From who was brought back - although you may say that Patrick should have been brought back and fired, which is fair enough, he's been useless.

I'd have fired Maria. She pushed for the high prices, didn't contribute to the task, but mainly she was the one of the the three that in no way deserves to win the series. The other two deserved to remain in the process for their previous record and their potential. Maria has displayed no talent or potential, just immature hostility Oh and that panto eye-rolling and sick-making face at the same time, yeuch.. Unless she has a redemptive arc in store... which I find quite unlikely.

Agreed. Marie doesn't listen to anything AT ALL. Alice at least has the potential to learn from her mistakes and I don't think Marie does.

Agreed on Maria.

ALTHOUGH, had he'd been bought back I'd have fired Patrick for, as my mum said out loud at the time, all he did on this task was dine on sweets and tea!

In fairness, he did allow lowering himself to do manual work in the kitchen by making tea and sandwiches. But he was clearly doing his best to fly under the radar as he hadn't contributed much, if any, to decision-making discussions throughout the entire task. As if he thought it was best to stand back and let the others get tangled up in ropes of their own.

Navdeep and Patrick seem the strategists of the lot.

I would've found some way to penalise David's team, then sacked him.

Failing that Patrick had to go (I think Andrew would've got a warning but been let off the hook). He's was a panicky project manager week one and just jumps into decisions without thinking it through. Let's not forget the divemono, that's the only flair he's shown. The other weeks he's been MIA.

I'd have fired Alice. Maria made a mistake in pushing for a higher price, but in many ways that was necessary because they had high expenditure to recoup.

Alice failed to communicate properly and spent too much time swanning round posh hotels doing little real research. She also brought the wrong people back.

To be honest I'm a little suspicious of that 'swanning around' footage too. Very easy to make it look like she was just gorging on cakes.

Without her swanning to the posh hotel, we wouldn't have had the epic moment of Nick behind them scoffing cakes.

I would have fired Maria - too full of herself, thinks she knows everything and pushes and pushes until she gets her own way. She takes no notice of focus groups - wasn't it last week when she pursuaded her team to pitch the cook book to professional women? This week it was the price. But she doesn't learn that her ideas are not necessarilythe best ones.

Even discounting that though, her instructions were too vague and she appeared to give Andrew little or no guidance on how much to spend on cakes etc, which was the real task-losing factor.

It's not up to her to completely come up with the cake ideas though - 'Traditional with a twist' was not as vague and meaningless as it was accused of being. That was the direction and nobody came up with anything from that. Probably right about not her not being firm and clear about pricing - did we even see when she went from opposing Maria's very high price to the final one that was higher than what she wanted?

I think rather than in previous series, where being the PM of the losing team rarely meant you'd be fired, this series that seems to mean you're almost definitely the one that will go. Maybe that's fair, but ultimately Alice did ok overall imo, and deserved another chance, while Maria should have gone as she is a useless gobby mentalist.

Maria, definitely. I agree with those who say she was kept in because she is 'good tv'. Who would ever want to work with her though? Every time her spoilt, self-regarding little face comes into view my temperature goes up a degree.

When it's a loss / v. low profits issue, the PM generally tends to get fired. I think bringing both Maria and Navdeep back together was a fatal mistake as Alice essentially set up a situation where she was going to be ganged up on.

I would have fired Maria simply because she's an obnoxious little scroat.

I agree though. I would have to have fired her due to her voice making my ears bleed and those bloody faces

I don't think Maria deserves to be fired, actually.

Yes, she can be obnoxiously loud and dominating, but she's never shied from making contributions and taking part in any decision-making process. She's one of most active candidates and she deserves credit for that.

It's those who play safe that need to be put in a firing line. Playing safe by not making contributions, questioning and assisting the PM directly, and taking on a crucial role in a task. I'm looking at you, Patrick.

Patrick repeatedly tried to persuade Alice to knock the prices down. He wasn't a very strong advocate, and he's owed a firing from the last three tasks, but he was the only one on the team talking sense this week.

I would have fired Maria though, given that it's beyond obvious that she's incapable of adapting her behaviour, and she's usually wrong.

I think "traditional with a twist" is pretty meaningless!

My issue was not with pricing the cakes for sale, but with the amount they laid out on them in the first place. This actually made a higher price a virtual necessity. And that at least was none of Maria's doing.

Do you honestly not think she'd adapted her behaviour? I thought she'd calmed down considerably on the task (not in the boardroom, but that's another matter).

If I was looking for someone to employ/run a business with, I would fire Maria.

If I was looking for good TV I would have fired Navdeep. Maria is car crash TV and Alice is the most photogenic of all the girls IMO.

So far I'm not hiring Patrick, Maria or David

I agree. Much as Maria has been annoying, she did seem to pull herself together on this task. It was just unfortunate that Alice brought Navdeep into the boardroom over Patrick. Who, as you say, should have gone.

I prefer Navdeep

Patrick has been fatally wounded for weeks. He failed the test of his fashion ability so he can't really win . H's also not done much thats been impressive and Lord Sugar wanted to fire him last week.

The cake expert Andrew (Is that right as Steven seems to be the one with kitchen experience) is also toast - as he's failed to produce appealing cakes on a task targettted at his interest. Against those two, Alice showed more potential and hasn't compromised her proposal as far as we know - though by losing she's fallen down in the race behind those with aPM win..

Navdeep may have a hill to climb, but she's hadn't done anything wrong and its clear he likes Maria - possibly as she's most like him, so it was pretty much fatal bringing them back,. Another case of not bringing back the right people, reading his signals and setting up the people who Lord Sugar wants to fire anyway.

I think maybe this show would be better if they got rid of Sugar, as he's a blahdy idiot. Or maybe that's why we watch.

Maria was right though, they had a captive audience, and with all the money they'd spent on their gourmet food they needed to sell them as high as possible in order to make a profit on them.

For example, if each meal they chose to make cost £7, there's no point selling them for £7 each because that way there's no profit being made.

Its a shame Alice went because she seemed quite wise but having said that a lot of what she did throughout the day was ful of business-catchphrases and didnt actually amount to saying much in terms of actual usefulness.

She might not've gone had she brought back the baker boy and tried to pin things on him (costings, target market experience, etc)