present . He's got more shopkeepers,small restauranteurs and people at the early stages of professional careers - rather than people who will excel in traditional tasks. Lord Sugar's compounded it by getting rid of the one who claimed to be the most successful business person (Jane) , Bili who may have been his corporate climber, Katie who was his best presenter and Laura who may have been his small businesswoman with most potential.

Its hardly a great selection on the boys side either. Adam is out of his depth and embarrassing. Tom has repeatedly missed the big picture and has done poorly for 4 weeks in a row. Ricky yet again got much of the task right, but yet again, as always, had a critical mistake that undermined the effect. Nick has some success but is almost the invisible man. Strangely Jade this week has had probably the biggest success of the series - despite all her earlier weaknesses.

I don't think the women have been so bad. Laura was competent most weeks and apparently actually did do very well on sales apart from the art task. Katie was full of ideas (a lot of them admittedly bad) and very engaging. Jade messed up as PM in the re-selling task due to what I think was a misunderstanding of the task (this seems to be a particular problem with that task) but has been competent enough most weeks. Jenna was admittedly hopelessly out of her depth but very likeable; Gabrielle was very creative though lacking in commercial nous. Bilyana was quite capable and thrusting, although somewhat unable to read a room. Maria was fired for possibly the stupidest reason in the shows history (falling asleep in the car? really?)

I'd say all of these women were better and more likeable than Adam and Stephen, and far more interesting than Tom.

I'd agree with pretty much all of that. I don't think the girls have been that week - just no one was outstanding. And Gabrielle and Jade (and others, such as Laura) were both miles better than Stephen.

Just had a look at Gabrielle's new agency website - www.webethree.co.uk. Obviously you can't judge whether the agency is any good, but as a piece of web design it makes a fantastic first impression.

I would like to have seen more of Maria. Sometimes when a contestant goes early on we don't get to see enough of them to form an opinion.
For example if Jenna had made that video in week one she would been fired way back then, but actually Jenna was a good candidate in many of the succeeding tasks.

Doesn't look good at all on my iPad

Uses Flash, I presume? Looks great on a PC.

Obviously still in business with Pure Evil.

Yes indeed. It shows Gabrielle is not totally naive commercially, as she has leveraged some of the contacts she built up during the show to further her own business. Not good with numbers - but a smart girl, for sure.

Maria was rubbish. Mouthy, little intelligence and couldn't get on with anyone. Thought she was the weakest candidate that's ever got through.

I agree. It's always difficult to accurately judge any candidate on the basis of a couple of episodes (and of course the edit is always slanted against early firees), but I saw nothing in Maria to suggest she was a likely winner.

Bilyana

Ah.. Bilyana. What could have been. It was clear Lord Sugar had the hots for her and wouldn't be able to contain his composure in the board room so "with regret, Bilyana, you're fired."

Not at all. There was nothing to suggest lack of intelligence. She was certainly mouthy as you put it and maybe not universally liked but since when has that been a negative for a candidate. Certain never if a male candidate. I would have liked to see more of her and Bilyana and I think it's most unfortunate they left so early.

I really don't think it was to do with them being below par candidates and certainly not below some of the men. Just one of those things maybe rather than deliberate but unfortunate for the good of the show.

Yup. And she was very attractive as well - like it or not the lack of especially attractive contestants has been a problem this year. Maybe it's not true for half the viewing audience, but shows do attract more interest when the contestants are particularly nice to look at, or have some other kind of sex appeal, even if they come across as unpleasant people like Debra or Paloma.

I don't think we've been as short of good-looking women as some say. Apart from Bilyana, we had Laura and Katie, both very good-looking. Gabrielle looked nice too.

But then people have their own ideas of what is good-looking.

PS I don't think Debra was unpleasant, just young and a bit brash.

I think he shouldn't have fired Gabrielle, Jenna or tbh Katie when he did

I'm not saying Laura and Gabrielle aren't attractive. Even Jane was attractive in a sense. However note that I used the phrase, "especially attractive". Those three are not "wow" attractive, or even "sit-up-and-take notice" attractive, as Bilyana and Katie, or some of the even more drop dead gorgeous US contestants are. They don't have that striking, camera friendly "look" - they're simply sort of "normally pretty", if that makes sense.

Katie isn't my personal idea of what is good-looking - as I've said a number of times she does nothing for me. I'm trying to take an objective view and from that angle I think a couple more like her, hopefully lasting into the final stages, would have added more general interest to a jaded series, even though she was just as bland an on-screen presence as most of the rest of them.

I'm not advocating that looks should be the defining criteria, but in the complete absence of the likes of a Badger or a Saeed, I'm left clutching at straws. Any port in a storm I guess.

Sidestepping the attractiveness debate for a bit (though this debate comes up every year, and as ever I quite liked a few of the girls!) --

Girls this series; yep, not a strong showing. But compared to other series... (and spoilers for previous series follow!)

Series 2 had an all-female final two, series 5 had an all-female final four, in series 7 the men lost the first two tasks on the trot, and across the whole series there was only one winning male PM. That week, incidentally, was man v. man so they couldn't lose.

Then you look at Young Apprentice. In series one, no male PMs won whatsoever until the final. In series two, only James McCullagh won as PM. He did, in fairness, win twice in eight weeks - pretty good! But counting back, Nick Holzherr in episode 1 was only the third winning male PM in three consecutive series - and the second to win against a female PM. So yeah, I think a stronger male team was about due!