I have heard her described as 'vile' and a 'bitch', frequently, but was she really that bad ?....

I've only watched Series 4 once so I can't be sure. I think it's fair to say that she certainly didn't get on with people and she had quite a temper, but in terms of performance I can't immediately recall any task in which she performed particularly badly.

She was by no means a bad candidates, but she didn't have any major cock-Ups. I actually quite like her straight talking nature, and don't feel she was 'vile'.

By the way George, what are your opinions on Series 4? Its my favourite series personally

I found it a bit difficult to warm to. I felt that there were certain candidates - specifically Shazia and Sara - who were treated quite unfairly. I also felt that there were quite a lot of instances of bullying on the show, and unusually Lord Sugar (or Sir Alan as he was then) did not seem to realise this. But as I said, I have only seen it once.

I thought that she might not have been a 'bitch' per se, but she did talk about people behind their backs a lot of the time. She bitched about virtually every single other candidate behind their backs, bullied certain candidates (Lucinda and Sara come to mind) and engineered the firings of certain candidates - Sara in particular. I just plain didn't like her at all, she was moody and downcast all the time, snobbish towards other candidates and in certain instances, a bully. Not only that, but she was a candidate who did virtually nothing across the twelve weeks and seemed to skate by week on week.

I err... may have been one of the people to call her vile (I think I referred to the combined Alex and Helene as vile in one of the "Who should have won?" discussions a while ago) but I thought she didn't have a very nice personality at all.

I think that all candidates talk behind each others' backs in these VTs.

I also don't think she bullied Sara or Lucinda - you're right that she could have tried to 'engineer' there firings though in weeks 4 and 8 respectively.

I don't think she was snobbish as such, but just quite rude, especially when she called every single other candidate a gobshite.

Siralan, as he explained in 'The Final Five' special, thoughtsje was some source of wisdom on the task - he would always ask in the boardroom for her opinion on where the fault laid, and I also think he liked her straight-talking nature.

I definitely think you're right about him letting bullying fly under the radar, with Lucinda in Week 2 by Jenny for exams. He did however notice that Sara was being ganged up on - a good point is that that scene where about five candidates attack Sara, Helene didn't get involved.

YES

It remains a mystery as to how she survived that PM loss (against Sara who had a PM win under her belt and a star turn in the Marakesh task a week earlier).

Both women were on the same team in the Marrakesh task, and Helene also had a PM victory under her belt. Admittedly that was only because Simon's team had imploded spectacularly, but then you could make the same case about Sara's victory versus Ian's team. I think Sara's downfall was more her poor boardroom performance than anything else.

Overall, Helene wasn't as much of a bitch as Jenny, and didn't display the blatant incompetence that the likes of Ian, Kevin and Michael did... she just wasn't that good of a candidate either, and it probably didn't help that she outlasted two well-liked candidates in Raef and Lucinda.

Helene actually came across well for the first few tasks, seemed fair and down to earth. But she turned nasty on the photography task by completely belittling Lucinda and since that point was always making snidey comments both to her and behind her back, every time she appeared on screen looking depressed, miserable and surely. Having said that I didn't dislike her as much as some of the other candidates in Series 4, weasel Alex, greasy Michael and angry Jenny were more loathsome. Tbh it was a foul series, looking back. No other series has matched its nastiness and negativity.

Yeah she was nasty lol.

Check my cover of John Legends 'all of me' if you get a moment.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkmho8yN5YI

You might find it hard to believe but Series 4 is my favourite series - I loved all the arguing

I was actually on Helene's side about that. To be honest, she didn't deal with it well, but in principle I understood her point. She was stressed out trying to win the task, and it just seemed like Lucinda was sitting there not bothering to do anything. Okay, Lucinda wasn't very experienced at it, but you just have to go with who you have in your team - it's not like an actual workplace, and Helene couldn't organise the team based purely on what Lucinda was good at. She had to think about who would be good on the sales floor and such, and she probably wanted Lucinda to work in the same place as her so she could keep an eye on her, as there has been allegations of her being a bit troublesome in previous tasks. I thought she made a good point that she wasn't especially good at cooking and in the previous task she didn't really want to be in the kitchen, but Sara had asked her to do it so she got on with it.

Arguing is fine, but bullying isn't. I got the impression on YA2 that most of the candidates didn't really get on with one another, but they didn't make it that obvious. Most of them were entirely capable of putting personal differences aside and getting on with the tasks, and they were 16 and 17. I would expect adults, who have experience in the professional world, to be able to do that as well.

Yes, there was some terrible bullying in Series 4 of Sara and Lucinda. However, the arguing isn't the only reason I love it.

Lots of interesting tasks, tense boardrooms, Marrakech and Lucinda and Raef. The mistake LS made was letting too many of the nasty ones stay too long - he got rid of Shazia, Ian, Simon and Lindi in a row, who were all good people. By Week 6, the only candidates who were really nice people were Lucinda, Raef and Sara - the rest all had dark sides. However, it still made for great entertainment.

I really wish I'd seen Series 4 at the time it aired! In fact Series 1-4 are all gold, and it's a shame I had to rewatch them on marathons I have to say I think the show's just not the same now.

He did get rid of some good people early on, though I disagree with you on Ian and Lindi because I think that they had both reached the end of the road. Ian, in fairness, had done quite well on the first two tasks, but was such a bad PM that he couldn't stay. Lindi didn't get to PM, but she didn't shine and had some rubbish ideas (anyone remember the 24-hour-hotline?) There are certain candidates I would have liked to see more of.

Of course the show isn't the same now - it couldn't be, as it is now a business investment, not a job. However, I don't think that that necessarily makes it worse.

Nice as Simon was, his leadership on the Week 4 task was probably the worst of any project manager that series... or at least the worst by any person whose name didn't begin with "Jen." I'm also not sure Ian was that nice, considering some of the weaselly behaviour he showed on the pub task, particularly when he tried to deny Kevin had given that motivational talk.

Shazia's firing was really weird - Sugar got so hung up on the fact that the team had lost clothing (regardless of whether or not it was Shazia's fault) that it makes me wonder whether or not someone had lost his favourite suit right before filming. More seriously though, that huge argument that happened among the team during the initial boardroom might actually have worked in Jenny's favour, as it may have convinced Sugar that the team was virtually impossible to control and the loss wasn't really her fault, like what happened with Laura in Series 6.

For everyone's information, I am going to upload Series 3 in good quality. Here is the link to episode 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8GaddOgGDQ

THANK YOU!

My absolute pleasure.

I bought the Series 1 to 6 DVD (which admittedly I regret, because Series 3 and 5 were the only ones I really wanted), but I decided to do everyone a favour and just get it on YT! I know how annoying it is not being able to see it in good quality!

I'd really like to find the You're Fired! episodes for all the series. Some of them are on YouTube, but not all. Series 1 and 2 (which were for Series 2 and 3 of the main programme, as Series 1 didn't do it) used to be on SeeSaw, but SeeSaw closed down and they don't seem to be anywhere else.

I think Helene was one of worst finalists. She was a game player, thoroughly miserable, appeared to be quite lazy and she just moaned so so much. Claire should have won this series, she was aggressive at the start but she turned out to be the best in the end.

Some people said during Series 9 that the show had become a caricature of itself, and on reflection, I agree with them. Following Series 8 which wasn't very popular, it just seemed like they were trying to assign everyone a certain role (ie. Rebecca was made to be the ice queen - she doesn't normally dress like that), and they deliberately got odd people like Jason and Alex, and it just felt a bit manufactured! It seems to have lost its spontaneity.

Think of James and Sairas wolf jacket from series 1, one of my all-time favourite moments - that was so spontaneous, so life-like! At points to me, it felt like we weren't dealing with real people during Series 9 - everyones personality was just too different - there was a lack of credibility. I pray Series 10 is going to be good or we could be saying bye to the Apprentice.

Actually, I agree on that. James and Saira's wolf-jacket is one of my all-time favourite Apprentice moments, for exactly the reasons you said. Although in fairness, Series 9 did quite well, so maybe that 'manufactured nature' is what the majority of viewers want. I don't, really, but I understand that I don't represent the demographic of all viewers.

I still don't see why Series 8 did so badly, it was one of my favourite series.

I just think that Series 8 was a bit too boring - there were no real good moments - the problem lies in the fact that the personalities were too bland - it started off well, but IMO he got rid of some interesting ones too early (ie. Bilyana and Jane - maybe Maria too). Because the people were too bland, no one really had any arguments, there were no real f*ck ups, and yet there were nothing spectacular either. Everything was just a bit middle of the road.