I state it with a fair knowledge of how TV works. Things are so clear from the way the show is edited.


I don't agree with that, I think when Sugar says 'you're fired' the other two then expect to be ok...for one of them to also be fired, leaving just the one remaining, for me adds drama to an already dramatic situation (the tension in the final BR is palpable IMO - thats the one thing about the show thats always been compelling)


If they don't order it, they'd certainly suggest it when those three were the final three, a good way to get rid of two bits of dead wood at once.


I'd really like to think so, but I do think he is part of the television machine to an extent, and he has to do whatever is needed to make a particular episode work.


£250K is a drop in the ocean to him but I can see what you're saying.

I actually have a fair knowledge of how TV works as well. I agree with you that the editing is definitely on entertainment, but I think that the editors are entirely independent of Sugar. They have to make their edit around his decision, not the other way around. His decision is made before the editing process is even begun.

Besides, Lord Sugar doesn't actually wear an earpiece in the boardroom (many past candidates have confirmed this) so there isn't anyone feeding him what to say or who to fire or whatever.

One thing you often find with wealthy businesspeople is that they are just as mindful about how they spend their money as you or I would be with ours - they're not like Premier League footballers! - particularly self-made men like Sugar who have earned every penny themselves. Sugar certainly wouldn't just throw £250k around just because he has several million in the bank and various other assets - that's the complete opposite of everything he stands for.

Also, I think he cares very much who he ends up investing in because he knows that any spectacular failure reflects badly on his reputation. We saw that with Tom Gearing last year. His wine hedge fund idea was quite an attractive one - I have friends who work for investment banks who told me that this type of thing is becoming increasingly popular right now. And Tom himself came across as credible too - sadly I never got the chance to interview him but I did have some contact with him as I provided some Apprentice-based content for his website and he was a genuinely nice chap, if a little inexperienced. But Sugar's concern - which he stated in the final episode - was that this represented a risky investment and he was concerned with the damage to his reputation this might cause, so he opted for Ricky's recruitment agency, which was a more grounded and therefore lower risk investment.

You do have good knowledge, but you're still joining the dots and making assumptions rather than stating facts. We all are.

I know quite a bit about how TV works too. I've appeared on TV (don't get excited, it was once, it was one episode of a team quiz show, it was donkey's years ago and, no, you won't find a clip on YouTube), attended the recording of several shows (including You're Fired, Top of the Pops - hey, there's a blast from the past - comedy shows and others), I worked for the BBC for two years and I still have friends who work on both live and pre-recorded shows who know how TV works inside-out because they live and breathe it every day. Even so, I wouldn't claim to know EXACTLY what goes on between Sugar and the producers because every show is different, even within reality formats. I can draw my own conclusions and make my own assumptions, but I would never say I know for sure what goes on - because I'm not actually there.

How is it clear from the editing that Sugar was told by the BBC to fire two candidates? All that was clear was two were going to be fired, not who decided that would happen.


But if you suspect he's doing the BBC's bidding how can you also find it tense? As it's not live and the BBC don't suggest it might happen in advance, there's no advantage to them having a double firing this week or next week or any other week. They know Sugar may well fire a couple if he feels like it, and of course he's well aware of the numbers issue, so he knows he has at least one spare firing he can use. So the producers will let him get on with it.

I don't find the boardroom summing up at all tense, any more than the stupidly long "tension building" delays presenters use in other reality TV "you're going home" announcements. Usually all three contestants get comments that look like they'll be fired then he returns to one to actually fire. As it happens like that most weeks there's no tension, other than seeing if he fires the one I think he'll fire. You know there will likely be a double firing one week so when it happens it's no surprise.


Multiple firings are part of the format of the show. At the task briefing he usually says at least one of the losing team will be fired. So it's an ever present threat. He hardly needs reminding he can do it..


I agree, he's well aware of the entertainment value of the show. But that's very different from him being told what to do. I thought this weeks episode worked well as it was, the best so far this series. It didn't need any additional drama to spice it up, not that I think double firing is at all dramatic. The producers get their entertainment value and drama out of the editing, they don't need to orchestrate firings. That's more Big Brother territory, where manipulating the voting and boosting ratings is possible. The Apprentice was filmed months ago, so they can't manipulate ratings week by week.


Tycoons don't become rich by giving money away. He will expect whoever wins to give him a return on the money. Same with Dragon's Den, for each of them £250K is a small amount, but they don't part with it easily.

I don't think it was tactical. It's a simple fact that you will support the people you like or get on with the most. From the very start it's boy vs girls (yawn!) so after a few weeks you have built up a connection with the people you work with a lot.
He now classes the guys as friends, competition, yes, but still mates. So why would he pick them above two people that he doesn't have the same relationship with?
If I were in his place I would do exactly the same.

If and I say IF he did do it tactically then good for him. Firstly it's a game so tough titties if you got out maneuvered and more importantly so what? Tactics are allowed and natalie did the same thing playing the "you don't like working with women card" previously.
I would have targeted her for that reason alone. With it being two women vs one man there was a danger they could try it again, but Natalie and Leah knew that Sir Alan wouldn't accept it again would know exactly what they were doing.

The point I was making was that Natalie was the one being tactical, not Kurt. She had no need to suggest Kurt was "being tactical" in the boardroom, except to put it in Sugar's mind that that was what Kurt was doing and thus get him fired instead. Natalie was desperate not to be back in the boardroom because of Sugar's previous warning. So she tried to make it appear Kurt was using that to make her an easy sacking target. She didn't repeat the claim on "You're Fired", so I don't think she really thought it was the case.

I don't think Kurt chose Natalie because she wasn't one of his mates either, he had enough reason to choose her based on what happened in the task.

I'm not saying there weren't reasons to bring her in, but I do think it's likely that the fact that Natalie had been warned not to be in the boardroom again was a factor in Kurt's decision.

I don't think this is a good method of working. You should choose people based on how you think they personally did on the task. I don't have a problem with people being tactical in the boardroom - i.e. not bringing in the weakest person on that task, because they've been amazing in previous tasks and won't get fired purely on past performances - but it shouldn't be on who you like on a personal level. That's unprofessional.

I felt for her because she didn't seemed to be taken seriously by anyone at all.Her emotional reactions and lack of self-confidence, left her being portrayed rather poorly.

True, and Rebecca and Jason might legitimately make the same complaint. Jason rises above it. Rebecca seemed a legitimate contender who was defeated by croneyism. Natalie -- and this might be due to the edit -- never did anything to justify even being on the programme in the first place. She appeared at best ineffective, letting the tidy-sidey brainstorm spin out of control, and at worst leaden-footed, as when asking the bike vendor about discounts after she'd twice said no. And that is betting without the comedy gold of boat seat/table and cow/horse/dog-gate.

(The last is especially disappointing as for a moment, I thought it was a clever joke about the horsemeat for beef scandals, but then she said dog.)

I agree she was out of her depth. She could tone down the fake tan too she was a shade brighter than David Dickinson...

She would have been one of my two had I been in Kurt's position as she only sold about £100 worth of stuff (On the easy sellers) and was the one who messed up the bike pitch which was critical as Kurt went for the high-end caravan once he knew they had lost the two lower-end items.

Yes, I think that's a fair assessment - but the he is told - at least one double firing a series, he plays it when he wants but he must do it. As for finding the BR tense, I feel that even though a lot of it is pre-planned, Sugar does a good job in keeping you guessing.

I
I'm not saying the form isn't fairly stale, but there is an element of tension when he has addressed all three but BEFORE he heads back to the one he's going to fire, that's where the suspense lies for me.


Actually, he usually says 'One of you' will be fired, he doesn't say 'at least one of you' but he doesn't say 'more than one of you either'

Although it was a bit harsh to fire her on this task, overall she deserved it. She didn't seem particularly switched on. Actually she came across as a bit of a moron - a moron who thought an awful lot of herself. I sometimes wonder how people like her are so convinced of their own brilliance.

Also her boardroom tactics were stupid. The crying/fake crying didn't bother me (I think she was genuinely emotional) but her arguements against people were pretty dim and screechy. Should have been fired when she was PM.

In the previous format, they could fire multiple people in the interview round. If the entered the interview round with 6 candidates, they could fire either 2 or 4, and have either 4 or 2 in the final. (I hate having 4 in the final, but they did it in series 4.) If they entered with 5, they could fire 1, 2 or 3. They could also enter with 4 or 3 candidates and still have a final. It was flexible enough to cope with any number up to 4 double-firings or candidates quitting.


I don't think the editors care about dead wood. Natalie wasn't bad TV. She was one of the more attractive women left, her foolish mistakes were amusing, and she got emotional in the boardroom. She was certainly something the editors could work with.


He knows he can do it, but he doesn't have to do it. They could enter the final interview round with 5 candidates. It happened in series 4, for example (when Lee won), and again in series 5 (Yasmina), and series 6 (Stella). So the actual interview portion would be fine, and the boardroom could just give the weaker candidates short-shrift (as sometimes happens anyway).

If Natalie had been a good candidate (and not just good TV), it wouldn't have been a double-firing.

I think it would be more difficult to have five in the interview stage under the new format though, as they have to go through the business plans and there isn't always that much time. Having said that, I don't see why the final episode couldn't be extended 15 minutes to accommodate this.

The thing that annoyed me about this was that LAS was being hypocritical - he tells the PM's not to be tactical with who they bring back. Don't think Natalie was to blame at all for this task but he took the opportunity to get rid - should practice what he preaches

I don't know why he always says that. You have to be tactical with who you bring back if you want to survive. Obviously it shouldn't be based on who your friends are, but if there is someone who messed up that task, but has done fantastically on the five previous tasks and aren't going to be fired, they're obviously not a great person to go up against in the boardroom. It's about watching your own back.

Yeah, but we are in the age of Catch-up on TV and online, which counts toward the final rating.

Also, the double firing in week 5 of series 7 made it the most watched thing on BBC One that week and last year it was third place, one of the best rankings that year.

Well yes, but would that make a huge amount of difference? If I miss an episode of The Apprentice for whatever reason, I try my hardest to avoid finding out anything about it until I have caught up. I certainly would hope that people I know would respect that enough not to say, 'Hey George, watch The Apprentice, it's a double firing!' I think if people watch it on catchup, it's more because they would have watched it anyway, and not because of the double firing. I appreciate that this is not the case for everyone, but I think it is for most people (although I'm aware that that's only my opinion and I may well be wrong.)

Jordan has rode along on other people's coat tails. He's been lucky enough to be in the winning side more often because of bad mistakes from the opposition than from anything positive he's done himself. I'm just going from what's shown on the programme. Maybe he's a genius but I'm at the mercy of the edit and I'm not seeing it.

But you have ignored my post and my very specific examples of what Jordan has contributed. You are using very general terms not backed up by any hard evidence we have seen or indeed tried to disprove the examples I have quoted. I understand posters can't remember everything from every task that has been aired, but in this case you shouldn't make such bold statements as "he has contributed nothing" which to be blunt is factually incorrect.

i'm using general terms because he's been generally mediocre. you name a few things that he didn't do badly in but no major achievements. It is my opinion that he has contributed nothing of any particular value. Your opinion differs. Neither is factually correct or incorrect.