Hello!

It's time for the latest Apprentice re-watch. This one is Team News, the ninth episode of the first series. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MTrJwEGGlQ

As usual, Jack will open the debate at nine. Enjoy!

Neither Jack nor myself have had time to watch the episode tonight, so I think we'll start the discussion tomorrow evening instead to give everyone more time to watch it.

No Jack? Ah well then,

Strange episode - I get the feeling there was a lot going on that we never saw. Why was Saira so upset? News from home, or just the time now spent away?
What really ticked off the man from Tottenham? Did we see it all or was there more?
I'm guessing it was the implied threat from Saira that she would drop him in it with Sir Alan (still a major shareholder) if she didn't get what she wanted.
Ironic that he was very helpful to Impact, but he must have had sudden vision of that team doing something as dumb as "Get you're "F" off" too. Actually, to be fair, I can well see Paul doing something just like that, had it occurred to him.
Anyway in the end it came down to simply taking phones off punters and texting for them - often the way in business I guess.
Right one went? Well Raj himself seemed to have given up after the Advertising task - he looked quite relieved to be off. Another little mystery to me was what exactly he was darkly muttering about before the boardroom - certainly seemed to be spoiling for a spectacular exit.

Sorry - Jack asked me to start it up because he was too busy to watch it tonight - but I haven't got around to watching it yet either, so I thought it would be better to leave it until tomorrow. But - you've already given your thoughts, so I suppose we can pretty much declare it open. Everyone is welcome to post their thoughts on it

I promise then reason I didn't watch it wasn't down to it being Saira's worst episode. Honest!

Impact did really well this episode I thought. They came up with great ideas together (a lot of creativity from Paul) and even when they were knocked back to square one, they still managed to win by a significant margin.

I think Raj was the right one to go. He had done nothing special and was overshadowed by both Saira and James as a candidate. The episode really did focus a whole lot on Saira and her stressful day, I thought, and Saira did herself no favours this episode. It really annoyed me how she 'apologised if you have taken something I have said the wrong way' (paraphrasing). What a way to rub more salt into the wound. I found it hilarious in the section where she was criticising James on not being able to communicate on people's level (art task springs to mind) and then later on passing the phone on to James because she was scared to. Sometimes I wonder if that Saira ever listens to herself speak

While Matt House was a bit of an arse, Saira completely mishandled the team's dealings with him. After their initial meeting she should have palmed off all the subsequent communications with him to James, whose personal manner was much better suited to handling that sort of situation. Instead she not only insisted on continuing to handle the communications with the club, but also seemed to think she was in a "Who can be more obnoxious?" contest with House, which ended badly for all concerned.

Worse still, by causing the club to withdraw any assistance to either team and force the candidates to go hunting for each and every subscription themselves she basically gift-wrapped the task and handed it to Impact, as that sort of face-to-face selling was the sort of stuff that Paul and Tim had done really well in the first task. By contrast, James wasn't too bad at that, but it wasn't really his best skill, and Raj was just hopeless.

Still, for as much of a spectacular balls-up that Saira made of leading the team, I have to admit that it was Raj's time to go. I also can't help but wonder what would have happened if the show had followed its US forerunner and had winning project managers immune from being fired the next week, and whether Sugar would have fired Saira for her failings as leader, or James for not having the sort of personality he was looking for.

Alright, I've seen the episode!

In two successive weeks, we see the best and worst of Saira Khan. I'm definitely not going to spend all my time defending Saira because this is her worst task and she did mess things up pretty badly (This doesn't mean I'm on Matt House's side though, trust me). I will start by saying I think that First Forte would have lost whatever this week, even if Spurs hadn't pulled their support out. Saira biggest deficiency - communication - was out in abundance this episode and I really don't think she should have been PM on a task like this. Matt House was an utter tw*t, but watching the episode back, I agree with someone on a debate I had a few weeks back on this forum that regardless of how people like House act, she needs to show respect to people who were, essentially her superiors on a task like this. On this episode in particular, she was not aware of how she came across or the implications of saying she'd tell Sir Alan (Still at this time the largest single shareholder) about any trouble she had in the task. 100% agree with BigDaveX in that she should have let James handle the negotiations with House in that initial meeting. In fact, though the episode didn't really highlight it, this is something I felt Paul recognized immediately, by delegating this responsibility to Tim.

However, none of this excuses House's rude behavior and I think it was evident that he took an initial dislike of Saira and was simply unwilling to be co-operative throughout the task. I accept that stuff may have happened off camera that we may not have seen, but giving Impact help by telling them about the website and the Jumbotron seemed suspiciously like sabotage to me and the way he reacted to First Forte's (admittedly controversial) slogan was appalling in my view. James was trying his best to be professional, far more than could be said of House. His smug interview the following day just confirmed my impression that he wanted to act superior to a bunch of reality TV candidates. So, yeah, I found him a complete and utter cock.

Right firing decision for me. Though the episode tried to make it seem as though Saira was going, if she had gone ahead of Raj, in spite of what happened on the task, it would have been a travesty in my view. Yes, she had a breakdown and it was by far her worst task, but at least she tried to win that task. What did Raj do apart from hand out fliers? He is a very nice man (as evidenced by his exit interview) but he has been a passenger throughout, fortunate to not be brought back in losing teams and being very lucky to win both stints as PM. He has been bottom of my list of contenders for a long time.

As for Impact, I definitely agree with LeoJoe that did well as a team, considering all the in-fighting and ganging up of last week. They were very cohesive. I think all three of Miriam, Paul and Tim are good at working together and putting poor tasks and arguments behind them.
I really liked Paul's creativity and enthusiasm in this episode, but he was rather naive and pretty annoying at times. I got the impression that though the voice-over said he supported Man United, that he didn't know much about football. Having said that, he approached the meetings with Matt House far better than First Forte did and they rebounded far better when the Spurs help was withdrawn, getting a decent plan in place.
Miriam, after a blip last week, once again demonstrated why I consider her one of the leading candidates. She was carefully and subtly reining in Paul's excessive energy at the start, she was the one who the first to react after Spurs removed all help and she got the fact that they were going to win the task on face-to-face sales, once Spurs pulled out. On the rewatch, I really have been impressed with her the most compared to how I felt before (apart from Rachel) and actually, I think her finishing place is a bit unfair in relation to how she has done on the tasks. She is very good at being a decent technical, calming influence on tasks.
As for Tim, well, I'm actually finding myself agreeing with Paul from last week when he said "Tim is starting to show cracks". Tim freaked out the most on this task and had to be calmed down by Miriam on more than one occasion. I starting to think he's got this far on the basis of those impressive first four weeks. I think he's been lucky that his worst tasks have been when the team has won (Weeks 7 and 9) and his best ones tend to be ones he's lost (Week 4 the best example). I think he is quite fortunate.

The task was won by Impact treating it like a face-to-face sales task, whilst First Forte just handed out fliers and shouted through megaphones. In addition, Paul strategy of using incentives was far better than Saira's "gurls" strategy, as the women clearly had no interest in seeing Saira succeed. Saira got her strategy horribly wrong on Day 2, when she had actually got a second chance by inadvertently stopping all of Impact's promotional opportunities and it cost her big time.

Interesting to see the interesting editing tricks in this week and last. Week 8 was the first time they tried to make it seem as though one team was going to win all episode and they then lost (Week 4 maybe being the only exception) and Week 9 tried to make it seem as though it was Saira's exit week all episode (She was shown LOADS) and in the end Raj went home, so interesting to see the editors playing around with this.

I think the right five are in the Final Five, with maybe only Rachel for Tim or Paul being the only swap I'd maybe make.

My List of Contenders - Week 9

1. Miriam
2. Saira
3. James
4. Paul
5. Tim
(6. Raj)

Can't wait for next week. One of my favourite ever episodes in terms of entertainment and one of the most controversial firings ever! Can't wait.

Put simply Saira should have been fired. This task highlighted her strengths, are also her weakness.
She doesn't listen, she went into her usual torrent of words in the hope of getting a hit. Anyone with a bit of tact would have tested the water first before diving in with demands.
I said previously Saira's method of harraging people only works because she's on camera and in real life she would be told to back off.
When faced with Matt she finally had her comeuppance. I don't think he had anything against her going in, her attitude is what made him turn against her.
After being threatened by Saira, it's not surprising he was less than helpful to her team.

That said based on this task she should have been fired, however that would have meant Raj slithering through. Based on the process as a whole, that would have been a travesty..

Raj must have thought he was going to be fired as his tactics in the boardroom was so strange. He talked himself out of the job where he should have said, correctly, the task failure was due to poor management by Saira. Instead he blamed the Tottenham staff. Even when AS pointed out that the Tottenham people thought she was obnoxious.
Raj is clearly in awe of Saira for some reason.

James wisely said nothing in the first boardroom he left Raj and Saira to bs their way out of the hole they were digging for themselves. He was the only one I wouldn't have fired.