Yes, but there was nothing to say it had to be THIS week.

I felt it would be, the way Kurt was dismissed before he'd come to the conclusion that the others were NOT being fired, as he usually does.

Yes, but nonetheless there was nothing compelling Sugar to fire a second candidate this week. He just clearly decided that it was worth playing his joker (as it were) on Natalie.

When is there anything 'compelling' about it?

He fired two this week because the BBC told him to.

And you know this how, exactly?

I don't quite understand your issue. This was a week when two obviously weak candidates were in the final boardroom, so Sugar chose to fire two. There is nothing that says the double firing has to occur in week 7. He could have done it last week, or next week. When one has occurred in previous series, it has never been in the same week.

While the double firing has become a common feature of the series, I very much doubt the BBC tell Sugar to do it on such-and-such a week. That takes us back into the discussion about how much influence the producers have on Sugar's decision-making which none of us can ever agree on and yet everyone is convinced they're right about. Let's not go there.

Everything Sugar does is directed to him by the producers, they would have told him to fire two, they would have told him to call back Jason and praise him. The show is a production and Sugar gets his brief just like anyone else.

I have no real issue, only that it was obvious he would fire two from the way he was talking to them all.

While I do believe they influence him and make suggestions - I don't believe they make decisions for him. Although I can believe that Jason being called back might have been suggested to him by the producers as a good TV gag.

And Sugar himself is canny enough to know what makes good telly without being ordered about. He doesn't strike me as the type to take orders from anyone!

I doubt if there's not a view taken on how many people are wanted at the end to produce a show thats not spread too thin. Five in the final with interviews or a final boardroom is probably too many - I would go for 4 anyway. As soon as you do that, you have to start taking your opportunities to cut the numbers down to the right one. You don't want to do it too early incase someone falls out. Having not done it last week or Dubai week, there's now not many weeks left , though, and you may have a more difficult choice next week.

I agree with all that. The logistics of how the numbers work is planned out meticulously - it's no accident. My point is only that there is nothing that says that Sugar had to fire two candidates in week 7. He could have just as easily done it in week 6 or 8, or even 5 or 9. (God knows he could have fired all three of them after the Dubai task!) It's more that this week was just one of those weeks where it was clearly a good opportunity to fire two out of the final three given how weak they were. As you say, next week the final three might not have as many undesirables in it.

Natalie is one of very few candidates to cry when fired which suggests she's not as 'business ruthless' as 99 percent of the people on the show. She's had personal problems earlier in her life so I don't think her personality was suited to appear on the show.

I wish her good luck in her career after The Apprentice. She seemed quite nice.

The only thing I believe Sugar does on his own back is decide WHO he'll be firing. But even then, I reckon there's a prod a wink here and there where he'll let certain candidates stay a bit longer as they're 'good telly' (Baggs etc)

Also I think if too many of one gender have been fired, one of the opposite will go to even things up.

Not really. A few years back I worked with a lady who had worn high heels since a teenager (when we worked together she was in her 40's). She said that high heels were comfortable for her and flats were painful to her feet. Its what you get used to I suppose.

I find them all out of their depth.

I look at this show now (actually have done for a few years) purely as escapist fictional entertainment. And there can be no doubting its entertainment value. Seriously though - would you have any of these muppets working for you?

Having said that - I LOVE Jason!

She had amazing boobage on YF

Great tits as well.

I'm very uncertain about Leah . Her interpersonal skills don't seem that great especially when dealing with clients . No harm in asking about discounts but the way she went about it seemed to get up the nose of both clients , maybe its the accent also .

She should've been fired a few weeks back when she was in the boardroom and not only turned on the waterworks but also played the gender card.

That was her entire contribution to the series.

I did like Natalie at first, but she is the only person I can remember crying in the boardroom, so for that alone I think it was right for her to go.

This is a direct quote from Sugar:

'This whole process has never ever been a joke, as far as I'm concerned, okay? And I don't want any of you to think that I personally am going to be persuaded by what television companies and production companies want to see and want to hear in choosing the person that's going to come and work for me. Okay? Get that right in your heads. Get it right in your heads because I mean it, because seriously, there's a job here for somebody. Okay? And if you might have thought throughout the course of this exercise that it's been a bit of a game, well I can understand you having those feelings, but look at me. Look at my eyes. I'm telling you I don't give a monkey's about what they think, I don't listen to what they tell me and I don't listen to what any television company tells me what to do. I'm looking for somebody to work for me, all right? Serious. Dead serious. Got it?'

He did say that back in Series 1 so theoretically I suppose his values may have changed since then, but he has always struck me as a really independent thinker. I don't think he would allow the production team to tell him what to do. In fact, he has been quite vocally critical of the production team at times - like at their decision to axe Young Apprentice, for example. I don't think that he'd openly condemn them if he was in their pocket. I know every time that someone solid is fired over someone a bit more watchable it seems like there is some kind of conspiracy, but there have also been many occasions when someone entertaining was fired at an early point. In the US, apparently it's all on entertainment (I don't watch it, but that's what I've heard.) Maybe that's what Donald Trump values, I don't know. What I do think is that that is not what Lord Sugar is all about. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's what I believe.

For anyone who agrees with Natalie's ridiculous statement that high heels are comfortable. It may be her perception that they're comfortable, but it's a faulty perception http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopath...igh-heels.aspx

Despite all he says, he is still in the employ of the BBC, and the production company of the show. Unless (like Simon Cowell and X factor) he owns the show. Then he can make decisions. LS could be replaced if he didn't like it. But he's pretty indispensable

I doubt LS could be replaced just like that on a whim of a BBC producer. They know that there wouldn't be the same interest in The Apprentice without Sugar. I would be astonished, especially after reading his autobiography if the production crew did anything other than give him advice on any decisions of the show which he will be under no obligation to take.
Judging by how he has come across on the show and in his autobiography I just can't see him blindly doing what production staff tell him - it just isn't in his personality.

Well he doesn't own the show, but neither does the BBC. The format is owned by the creator, Mark Burnett. I do believe that he gets to make all of the decisions about the programme himself though. He's one of the most successful businesspeople in the UK today, and started out from nothing. He did not get rich and successful by taking note of people telling him what he had to do; I think he's an independent thinker who knows his own mind. To me at least, he comes across as very credible and I'd be very surprised if he cares at all what his producers think. It's not as though he needs to do The Apprentice; he does it because he cares about helping people become successful in business. Why would he want to make himself look stupid on some silly reality show otherwise? The same can be said for Nick Hewer, Karren Brady and Margaret Mountford. They are all very successful in their own right; if they didn't believe that they were genuinely doing it for young entrepreneurs and businesspeople, I can't see what their incentive would be to donate all their time to this programme. Yes, I'm sure they get paid a bomb for it, but Margaret and Karren have struck me as people who care more about their work than the money they get from it (less so Nick if I'm being completely honest, seeing as he presents Countdown and everything.) I did actually read somewhere that Lord Sugar donates his entire fee to Great Ormond Street Hospital, so he is essentially doing the show for free, so he doesn't even have the cash incentive.

If anything though, I think the thing that really suggests his independence on the show is that he has never been shy of criticising the production team when he disagrees with them. He knows full well that they could axe him if they wish, and he's still not shy of doing that. To me, that shows that he's happy to do the show for them, but that he's not going to lose his core values in doing so. If he was their puppet, I would have thought that he would refrain from criticising them in public.

Some series of The Apprentice have been 13 episodes long, and that's a far more standard length for a series. Arguably the series is only 12 episodes because Sugar chose to do a double firing; had he not done so, there would have been 13 episodes.

There have been no series that were 13 episodes long. All of the adult series have been 12 episodes. With Young Apprentice Series 1 was six episodes, and Series 2 and 3 were eight episodes apiece.

And I don't see why Lord Sugar has to do a double firing. Why can't he have a final with five people instead of four? Wouldn't be too difficult, would it?