Hi everyone, it's Wednesday so it's time for the Apprentice re-watch. This week it's Series 1, Episode 8: Food Fight:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EgC53h-...%3DEgC53h-3qfY

Enjoy! I will probably open the discussion as usual at nine.

As ever, these are just starting points for discussion. We can talk about whatever aspect of the episode you want. Anyone is welcome to contribute, even if you haven't specifically watched it tonight!

And btw, I'm very sorry if I offended anyone last week with my defense of Saira. She is one of my all-time favourite candidates, but I perhaps went a bit too far in terms of being dismissive of other people's opinions. It genuinely wasn't my intention to belittle people's opinions, so I hope it doesn't deter anyone from contributing tonight.

My word, James braying at the donkeys is probably my all time favourite TA moment

The first time I watched it, I was so unprepared. I couldn't stop laughing for at least 10 minutes.

Hehe I love random non-sequeteurs like that in the early series! Helpful Voiceover Man talked about it like it was a major plot point.

What on earth was the music during the starting titles at the beginning of the Youtube Video? I opened it once earlier (I usually use videos on my laptop) and I was shocked by how different it was. It certainly isn't the music on my version of the episode.

Same!!

I do think that Ben deserved to go this episode. He hardly led the team. All we saw of him was him looking surly at the stall. I felt like Miriam was doing more of the leading rather than him for their team.

I was surprised that they turned on Paul in the boardroom. I thought he was the strongest performer on their team and I could understand him being upset about being brought into the boardroom, even if his strop did him no favours. Miriam made a mistake on the cheese but seemed to contribute more than Tim and Ben did. To be honest, I'm surprised Tim didn't get brought back in. I don't really know what he did on the task.

According to Ben, Tim was on accounting and when you consider the fundamental mistakes made on costs in this task, he really should have been brought back to the boardroom. Paul may have his flaws, but he should have been the one going back to the house on this task. He was the main person on Impact who was driving costs down and negotiating the costs down from Day 1 and to be honest, I don't really see what he did wrong on this task. He did lose his temper in the boardroom, but its not hard to see why he reacted the way he did when Miriam and Ben started to tag-team him.
The firing decision was the right one for me. I mean he was good last week and good on him for stepping up to be PM two weeks in a row, but he under-performed on this one. Impact went wrong by choosing the wrong product lines and not thinking about the costs and both of them came back to Ben. Miriam hardly covered herself in glory, in fact its probably her worst task out of all them, but she had been on the money the last few weeks and had well outperformed Ben overall so I had no qualms with her staying.

But yeah, Tim should have definitely been in the boardroom ahead of Paul in my view.

I've always had a soft spot for this task what with James doing his Dr. Doolittle and Saira effortlessly smoothing over the Jelly "now with added spider!" issue
I wonder if the kitchen staff really got £200+ worth of promo - especially given they were based near Bristol and the market was in North London!

I suppose once First Forte got free cooking it was in the bag - given the price of their ingredients, snaffling free elderberries was clever though I'm sure they could've done something with blackberries too.
Soup was always going to be a difficult sell compared to something people can take away to eat weeks or months later - especially venison which even a lot of meat eaters object to (can't eat Bambi)

Just had to do a re-watch to clear up Venison-gate - though the camera guy did linger on the guilty party quite a bit in the boardroom, didn't he Ben?

Saira was excellent selling this week. I could really warm to her during that portion of the task; but the first half of the task I don't understand what she was doing. It seemed like she was just trying to pull the project in her own direction rather than making it a team effort. I felt sorry for James as he was trying to raise the price concern to Raj but Raj was being totally controlled by the more domineering Saira doing things how she thinks they're to be done. Raj's leadership was sub-par but I suppose with someone like Saira being Saira you either have to start arguing with a brick wall or acquiesce.

Ben had to go. Poor even no leadership from him. Paul performed well great negotiator, drives down the price while keeping it light and funny.
Tim, who? poor edit or just invisible who knows, should have been brought back to the board room with Mirriam.

The winning team, well Raj completely overwhelmed and just followed Saira's and James lead.

James didn't do that much imo but the team stuck to the fundamentals watch the budget keep it simple.

Saira... best leave any comments this week as I bruised too many nerves last week. Sheeeeesh

What a great reward this week, one of the best ever.

Honestly I'm really sorry about that. Please don't feel as though you can't post your opinions because of it. Honestly, I was way too sensitive last week and I'm sorry.

Thanks for the kind words, See you all next episode.

I think it would be the edit, if he'd really done poorly then I'm sure he'd have been brought back in - Ben could only let one of them off after all.


She did very well, as always, on the selling. But again she railroaded the team - luckily it was in the right direction this week. That she mightily pissed easy-going James off really underlines for me that she just can't work in a team which ultimately counts her out of winning the job.

I'd just like to point out that I didn't see anything wrong with anyone's comments last week. Perhaps I'm biased as I'm a Saira fan as well, but I didn't feel that anyone went beyond reasonable debate. I think it's better that everyone feels free to both express their own opinions and to challenge others, than for people to be walking on eggshells around each other.

I haven't had time to watch the episode yet, I'll contribute to the discussion when I have.