I am glad Natalie went. She didn't seem to be taking the thing seriously at all. Saying things like, 'I got quote of the week!' in the boardroom just goes to show that she is not cut out for this game. As someone who did DSA last year, I know how intense this gets. We were all really focussed on it, and that girl would not have lasted five minutes amongst me, Niall, Katie, Tyjet, Carlisle and all the other people we had last year.

I kind of hope Tom wins because I talk to him a lot on this forum, but I think Cal is my favourite to win so far. He got good praise as PM.

I apologize for that Callum , i was panicking a bit and it was hard to defend against tom and then everything izzie said.
You were really nice in the chat , i am a bit tired and i should have worded it better.
I didn't mean it to come across that i would have stayed , i think it was harder against Tom because of the poster is what i meant.
I do hope you do well , not sure if you missed that bit.

Obviously online and on DS games in particular i have no noticed no one actually seems to get my humor which is odd as i think it's obvious at times i am joking.
But my team name lives on at least

Can you all come into the boardroom.

Aww thank you.

To be honest, I think you kind of missed the point of this game. As someone who has taken part before, I can say from experience that all the Apprentice games are really serious and intense. People have lots of fun as well of course, but everyone wants to do so well and there are such headstrong personalities that trying to come out with one-liners in the boardroom is just going to frustrate people, and is a one-way ticket out the door, I'm afraid.

I think Natalie is too wrapped up in the way she did things on Celebrity Brother, she seems to act the same. The Apprentice isn't as much about your personality or how funny you are like Celebrity Brother is. Your humor worked on Celebrity Brother, you were favorite to win at one point, but on this, your humor hardly gets you anywhere Natalie.

Agreed, the main reason I wasn't competing was stress and intensity!

There's no point applying if you're not prepared to be fired!

Yeah... the idea of the game is to make the best idea and work well within a team. Of course there's entertainment (DSA3 was really entertaining - we had some wonderful boardroom scenes, the one where I almost got fired despite being on a winning team my redemption arc as nearly everyone hated me to start off, and of course David's feud with Katie, which I don't think we'll ever forget!) but those scenes all centre around people trying really hard and wanting to win. It's not so much about personalities.

Hard luck Natalie, It was a tough call between your whole team tonight and any one of you could have gone in my opinion.

The one liners in the board room weren't what really got me, I think it came across like you missed the concept of the game in that you took any of the comments or critique from the advisors as a personal attack when in fact they were only doing their job and observing what they saw. And this is the apprentice, it is kind of the concept of the game, It isn't a nice sweet little summer camp lol, I'm not slating you, I have no bad feeling towards you and you clearly put a lot of effort in, but someone had to go and the fact you were project manager put you right in the firing line. I'm just saying that the way you responded to some of the comments didn't look too professional and I think that might have helped to seal your fate and a lot of the comments made towards you were not a personal attack, just people playing the game.

Every one of you is going to get ranted at and picked apart by the advisors and by Lord Mitchell in the board room and whoever you ultimately choose to take into the boardroom with you because that's the brutal nature of this game, It's nothing personal

Well done though Natalie

Ooh, this one will be interesting. I remember we had a task like this on DSA. I can't remember where our team chose, but I remember that we lost...

You're fired!

Just kidding. I'm just catching up with the game now. I'm reading the presentations, I think I prefer the Health concept better but both concepts are good and both teams seemed to have done a lot in the short space of time they had to develop an idea and create the pitch for it. Good job everyone.

My Viewer Analysis – Task One

Okay so, this is completely based on what I seen in the presentation threads and the boardroom thread, as me being a viewer means I have no access to see what goes on with the planning for each task, so reading the advisors descriptions really helped me get a picture of what was going on.

I'll start off with Team Fusion, as I was really impressed by the clear effort put in by each team member (apart from the one that didn't turn up, no idea what his/her name is). Cal as a Project Manager worked perfectly, and it came across really well with their presentation. He had his team organised and each member knew what they were doing and all members of Team Fusion were completely professional in the boardroom, which can't be said for certain others, but I'll get to that later. I liked the concept of Team Fusion's idea, and I liked the logo with the bright green colours, which immediately caught my attention. The team used the unit provided well, and from what the advisors said in the boardroom, it seems like a really well organised team and well thought out project. I was really impressed with how much they got done in such a short space of time, so well done to all involved.

Now onto Team Vanquisher, which I'll be perfectly honest, seemed to be all over the place. The idea didn't convince me at all, considering the supermarkets and Pets At Home all provide pet essentials and many other things. I wasn't sure on what it was selling, did it even sell pet essentials or was it just cheesy merchandise for your pet? The branding wasn't particularly great, I would have just walked by the store without noticing it (I am a pet owner). I wouldn't have built a trust with the business as a customer, as it was all over the place and I didn't really get the whole concept of it. I was a bit disappointed with the choice of what they chose, things like Tom's restaurant idea could have been expanded, but it came across in the boardroom like Natalie was always going to go with the pet store, purely based on her love for her cat, not taking into account the other team members.

The pitch was well done though in my opinion, but compared to Team Fusion it really highlighted how the concept wasn't great. There was so many more options you could have explored, even with the pet idea, but instead all this merchandise was introduced and it seemed to have lost the plot. Tom's promotion pitch was very interesting, and I liked the fact he included facts and figures, despite the possible unrealism of the types of promotion. In the boardroom, it was a true mess, the team was unprofessional (Excluding Callum, who was the only professional member in there from that team). Natalie and Tom bickering about it before they had even been asked was ridiculous, however I feel Tom should have not been taken back into the boardroom and it came across as a purely personal issue between them both. Natalie was very unprofessional with her comments, and didn't accept the critique that the advisors had said. She shouldn't have gotten so worked up about it and just accepted it, her arguing over it just made the situation worse for herself. It just looked inevitable Natalie would go, however that was not always the case. Izzie's analysis helped a lot with my views (thanks for the detailed analysis).

The next task looks good, and the addition of Queenie is sure to be great as I think she will be a brilliant contestant. My favourite to win right now is Cal as he received a lot of praise as PM, but it's early days yet and everyone brings something to the table. Just to add, this analysis was purely based on the boardroom, pitches and what the advisors said, I don't know every detail of what went on behind the scenes in each chat.

Thanks Nathan! That means a lot.

Nathan thanks for the wonderful comments about the team, they do mean a lot.

Overall, I think the right decision was made.

My 'report' wasn't personal at all. I watched the bulk of the decision-making process and that was my assessment of what I saw.

Thanks for that Nathan, very interesting

I agree, everyone brings something and it is early days to call it yet but my early fave at this stage is also Cal

I must add;

I HATED the name, there were some names like Pet Amour which could have worked, but it was shot down, yet then they suggested an even more cringeworthy name with 'I <3 My Pet'

I literally was shocked when they came up with the slogan 'Sarah loves shopping, Sarah loves her cat, Sarah says "I love my pet!" or whatever, I thought it was a joke at Natalie's expense, rather than a serious slogan.

The logo was very bad, if you're going to do a logo, maybe using paint isn't the best idea?

Finally, Team Vanquisher really took too much time on the small things.

I have literally nothing negative to say about Fusion except for the leaflet having too much information.

Well done both though

'I love my pet' reminded me of 'I love my tissues' in Series 4. Sir Alan said, 'Who loves tissues?'

As Izzie said, it sounds like a kids magazine that hands out toy miniature horses to build up a play farm.

I think the right team won. I preferred their idea and I think they did a great job with the presentation and branding as well as using a couple of good advertising methods. I love my Pet was a strange idea for a name and like George said reminded me of I <3 my tissues. Based on reading the boardroom I think the right decision was made as to who got fired. It's still a shame to see you go Natalie and I respect you for putting yourself forward to be PM but ultimately I think your BR speech didn't do you many favours.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the teams come up with on Task 2. Good luck to the candidates.

Thanks very much, it means a lot considering I was actually quite worried our concept would be deemed too far fetched to work.

Eliza vs Tom as PM... will be interesting! So far, Eliza has never had a PM loss in any of the games she has done... wonder if she can keep that up?

Oh my god George, that fills me with confidence!

I really want to prove myself on this task. I am not sure if I can affor to be in the final boardroom for both of the first two weeks!