Hello!

It's time for the Wednesday re-watch. This episode is Apprentice Celebrities:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKIygaLW_kY

Enjoy! Jack will open the discussion at nine.

As ever, these are just starting points for discussion. If you want to bring anything else up, please feel free to share. Anyone is welcome to join in, even if you haven't seen the episode tonight!

I'm about halfway through the episode, I'll post my thoughts later.

What did you think?

All of Impact, bar maybe Tim, were outstanding this week. You said Paul was never exceptional after Week 1? This is probably the only week where I'd disagree. It was his (and Ben's) dogged persistence that resulted in them getting the motorbike.
Ben was brilliant at the Chicago negotiation and Miriam not only did well at the Michael Winner negotiation, but also saved several other failing negotiations. Make no mistake, she did her research.

It was evident that the two better members of Impact were Saira and James, who drove this task well. Between Sebastian and Raj, there was very little between them with an identical task record, identical PM record, both messed up on task and it was the first time in the boardroom for both of them, but I would have saved Sebastian, who I agree with Nick was more articulate and did marginally less worse on task. I'll comment more when other people have seen it.

Finished it now! And I believe that it was Saira who wasn't shown to do any negotiations, is that right?

Fair point about Paul, he did do well there. Although, this was the first task since Week 3 that he didn't make a huge error on task. Incidentally, I thought that the teams that Paul and Saira picked at the start were very similar to what they had been previously! Another interesting thing is that Paul and Saira were split up; Sir Alan has never done this again, and actually people who don't get on seem to work on the same team time after time - Syed and Sharon, Kristina and Katie, Lorraine and Philip etc... in later series they haven't gone into who gets on with who on a personal level quite so much.

I think that Sebastian was the right person to go. It was very close between him and Raj, but I think that there were a couple of things that stood out. Firstly, I think Sebastian messed up this task more than Raj did; firstly he forgot the name of the charity on the phone, and secondly he messed up the Mel Smith pitch. Raj was criticised for the Paul McKenna one, but actually I think Saira was the one who deserved more criticism for that, as she was the one who pushed to get all that extra clutter. (Not that she should have been in the boardroom, because her attitude was different to the general team attitude which is ultimately what lost them the task.) The other reason is that I think Raj defended himself better. He focussed on admitting where he'd gone wrong and committing to bettering himself in the future, whereas Sebastian didn't really say anything like that - he focussed more on defending himself thus far, and there wasn't really anything there to defend. He also made the pretty suicidal statement, 'I learn more by listening than I do by talking,' which is not what Sir Alan wanted to hear. Add to that the fact that Raj is more from the culture that Sir Alan favours than Sebastian, and I think it's fitting that Sebastian went. Very close though.

Probably the weakest task for both Tim and James, but a very strong one for Ben and Miriam. Miriam in particular shone through. I would say that at this stage, she would be my favourite to win if I didn't know what happens next.

It's a shame that they never did a task like this again, it's a very good task. I suppose it could only really be done once because it coincided with something that Sir Alan happened to be doing, so he could add it in. I also think that it's a shame that we didn't see what all the celebrities donated - there obviously wasn't time to broadcast all of the negotiations, but we could have heard via voiceover man what Anthony Worrall Thompson, Richard Birkett and Mo Mowlam donated.

Another thing - Ben's team may have done well with the bike and the jacket, but what I find especially odd is that none of the team apparently considered the idea of asking him to go and style someone's garden for them? As a celebrity gardener, that seems the obvious thing. I'd certainly go for that over and above the items. Maybe they did and it was edited out, but you'd think we'd have heard someone suggest it at some point.

I would've thought this task would be a natural for Mr. Charm James Max - but as it goes it looks like he should've pushed Saira to the fore and given her free reign. I don't think the Paul McKenna lot confusion was down to Saira at all - it was Griff who presented the lot badly and if we're not blaming him then it must be down to the team not briefing him properly.
A very good task for Miriam and Paul, surprisingly bad for Tim. I think the forceful approach to the celebs came from Ben though which was what won it for them.
Ian Wright seeming in a foul mood from the get-go, did something happen off camera before I wonder? Absoulutely the correct approach to get the stunning Miriam to pitch to the old goat Micheal Winner - in that outfit I'dve done whatever she asked too.
It was a clever idea for Impact to schmooze the crowd before the show
Loved how Miriam seemed more than a little tipsy after the show
Interesting that the boardroom seemed quite a while after the show - certainly more than a day from some of the things that were said.
Right one went? Well James and Saira were always going to be safe, whilst Seb and Raj were both make weights - Sir Alun could've flicked a coin there

I'm guessing Worrall Thompson might have been cheese and wine half inched from Tesco

I wonder if the auction had other things on offer as well, or if the whole event was about the items that the team negotiated?

I also agree with the poster above that Griff Rhys-Jones did not sell the Paul McKenna session very well. He focussed a lot more on the items than on the session. If he'd spent the first 30 seconds talking about the session, and then casually mentioned, 'In addition, it comes with his book and some of his DVDs' (without going into detail) it would have been far better. I would actually put that more on him than the teams; he's more experienced in charity auctions than they are.

According to Wikipedia, Richard Birkett had to pull out due to a family emergency, so his donation was quickly changed to a donation from the whole team. We still don't know what it was though.

Sorry I haven't been about recently, lots of personal stuff kicking off. I think with Dermot the gardening stuff would have been to obvious and maybe wouldn't have done as well as you might think. I think the bike was a real coup for the team and that was why they won. I think Raj was very lucky to stay but I think both he and Sebastian performed equally weakly this task and either deserved to go. I've fallen a bit behind on catch up but I think that overall Raj had made more of a positive impact on SIr Alan than Sebastian and ultimately that is what saved him.

The wining team did a great job, though probably Tim's worst task so far. Ian's comments hit him hard, though I agree with what he said about it being personal stuff that mean something.
Loved how Mirriam hugged and encouraged Tim (lucky beggar) she really is a class act.
For me if I were to rank the remaining candidates I would put Mirriam, James, and Tim up front. Followed by Ben and Paul, with Saira and Raj a long way behind.

Once again Saira with her say something attitude comes up with more useless rhetoric; "we treat each celebrity with respect". Really, wow that's some wisdom.
She was the one that asked for book and DVD even though Mckenna said the main thing is the session the other stuff you can get for a tenner.

Seb or Raj? both crap, I would have kept Seb.

I agree with you on most of that, but I can't understand how you can equate Saira and Raj in the same category. I accept that Saira is a controversial candidate that some like and some don't, but you can't deny that she has good points. She proved that she is good at selling on Tasks 1, 4 and 5, and a good negotiator on Task 3. Raj hasn't really shone on any of the tasks. I genuinely don't see how it's fair to rank them together.

I don't have time to get involved in a massive Saira debate right now, but how on earth is she anyway near Raj's level? I understand people who don't like her personally, but to deny the fact that she's one of the most qualified candidates there is letting your dislike get involved with how you rate the candidates as businesspeople. She is streets ahead of Raj, Ben, Paul and even Tim tbh. I'd put her just ahead of James and Miriam as well. Sorry, but that ranking seems absurd.

I agree. It's not fair to let personal likes and dislikes influence opinions of their skills - although I find that they often go hand-in-hand, as those that I like are often the ones I rate anyway. In this situation, I'd say that much as I don't like Paul, I'd rank him at this stage above Ben and arguably Tim, although the latter is debatable.

Saira may actually have been short-changed by the editing of this episode. While she did inadvertently foul up the Paul McKenna thing, if memory serves James actually said on his radio show in the months/years since the task that she handled the negotiations with the London Wasps, and that whatever she secured from them single-handedly earned nearly half of the team's total.

Another thing I remember from the time was that Mel Smith and Ian Wright got a lot of flack for the way they handled themselves in the negotiations. In retrospect Smith's behaviour likely had something to do with his health starting to go seriously downhill at around this point, and I think Wright was looking either for adulation from Tim or a sign that the team was really dedicated to the charity, and when he didn't get either he really nailed Tim to the wall until Miriam salvaged things. Of course, Wright did once smash up a referee's changing room back after he got sent off while playing for West Ham, so he probably does have a bit of a temper on him.

With regards to who was fired, I definitely think Raj was the person who should have gone, as Sebastian seemed to have been improving before this task, while Raj hadn't done much of anything since he won as project manager on the second task. Even then however, I have to admit that Sebastian wouldn't have had a prayer of actually winning the series, as he was about as far removed as you can get from the "young Sir Alan" that Sugar was looking for.

Have to agree that Mel was looking rough on the show - he had been having health problems since the '90s though including an addiction to pain killers - which was known about at the time so its a shame if people did give him flack.
Interesting that Saira may have had a big coup with the Wasps - would've made a good contrast to the rather miserable time the others had with Ian Wright

In fairness, Wrighty took the brunt of the criticism - with Smith, people were (probably jokingly) suggesting that he was pissed off at the bad reviews he had recently gotten for Blackball, which sadly would turn out to be the last film he directed.

If anything, I was surprised that no-one on the forums that were around then were having a pop at Eamonn Holmes, considering his behaviour was probably even worse than Smith's was. Then again, I suppose even back then everyone already knew that Holmes was a grumpy git.

Yes - Eamonn wasn't exactly putting himself out for charidee was he?

I agree she is ahead of Raj, however imo she is behind the others.
I admit not liking Saira but that has nothing to do with the rankings I gave. She is full of bluster saying lots in the hope of getting a hit or people just giving up. I really find it hard to believe she would have much success with her methods if she wasn't on camera. On camera she has an edge as the person on the receiving end of the barage have to be careful not to appear mean or nasty.
In real life I think she would be told to back off.

Anyway guys, I'm enjoying reviewing these episodes and not trying to annoy anyone. Just giving my view on what I have watched. You may disagree but isn't that what it's all about?

Sorry, genuinely, I didn't mean to demean your opinion.

And I totally accept that it may have something to do with my obvious bias towards Saira, but surely you have to see that she's been decent on tasks? Or is this just my bias?

I started this re-watch with quite a high opinion of Saira from my memories of seeing it before. My favourites were James and Miriam but Saira would probably have been next.
But she shocked me with her condescending way of speaking to people and I'd also forgotten how nothing is ever, ever her fault.
She was poor on the art task and the advertising task. I think the treasure hunt and flower selling were the only times so far where she's really excelled. I can only guess she really pulls it back later in the series, but there is Tottenham FC to come...

I think that Saira does have a lot of flaws, but she also has a lot of strengths - I believe that she has been pretty successful since the show as well, so she has presumably ironed out any flaws that she possibly has. I also think that her strong tasks outweigh her weak ones - I would say that her strongest tasks are Weeks 1, 3, 4, 8 and 10, and her only really weak tasks are Week 6 and 9 (I've left Week 5 out of both categories as she was simultaneously strong and weak at separate parts, so they cancel each other out in my mind.) Week 7 is possibly also a strong task for her if it's true about London Wasps, but that's just rumour with no one knowing for sure.

She does have a way of speaking that some may find patronising, but to me there is also something incredibly earnest about her, which I like.

I still think its rather harsh to label her performance in Week 5 as either decent or poor since she was terrible at one part of the task and brilliant at the other so they cancelled each other out in the end.

Saira was very good on Flowers, Scavenger Hunt, Celebrity Auction and for Harrods, don't forget, she proved herself to be an excellent saleswoman.

She was poor in Week 6, Mixed in Week 5 and pretty neutral in the Toy Task. But again, she had the right ideas and instincts in Week 2 and 6, she was partially unlucky to have such big-headed, unwavering PMs.
Lets look at other candidates: Paul was decent in Weeks 1 and 7, good in Week 3, neutral in Week 2, mixed in Week 4 and very poor in Weeks 5 and 6.
Tim was decent (but not exceptional) in Weeks 1-4, but has been pretty invisible since then apart from Week 7 where he was poor.
James was decent in Weeks 2, 4 and 5, good in Week 6, neutral in Week 1 and poor in Weeks 3 and 7.
Miriam has been very impressive from Week 4 onwards but was pretty invisible up to that point and did worse than usual in Week 2.
Ben has been very good in Week 7 and pretty invisible otherwise. He was criticised in Weeks 3 and 4.
Raj has done OK in Week 2, poor in Week 7 and utterly impactless in all other weeks.

Whilst, as I say, I loved her personality so I accept that I may be rather biased, looking at that, I think personally, its rather unfair to group Saira with the likes of Raj when you consider things in terms of pure business competence.

I'm actually happy there's split opinion on Saira as there's further grounds for debate!

Whoa I'm late catching up.

I think Saira has strengths. When she's in her element then she's brilliant. I didn't like her in the boardroom this episode though, she just regurgitated whatever Sir Alan said, and didn't say any such things when on task. For someone who said she talks a lot of sense, she talks an awful lot of hot air.

On previous watches I didn't think much of Miriam, but this task and last she really has shone through.

Just a quick favourite to least favourite at this point in the series.

1. James
2. Miriam
3. Paul
4. Tim
5. Saira
6. Raj
7. Ben