Fair enough, but Sherlock Holmes had a point. Harry H, Lizzie and even Harry M had a huge amount of support going into the Week 7 task, certainly compared to Haya and James.

However, since I've been watching Young Apprentice recently, I've noticed that Haya was actually a really good candidate. I just re-watched the final tonight and she came up with Zara's winning idea. She was a great candidate and, certainly, looking back, I would not have begrudged her a final place, especially as she won 6 out of 7 tasks! (7 out of 8 if being on Zara's team in the final counts!)

Oh my God I thought I was the only person who liked Laura.

I thought Harry H, Lizzie and Haya were extremely competent, but Lizzie and Haya did not stand out so much. I think Zara still stood out the most out of all the candidates, and would still have won, possible against Harry H in the final though.

Haya... yeah, she only lost one task! (Although she was Project Manager that time and made a stupid decision.) Harry M said afterwards that he thought she should have won the series, but unfortunately on The Apprentice it's not enough to just be good, you have to be the best and I think there were other people a bit better than her - namely Harry H, Zara and James.


You liked Laura as well then? That year they had a bad lot, but I thought she was very underrated.

Hardly unique. Zara was the standout candidate - apart from one or two erors of the sort that everyone else made too. The finalists could only come from her team once the win that week was decided. . Haya had the best record of success on the show. James majored on his O level and his risk taking. Haya, though, didn't stand out as being responsible for her successful record though, and his record was spoiled by his early interpersonal skills, dubious tactics and his dangerous risk taking before he blew the final by having no proposal. Harry H and M would win the boyband vote, but Harry H had very little success on the show to show for his own obvious talent, and Harry M had his share of James's problems. Lizzie actually did well - but not well enough to get noticed by Lord Sugar, or to pull out a win to get to the final, and Lord Sugar would probably have gone for the two boys in her team anyway - however wrongly.

What do you mean by boyband vote? And what do you mean Harry H had little success on the show?


To be honest, I've always thought this anyway. If Atomic had won the task, it wouldn't have surprised me at all to see Lizzie get fired.

I'm not denying Zara was good, but, in my opinion, she was very lucky she didn't get fired on her two worst tasks (Week 4 and Week 6). Yes, she was great in some tasks (Week 3 being the best example), but in others especially in Week 6 (Driving to Croydon to purchase a 9-carot gold pocket watch) she was the worst performer.

Yes, she never got off to a very good start but she grew throughout the process and probably shouldn't have got fired in the week where she did. I also think she was someone who could learn and adapt herself with more time. In the end though, I think blonde Chris deserved to win that year.

Sorry, just didn't see it (and many people with me). She got lucky with being on the winning team and after that it was a stroll to win it (because the competition was fired in one sweep).

Awww come on are you all forgetting Adam Corbally in the last series he is my favourite (only cos he lives near me and is a genuine really nice guy before you serious folk jump up and down!)

Really disliked him on the show, but only because I was a Jade fan! To be fair, I did have a begrudging respect for him standing by what he said on the show on YF.

My biggest query with him was that he only really had one big skillset: selling and he only got as far as he did based on his performance as a salesman. He was given praise for "throwing himself into tasks", but I never understood why this should have meant he should be in the final. I just thought he went further than his talents merited. But that's just my opinion!

Haha, he had too much of a foot in mouth problem to be a contender in my books, I'm afraid. He did seem like a nice bloke, though. Took most of the series for me to warm up to him, but by the end I felt like he was pretty well-intentioned, even if what he said didn't necessarily always come out how he meant it.

I think being in the series for so long did him a lot of favours. Helped showcase his salesmanship and a bit of his good nature. Shambolic at first, but did redeem himself in the later weeks! Grew on me throughout the series.

...I do still kind of think he should've been fired somewhen around week six, though. q:

I may be the only person that thinks Yasmina shouldn't have won. She should've been sacked the week of the cedarwood/ sandalwood debacle, and Paula should've gone on to win.

Err...

Think you'll be on your own with that opinion. If anything, Ben should have gone that week for being an annoying prick. Yasmina made a mistake, but it was pretty much her only one all series.

But did Yasmina have a scholarship to Sandhurst?

I think Ben should have gone that week as well, because Paula was better than him... but it was early days, Sir Alan didn't know how much of a nuisance Ben was. Paula should have lasted longer than Ben, but Yasmina would still have won... she'd stood out as a contender before that task, Paula hadn't.

I didn't watch Series 1 so can't really comment.

Series 2 I think Ruth should have won, I just felt at the time Michelle wasn't going to stick it out in the business.

In Series 3, any of the final 4 except Simon Kristina is the obvious and best choice, but Tre and Katie would have made a better winner. I also thought Jadine was a really strong candidate.

Series 4 by the end it was so negative I didn't really care. Lucinda would have been a nice ending, to show that being a decent person does get you places. I'm leaning towards Claire out of the finalists, but basically anyone but Alex would do

Series 5 I think had the strongest final group of all series. Yasmina is probably the best of them, but I know Debra is doing well for herself now. Lorraine was probably a bit too zany. Kate going on to do television has maybe clouded my judgement but I remember at the time thinking she was good, but not as good as Yasmina or Debra.

Stella in Series 6 was a terrible winner. Chris or Liz were much better. Joanna would have been worthy if she had about 5 years more business experience. I was surprised reading the OP because I also thought Laura was very underated and would have made a great apprentice, better when it was a job but maybe not for an investment.

Two of the biggest Apprentice shocks for me came in Series 7 - one was that Tom even got past week 2 and the second was that Susan didn't win. She was an all-round great candidate. Helen was also as good but I think was maybe too robotic.

Series 8 I think they made the right choose, but the final 2 were both really good.

You can watch it on YouTube - check it out, Series 1 was a good series. The BBC uploaded it, so it's good quality.


She didn't, she left Sugar's company very quickly. I think Sugar liked her personally, as opposed to anything she actually did. Ruth, Paul or Ansell would have made better winners.


I think the thing about Series 3 was the people who were the most talented were the ones who were least likeable on a personal level. I thought Tre and Katie had a lot going for them, even though they didn't come across as nice people. (Actually, I admire Katie's honesty - I don't always agree with her, but it takes guts to voice opinions as controversial as hers.


I would have liked Sara to win Series 4, but I didn't think we saw enough of her for to actually say she was a worthy winner. Lee and Claire were both pretty good.


I never really liked Kate... she had a nasty side to her when she came under attack. I thought the other four were all good though. Hell, Kate was talented, I just didn't trust her.


It's nice that a couple of people have agreed with me about Laura on here... she was one of the people who could have done really well, but was unfortunately just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other people like this are Alexa, Shazia, Paula, Ellie and Sean.


I think Series 7 had some very good people in it. Apart from Jim, I was a big fan of all the final four, and there were quite a few other people in that series I liked. Helen was my favourite, but I would have liked to see Susan win.


I never saw what was so good about Tom... Ricky was a good choice, but I think Nick should have won. Jade would also have been a satisfying winner, but her business plan was horrible.

Harry H had the unfortunate problem that he had many good moments in tasks - but never actually won any as PM. Everyone else but Harry M in the last 6 had a win. You would have to argue that he played a major role in Zara, Haya, James and Liziie's wins - but winning as PM often matters in the apprentice if it comes down to straight accounting. Competence didn't help either when he wasn't brought back to the boardroom after week one - you need to get noticed and he had no boardroom opportunities. He also had the misfortune to be following Tom who had won for winning nothing - so another winner with no PM wins might have have looked as if winning the tasks was completely irrelevant. Harry M's record was much worse - he never was on a winning team and lost as PM. Lizzie and Zara by way of contrast both had 4 wins and Haya had 5 before the SF. He may also have noted that Zara was not only more ma ture than most of them , but she was actually a year younger too.

Its all decided anyway by that SF and there's no reason to think that wasn't decided on merit. James isn't that strong a candidate once he's up against Zara, on either record or ability and actually he wouldn't have been on most grounds against Haya . It would have been more interesting if the SF teams had been girls v boys - which would have put Lizzie or Haya into the final battle - but he probably wanted to mix the sexes.

I think Harry H was actually the youngest... while Zara was still studying for her GCSEs, it says on Harry H's video that he was fifteen at the time of auditions, but sixteen when they started filming. I think Zara was the second youngest. Interesting that the two youngest were arguably the two most competent...

I didn't have a problem with him firing four, I just thought it should have been based on the whole series. Haya's firing was fair, the others weren't.

I thought I'd resurrect this thread so we could discuss who should have won Young Apprentice.

I was happy with Ashleigh out of the final four (though out of the finalists, I'd have been happy with anyone who wasn't Maria) but I thought this series had a lot of good people go early. It's a little surprising that I'm going for such an early casualty, but the person I would have really liked to see win is Sean Spooner. He struck me as being a talented lad who was sadly in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think he got a pretty unfair deal. Maria bulldozed him into listening to her instead of to the market research, and we've seen in many tasks that she was a very difficult person to stand up to - although as Sean was in the publishing business he probably should have known better, I just think she basically forced him to do what she wanted and he wasn't strong enough to stand up to her. In the previous week he'd been shown to be a strong salesperson and when they returned in the final task, he was again shown to be a good team member. He was also remarkably articulate - almost as articulate as Zara. He may have been the most culpable for their loss, but I think that even in the first two tasks he had shown himself to have more potential than either Maria or David, and I think he should have stayed. If he had stayed, I think he would have been an excellent winner.

What does everyone else think? (Based on all the candidates, not just the finalists.)

Unfortunately the episode with Sean Spooner and the cookbook is the one episode out of the series I didnt actually see so I can't comment on that with any accuracy.

Out of all the finalists, if we're looking at it from a Dragons Den-style perspective I think fashion Patrick should have won as he could have benefited from both the money and Sugar's direction/access to experts/contacts, as well as perhaps advice on how to hire a team to do the practical things for him as he obviously wasnt much cop when it came to them.

Of the finalists, Lucy was the strongest IMO but didnt need the money or the boost, while Maria had the clearest 'journey' but wasnt quite edited well enough to look like she'd reached the end of it (fo someone who was consistently edited to look bratty, bulldozing and irritable she always seemed very popular in the house/group/taxi cab shots, so I think something may have been amiss here). Ash was a bit 'meh' really. But she was a hard worker I suppose, and she needed the money more than Lucy would have in the end-up. It came across more as charity than giving the prize to a deserving winner who had a vision what she wanted it for and demonstrated her skills as to what she would use it for across the tasks, though. In Ashleigh's case I think the editing was kind to her.

To compare to earlier series Maria to me was more of a 'Debra' in that she expressed herself poorly a lot of the time and was played up as evil, whereas Ashleigh struck me as more of an out-an-out bulldozer in the way Ruth was. Ashleigh for me though unlike Ruth...never seemed to have that special something. Ruth would bulldoze to cut through the waffle, Ashleigh would bulldoze to assert her own authority for the sake of it, that was my reading anyway.

In terms of overall competenence Stephen was up there for me in spite of his awful brainstorm name suggestions. Andrew came across strongest I think in the final task after he had been fired, but he wasnt perhaps very versatile a candidate.

Looking back also at Nav's firing, and Lucy's progression to the final, I'm not actually sure what the difference was between the two of them. Nav I think would have been as competent as Lucy had she reached the final stages - what I mean is, despite Sugar's branding of her as one with a lack of business acumen, Lucy didnt really demonstrate any outstanding business skill that Nav hadnt shown even after she started getting more screentime in the run-up to the final - and even in the final, her main contribution was designing a logo. Nav also was quite strong in the final as a mediator who maintained a kind of calm strength whereas Lucy bowed to Ashleigh's whims.

Just some thoughts on the candidates overall, don't bite my head off, what do you think?

Its all a bit odd because he fired good people while he was keeping candidates like Patrick and David in - and he's firing some for not being business orientated. He tests some of their claims to specific ability behind their business proposals, but not others. And when he does that, more often than not people fail at what they claim to be good at - be it education, publishing or fashion design. But he then ends up with two candidates for the win who get there with no real ideas to spend the money on. Ashleigh is orientated to her accountancy, and Lucy is academically orientated .We don't get to see what similarly competent people like Navdeep had on offer, and you get the feeling that someone like Maria may have had the best proposal judging from her CV.

Its had an unsatisfactory ending every year. In year one the last two had been the weakest left on tasks and the final task was again arbitary . In year two the final task was pretty subjective and Haya had a better record than James. James had no proposal to spend the money on. That problem has turned up again this year - this time with both finalists and this year we had an outcome determined largely by who got whom as their co-PM.

I disagree with that. I think that the ending to Series 1 was fine, and the ending to Series 2, despite the unfair set-up to the second-to-last task, was done pretty well.

I thought that Arjun was fantastic, and although he had not had a win as Project Manager, he was clearly the best on the tasks. He was one of a rare breed who is both very creative and very good at figures. Plus he was personable, seemed like a nice lad and someone we wanted to do well. I think something that stood out for him is that so far, he is the only winner who nobody disputed was the right person to win. (Well, from those comments perhaps you do, but you're the first person I've come across. Everyone else I've met, and me included, has thought that Arjun was the right person to win that series hands-down. And the way they edited it, it was obviously going to be either him or Zoe. That was clear from early in the series.)

With Series 2, I thought the set-up to the penultimate task was unfair, but I don't think it would have made a huge amount of difference if Sugar had chosen who he was firing. Perhaps Harry H would have got into the final over James, but I still think Lizzie, Haya and Harry M would have gone. People who have been reading my posts for a while will know that I was a big supporter of Zara, but then I really liked James as well, and there was a point where I really didn't know which of them would win. Then Sugar asked about their plans for the money, and that was what swung it for Zara. So, a satisfactory ending, I thought. Though maybe I'm biased because my favourite candidate won.


I thought Ashleigh, Lucy and Patrick were all both bright and likeable (Maria was bright but not likeable! For me at least), but I didn't think any of the four had shown anything outstanding in the series. That was why I was backing Patrick to win - because I thought that one of them would do something amazing in the final that would work for them, and I thought if that was going to happen to one of the four, it would be most likely to be Patrick because of the shock element for the audience, as he's been edited to look a lot worse than he actually is. But that didn't really happen. I was happy with Ashleigh's victory, like I would have been if Lucy had won. But I can't say I was delighted, like I was with both Arjun and Zara actually.

That's why I think some of the people fired earlier would have made much better winners, and could have gone on to really shine. I'm thinking specifically of Sean and Alice. Alice was a little soured for me in Episode 2 when she said some really nasty things to Lucy (although she didn't behave like that on any other tasks), so overall, that's why I'm thinking Sean.

Series 1: Saira Khan
Series 2: Ruth Badger or Karen Bremner (a strange choice but I thought she had so much potential and I think her firing is one of the worst in Apprentice history)
Series 3: Kristina Grimes (favourite candidate ever)
Series 4: Lee McQueen
Series 5: Yasmina Siadatan
Series 6: Stella English
Series 7: Helen Milligan
Series 8: Duane Bryan or Katie Wright (may seem like strange choices but I stopped watching after Katie's firing so my view probably would have changed had I watched the full series)

Young Apprentice:

Series 1: Zoe Plummer
Series 2: Harry Hitchens
Series 3: Navdeep Bual

strange how many females I've wanted to win

I completely agree, regarding Saira. By far one of the stand-out talents of Series 1.


Again, Ruth was one I agreed with, so no complaints from me. Karen is such an interesting case and even more so as I've been watching Series 2 recently. Karen was strong in Week 1 (And, to a degree in Week 2) but she was poor in Week 3 and was deservedly in the boardroom for being in the sub-team that got 2 items, negotiating and schmoozing for 15 minutes with a bloke for the dinner jacket when he didn't even have it in stock and not acquiring the tire (As well as refusing to take responsibility for it) I certainly wouldn't have fired Karen, as Jo was horrible in that task and in my view Alexa is one of the weakest candidates ever to have gone on the show, but it was no Shazia. She had many bad points in the task that she went. I think that because Series 2 had no stand-out candidates (Badger aside) people went back to Karen as a potential winner.


Fair enough and its not surprising that she's your favourite candidate ever as she was a very strong candidate. She was a close second for me, after Jadine, but that was probably just personal preference.


I stand by what I said a few months ago. He was the strongest candidate in the early weeks and (in spite of his horrible attack on Sara) probably stayed that way until Week 9, where he went downhill for me (Terrible Atishu! pitch, horrible management in Week 10, bad interview performance) Didn't begrudge him a spot in the final 2, but Claire should have won, imo as she was consistently the strongest performer in the tasks from Week 5 onwards. If people could get over the way she treated Simon in Week 4,I think she'd be much, much more well-regarded.


Again, I thoroughly agree and she is my second favourite candidate ever! (behind Lucinda Ledgerwood!)


Finally, someone who agrees with me on Stella! If you ignore what happened afterwards, then she was clearly the best in Series 6. She had a couple of off-moments, but then so does everyone at some stage (Badger, Yasmina, Kristina, Helen all had negative moments at some stage)


Difficult one. I still think that because of the change in prize and because her flaws were mainly based in naivety (something which would get better as the years go on) Susan should have won it. If it was still a job, then I would have agreed with you as Susan wasn't suited to be employed by anyone.


Considering you only watched up until Week 6, those choices don't surprise me. If you have the time, though, I would recommend you watch on as Ricky does get far more able and the final three remaining are all outstanding candidates, in my opinion.
Katie's firing was grossly unfair in the sense that she was picked on by the other candidates and Adam was 100% responsible for the task failure. As for Duane, well... I'm still unconvinced Sterling should have lost that week anyway as they were far better than Phoenix on that task, but between the three in the boardroom and based on the task, then Duane was simply the reason they lost. I maybe would have kept him for past performances, but who would you fire then? Not Ricky after a terrific stint as PM and probably not Laura as she had improved from his warning the previous week. Ultimately, though it was a very difficult decision, based on the task, its hard to argue against Duane going.


Based on the first three weeks, I would have agreed with you. But considering Zoe morphed into a sulky, whiny girl in the last three weeks, I think that she blew it. If she hadn't gone into an "I'm an Artist" mode in Week 4 and spent Week 5 attacking Arjun, then she could well have won, but I just think she thought she had won and didn't continue to be a strong performer. Arjun was more consistent.


I agree and that bloody, needless, ridiculous twist in Week 7 robbed us of a great winner. He was clearly a strong performer from the off and had he just got a PM win or had the Week 7 decision gone another way, he could well have won. James could have won, but blew it in the final. Zara was mostly good and deserved her final place, but performed atrociously in Weeks 4 and 6, in which she was lucky to survive. As much as I think he had terrible people skills, if Harry M had won a few tasks, he could have been a contender. Unfortunately for him, the 0-7 record was always weighing down on him.


I haven't yet stated who I think should have won Series 3, so I'll use this opportunity to display my opinion. I was left hugely underwhelmed by the Final Four. Patrick and Maria shouldn't have been anywhere near the Final, imo. If I had my choice, the final four would have actually been the Odyssey team in Week 6 - Andrew, Lucy, Navdeep & Steven (Imagine my disappointment when they lost the task!) Andrew was one my early favourites, but I don't think he should have won. In the end, Navdeep probably should have been the winner as she did do very little wrong in the six weeks. Lucy would have also been an acceptable winner. Steven was strong in early weeks, but weak later on. I didn't really rate Ashleigh that much from early days, but she did improve and I suppose she could have been a finalist. I really don't think she should have won as she was really a one-trick pony as a cost-cutter.

But that's just my opinion.

Oh, I'd contest that. The final task was what made Arjun and Tim, in my opinion. I still think, to this day, that their idea was the best pitched in a final. Arjun certainly didn't have the worst record.
They were as follows:

Zoe (3-2)
Arjun (3-2)
Kirsty (2-3)
Tim (2-3)

Tim lost as PM, but that was in no way down to him (Kirsty was responsible for the defeat that week) and Arjun had a bad week when he lost as PM and received very little support from Emma and Zoe. Tim and Arjun PMed far, far better than Kirsty and Zoe in the final and they actually worked well together (unlike the two girls)