I also think Karen is an interesting one. When I first watched Series 2 (which was fairly recently, as I only got into The Apprentice a couple of years ago, and I went back and watched all the old series) I initially thought Karen was a very strong candidate, but I didn't actually like her very much. I thought she'd go a long way, but I thought that while she appeared to be very nice, there was something sly about her. I think some of that came from Nargis' response to her on You're Fired! - she was criticised for bringing Karen into the boardroom apparently to force Sir Alan to fire Jo, and she claimed that was absolutely not what she had done, and that she was actually hoping that Karen would be the one to go because she was apparently really manipulative on the tasks. She also said that before they went into the boardroom, Karen took her to one side and said, 'Just so you know, I've been saying some quite negative things about you on camera', which she thinks she only said to wind her up before they went in. So at the time, I thought Karen was being set up to be a bit of a silent assassin. Then, when she was fired the next week, I was a little shocked, and then I didn't know what to think. She came across well on You're Fired!

Interestingly, both Jo and Alexa have apparently gone on to become more successful in their careers than Karen has since The Apprentice. They've both done really well for themselves, but Karen is a military wife, so her husband's job means they have to move around a lot, making it hard for her to get a permanent job. I do think that Jo was a better team member than the editors gave her credit for actually. Apart from the disastrous week she was PM, she generally did something good when she was on the losing team, even though she was in the final boardroom whenever she lost.

-Week 2: She was the only one who fought against the cat calendar idea, though her attitude left a lot to be desired.
-Week 5: She appeared to work fine within the team, and Ruth couldn't really justify bringing her back.
-Week 6: She accepted a telling-off for something that was mainly Ansell's fault, which was quite sportsmanly. But she still deserved to go when she did, and probably a lot earlier.

I liked Alexa, but I do think Sir Alan may have been right when he said she was indecisive. Take a look at this, at 14.15:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx-rUQ3hcYk

Sadly, I never saw the YF from Series 2 or 3. Its a shame as I can't find them anywhere. That's very interesting about Karen, though. I never got that impression of her in any of the episodes she was in that she was unpopular amongst the girls. As you say, its difficult to know what to think of her apart from a solid win as PM in Week 1.


Oh yes, I've found that Jo seems to have been vilified somewhat for her time on the show, but she seems to have been someone who suffered from the edit. I watched Episode 5 today (Advertising) and Ruth tells Sir Alan in the boardroom that the slogan The World Revolves Around You was thought up by Jo. This was one of the best ideas in their campaign in my opinion and Jo's reward for her best week so far was a trip to the boardroom! Ansell and Mani should have been in the boardroom for me as the task was lost with their failure to communicate the main features of the Amsair card (In which the concierge service clearly wasn't highlighted) Ruth clearly interprets the concierge service as the main USP and this was what made them fall down.
I agree about Week 2, but I actually think her attitude was better than was made out. She was the only woman smart enough to know that cats for a children's charity calender was a ridiculous idea and, according to Karen in the boardroom, she did get on with her tasks without complaint, suggesting that her attitude wasn't as bad as it seemed.


Oh, don't get me wrong, Alexa seemed like a lovely girl, she just wasn't cut out for business. Her performance in Week 4 was awful and Sir Alan was absolutely right when he talked about her indecisiveness and, her leadership was, to be blunt, atrocious. In the part of the task when the team just can't make the pizza bases, there's a bit where Samuel blows up and asks someone to take charge and you can just see Alexa in the background not saying a word and just letting the chaos reign. There was no way she could have taken control of that team, especially with Syed and Paul in it; she just didn't have the leadership skills.
That clip is interesting, I didn't know she was on The Weakest Link. To be harsh, it rather sums up her time on the show as well. Was this before or after her appearance on The Apprentice? I recall there was an Apprentice special about the time of Series 4, was there not?

I know, I don't think you can get them anymore, which is a real shame. When I watched Series 2 for the first time, they were available on SeeSaw, but that website has since shut down, and I can't find them anywhere else. I hope at some point they will become available somewhere on the Internet, nothing to do but wait really. I think the episode after Mani's firing is on YouTube, as I seem to remember seeing that Mani had put it on his own channel.



Yeah, she was right, and I love bluntness, but I didn't like the way she was screaming and crying when people disagreed with her. It appeared quite unprofessional, you can be blunt without doing that. Although in fairness to Jo, she stopped doing that after that task, so she obviously learned something.

This is a controversial opinion, but I actually didn't think that it was the cats that let the team down. They did their market research, they saw that cat calendars sold, and the pictures they had were really nice, and better than the boys' ones. What made them lose was the fact that they had minimalist dates so you couldn't use it as a calendar, and also the terrible pitches from Nargis. If it had been in a more conventional calendar format, and if someone like Ruth or Karen had pitched instead of Nargis, they would probably have won that task. Sir Alan said that they had no branding on the inside of the calendar, and by March you'd probably forget what the calendar was for - but surely that's not the point, as by that stage the person has already bought the calendar, so it wouldn't matter if they remembered.


By rights, Alexa deserved to go on that task, but in that series Sir Alan was not allowed to do double firings, and if it was a choice between her and Syed, I think it should have been Syed. I think Alexa would have taken more from the experience than he did, and in general had more integrity than him. I felt sorry for Alexa really, because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Weeks 1 and 2 she worked alongside the team, but didn't stand out. In Week 3, she was unfortunate enough to be working alongside Jo and Karen in the sub-team that did almost nothing, got brought into the boardroom, almost got fired and had to beg to be a PM. Then the next week, she got shifted over to the boys team and had to lead some huge egos which, in the words of Lucy Kellaway on You're Fired! - 'Didn't want to be led by a woman, and CERTAINLY didn't want to be led by her.' I think if she'd been manager on a smaller team, or on the girls' team, she might have done better, but we'll never know.

There was an Apprentice special, but she wasn't in it. I think that was just an ordinary episode. On IMDb, it says 2007, which means it was after The Apprentice. But she was brought back for an 'embarrassing answers' special, which is the link that I put up.

Yeah Karen is an interesting one but I really liked her, I think she came across as very capable and competent in the first 2 weeks and whilst she wasn't at her best in the 3rd week I definitely don't think she deserved to go. Her firing was very strange, it was clear that Jo should have gone and it definitely seemed like it was going that way, so it all seemed very random when Sir Alan turned around and told her she was fired, having said that though I'm glad Jo stayed as she's one of my favourite candidates ever- just for her sheer entertainment value! There was also something I found quite endearing about her, and I'm glad she's doing well now. Another thing that I liked about Karen was that she seemed very fair, in Week 2 all the other girls seemed to be turning on Jo and using her as a scapegoat however Karen actually stood up for her, she didn't seem to let personal bias get in the way of anything. Although we didn't get to see much of her and I might have changed my opinion on her had she stayed longer, from what we saw I just thought she was a really capable candidate and I thought her firing was grossly unfair.

Fair enough. I think that Karen was never going to win, because Sugar clearly didn't like her from the start. After the first task, they may have won but she outsmarted him which he didn't like - and I'm not sure what I think about the ethics of their win. In all fairness I probably would have done the same thing in the girls' shoes, and Karen was right when she said that they only needed the stock for that day, so they didn't need a sustainable business plan - but in a competition, the teams should start out fairly with an equal amount of resources, and the way the girls used their feminine charms to get so much free fruit from the male stallholders meant that the boys could never have won, even if they'd done everything right. Karen was really bright and really tough, but looking back on it, I think her days were numbered from that point. Lord Sugar liked Jo because of her passion and enthusiasm, even if she had done really badly on that task. I think if Alexa had not spoken up at the end, he would have fired her, but he wanted to give her a chance to shine. And he'd pretty much already decided that he didn't want Karen.

S1 - James Max was the most competent but probably didn't need the job. I can't disagree with Tim.
S2 - Considering it gave us a top three Apprentice fool (Syed) the line up was strong. Karen and Tuan were under-rated but I would have loved Jo Cameron to win.
S3 - Lohit, but he was far too nice to shaft the others
S4 - The worst candidate in Apprentice history in Michael Sophocles. Only Simon, Sara and Raef had any credibility. I'd have cancelled this one.
S5 - Yasmina was right here, and Ben Clark completes the top three Apprentice Fools
S6 - Joanna was the most entrepreneurial of this lot and had she waited a year could well have won.
S7 - Without seeing all of the business plans it's more difficult but Susan was the strongest candidate when she wasn't moaning. I think Sid saw here as too high maintenance.
S8 - All three of the final BP's were rubbish. I would have liked to see what Gabrielle and Jane had to offer

What about Young Apprentice? Or don't you watch that? (If you don't watch it, time for a YouTube fest!)

Who is Sid? Who saw Susan as too high maintenance?

In S7 Zoe was robbed

Personally, I came close to stop watching this year after Katie was fired. She did make mistakes along the way, but she was one of the few candidates who stood out for me.

The years before I actually tuned out after my favourite went, so it's progress on my behalf.

Disagreed, Michelle was seen as one of the stand-out candidates that year (coming into her own later in the series, not unlike Kendra in the US version). It is only with hindsight that people say that she was nothing special or even a weak candidate.

With that in mind, I wonder if the opinion of Stella will shift in the coming years (mind you, they kinda look alike, but Michelle was more the glamour version so maybe not).

Michelle was okay, but there were two things that stuck in my mind as really annoying me about her. Firstly was at the end of Week 6, when even though the team won, they had a huge row during the treat, with it appearing that Michelle had been bitching about Sharon's leadership and blaming Paul for it. I had previously liked Michelle, but I thought she came across as very two-faced there. The other time was when she was a disastrous PM in Week 7 at Topshop and very narrowly escaped being fired. Apart from those times she performed consistently well, but I still think she was the weakest out of the final four. I don't understand why Sir Alan took her on - if for whatever reason he didn't want to choose Ruth, he could have chosen Ansell. I think Ansell would have been a great winner.

By the point Katie was fired pretty much all my favourites had gone and I didn't really like anyone left, I was also getting a bit bored of the whole show so stopped watching, but I'm more into the show now so I might watch the weeks that I missed.

I think there were quite a lot of likeable characters in Series 8, besides Katie and Duane. Ricky, Nick, Jade, Gabrielle and Jenna were all people I liked, and while I personally didn't think much of Tom, he was particularly popular with a lot of people.

Fair enough. I personally believe that the opinion of Stella has been skewed by hindsight anyway and I still believe she was the strongest candidate in Series 6 by quite a way.

I think that the winners on Young Apprentice have been right so didn't mention them.

Sid is Lord Sugar, so called in our house because he looks like Sid James with a beard. From what we saw Susan's business plan was the best of the final three but i think that he saw her as needing too much hand holding for a series winner under the spotlight

My issue with Stella was that it appeared that she was too much 'the finished article'. Former banker, in her 30s, married with children, very corporate attitude... it appeared that she'd gone so far, she wasn't really an apprentice anymore. If it had been the new format with the business plans I would absolutely have backed her to win, but for the apprentice job, I didn't think she was very well-suited. That's why I liked Laura Moore, because while she made mistakes, she was bright, made lots of valid points on task even if they weren't seen through, and was young and would have learned a lot from Lord Sugar. She had much less experience than the other candidates, but I felt she had a lot of potential and would have taken a lot from Sugar. Failing her, Liz, Chris or Joanna would have been good.

Stella thought she was competing for a £100,000 job.

In fact, she won a £40,000 job with a £100,000 salary. Since she'd previously had an £80,000 job, this was effectively a demotion.

Now that Lord Sugar does not run the same range of businesses, the old prize became untenable. It is a shame in a way there could not be a Dragons Den link-up, since that programme pretty much guarantees a flow of three or so new "projects" a year for each Dragon. (Of course, if there were such a link, the Dragon would probably have no time left to run his or her own business.)

Even in the USA, where Trump can offer a choice of projects to the winner, it has been suggested that the winner is actually in a PR role and is not allowed to decide so much as the colour of the wallpaper.

Unless, of course, someone else took over from Sugar. But I don't think many people would go for that.

In fact, people seem to moan at whatever happens on The Apprentice. If they changed the person hosting it, they'd complain that they weren't as good as Sugar. When Sugar continues doing it, they say he's getting boring. If a series has lots of people who are quite good on the tasks, the viewers complain that it's not entertaining enough. If there are people who are television gold but aren't so investible, they say there aren't enough serious business people. When the show uses the same format year after year, people moan that it's all the same. When the format changes - i.e. playing for a different prize - people say it's not as good as the old format.

There are two changes needed, in my view. One is to stop the no-hopers at the application stage. If a candidate cannot win, they should not be taking a place at the expense of those who can. What is the point?

The second is in the editing suite where over the last few series the producers have taken to concentrating on candidates shouting at each other rather than telling or showing us what occurred. This makes the firings seem random but also makes each episode appear very samey.

Do they still have the voiceover guy who tells us what's going on? I don't recall...in recent series...but I was rewatching season 1 on Youtube a couple days ago and the voiceover man was really helpful laying out the story. The cutaway candidate interviews were also pretty helpful - some of what Saira spouted for example! rather than being the candidates talking themselves up in a ridiculous way which often comes across scripted only to be intercut with their actual incompetence.

I completely agree with that.


Yes, his name is Mark Halliley and he has narrated every series. In more recent series, he doesn't appear to have explained so much though - if anything his narration appears to take more of an excited commentator's role, rather than the narrator of a documentary. As for being scripted, I'm pretty sure they're not, as the BBC and several former candidates have publicly stated that no part of the show is scripted - presumably not including Halliley's narration, but that's a side point. I am absolutely certain however that the candidates are asked leading questions for the interviews. Like, 'If you could compare yourself to any animal, what would it be?' is apparently used a lot, as there are nearly always a few who compare themselves to animals. If you've been asked that question, what else can you do?

If he's already decided that the most hopeless on task is going to win, because he's got a patent shop ready, there's no point in having strong candidates. Its even more important to have some weak ones to fill the show with disasters.

If he fills it with strong people you still have the problem that none of them, bar Susan, has so far come up with a decent proposal for something hat could be called entrepreneurial. Nail files are hardly exciting, and apart from that, he's been offered non plans, toxic proposals like hedge funds, cold calling centres and one man agencies.

And might have actually had a real business proposal given she already had a family business ........

I'm fairly sure that Sugar went with Tom because he liked him, as opposed to because he liked his business plan. The chair idea was fraught with problems, so much so that they changed the business idea afterwards (which actually seems a little unfair on Helen as she offered to change her business plan when Sugar didn't like it, and I think she proved herself more than Tom.)

I'm not sure about Series 7, but in Series 8 I think Sugar had at least some level of interest in all the potential proposals. He said in the brief that he'd looked at all their business plans and any that he had had no interest in had not got through. I know that seems a little strange as Jade's business plan was terrible, and Sugar obviously didn't like Nick's (goodness knows why, as I thought Nick's plan was brilliant), but maybe he looked at them and thought that there was a chance that the people involved would be able to pull it off. And then later decided that they wouldn't.

Looks like I only started watching from series six ,

#6: Paloma, definitely.
#7: Helen (though Edna was amaze ).
#8: Bilyana Apostolova and Maria should not have been fired so early :sleep:, though Nick would have been the right person to win.