...when in fact Paul was fired first?

Was there ever a statement regarding what the actual rationale in that editing decision was?

I am re-watching Series 1, and Miriam 's firing really was SO terrible (yes, I know it's been said ten thousand times), so what did they have to gain from making it look like he had survived over James, when he had already survived over Rachel and Miriam, both of whom deserved to survive over him in my opinion.

I get the slight feeling that Sir Alan was a bit sexist going into Series 1, but people like Miriam and Saira changed his opinion. Rachel and Miriam were both fired prematurely, and Paul and Tim those working class lads who had come from humble backgrounds blah blah blah survived!

Having said this Series 1 was an absolute corker , and is in some respects the best series ever, and overall is most definitely one of my favourites, along with 4 and 9.

I've always thought it was just a mistake regarding who was fired first.

I don't think he was sexist. In the first two tasks, the girls' team lost, so he had to fire women. On Task 3, there was no way Ben should have been fired. On Task 4, Adele left of her own volition. With Task 6 I don't think Rachel deserved to go over Paul, but I don't think being female made any difference, he just liked Paul for some reason. The same in Week 10. I don't think he had an overall problem with Miriam, as she had already been in the boardroom twice prior to Week 10 and survived - he just made a really stupid mistake, but we've all done that. Series 1 didn't have a good sample of female candidates - out of the seven, only Saira, Miriam and Rachel showed any promise. I think Series 2 made up for that though.

I highly doubt ut was a mistake. That's one hell of a mistake to make!

You really think there was much difference between the Series 1 and 2 female candidates?! I don't! I think the difference is that Series 2 had a much worse bunch of men.

You say that Saira, Rachel and Miriam were the only female contenders? Well I think the Series 2 female contenders were Ruth and Karen, with Michelle and Sharon being about the same level as Rachel. Then we had Nargis, Jo and Alexa who were all equally terrible! So, maybe, in my opinion, the Series 2 females were WORSE than the series 1 ones!

How can you possibly say that Karen was a better performer than Michelle, when Michelle appeared in twelve episodes and Karen in three? I never really saw what she did that was so spectacular. She was a shock firing, sure, but was she that incredible?

You would have to work out what was going on at the end to know. Saira, like Ruth in the next series, isn't really a contender by the time she gets to the final two. Both have got to that point with a series of tasks showing them missing the point, implementing dud strategies and labelled as sales people and people who look difficult to work with.. Tim meets the one model of the Apprentice as someone who is at the right stage of their career to be an Apprentice, and to fit the job in hand. Michelle is better at strategy, and looks better with people than Ruth.Lord sugar seems to think she's she's got an even better life journey story, and in terms of experience, and specific expertise, she's a total match forthe job.

If thats all true, does the show end up in its first 2 series with the contestants with the best show stories versus the one who fits the job spec? And to do that how does it get rid of the other real competion who either have no story , don't look like apprentices, are too experienced or capable, or don't fit the job? It has to get rid of them earlier. In the same way, you want your best interviewees who will produce the most bloody interviews to get that far, and your hot air candidates to fall spectacularly at that stage. Miriam isn't Tim, but she's better competition than Saira and more difficult to justify Tim over., James has to go, Paul's fall will be more spectacular and better TV at that point. Similar apparent stupidity may lie behind Liz Locke's demise later on - and she's even more impressive than Miriam - he couldn't justify another winner over Liz, in a one on one competition, and you do get the drama of Stuart's demise as a result.

Well, in 3 episodes alone, Karen demonstrated leadership, sales, teamwork and negotiation skills, which is just about as much as Michelle showed in the whole process IMO.


I realy rate Ruth better than Michelle. What skills did Michelle actuall have?

I'll give you leadership - she had people skills and was able to get the girls behind her, I'll say that much for her. Besides that, I didn't see what was particularly spectacular. We can't really say she was good at sales - she may have been, but the only task she did where sales was important, they were selling fruit so cheaply that pretty much anyone would be able to sell it. I didn't think her negotiation was very good either - her negotiation for the dinner jacket in Task 3 was awful, it took a ridiculously long time and then it turned out that the person didn't have the jacket in stock anyway. She should have checked that he had the item right at the start.

I genuinely think Karen was one of the most overrated candidates of all time. I think she is only remembered as being supposedly brilliant because she came across as more competent than Jo (who in fairness, beyond that task, did pull her socks up and perform a lot better) and her firing was quite a shock. I didn't think she proved to be that fantastic.

Ok, but my original point then stands, that the Series 1 and 2 women were about equal, and the difference were the standards of the men.

I don't really agree. The only women in Series 1 I really rated were Saira, Miriam and Rachel. In Series 2, most of the women I saw some talent in. Ruth obviously. Michelle wasn't my favourite person, but bar the Topshop task she was a pretty strong performer. I personally really rated Sharon, even if no one else did. Jo distinctly improved as the series went on. Karen, even though I thought she was overrated, had some skills. Even Nargis wasn't bad at the actual leading of the team, I thought - her pitches were dreadful and it was right that she was fired, but I didn't think that her actual leadership qualities were that bad. She was organised, managed to get the team behind her working really hard, and bar Jo they all seemed to work quite well together.

As for the men, I think that the Series 1 guys were a bit better than the Series 2 ones. I think we can probably agree on that.

Jo improved as she went on?! Sorry, are we talking about the woman who worked at MG Rover, yet when a car-selling task was thrown at her she sold at nothing?

And why do you rate Sharon so highly?


Out of the Series 1 females, i really can't think of any who were as bad as Alexa and Jo.

I think that Ruth would have been a better winner than Michelle - by a long way actually - and whilst I was happy for Tim to win, I would have been equally happy for Saira to win.

There have been lots of firings that have shown that Lord Sugar isn't really that bothered about who makes good television. I think that a lot of the time the people who he likes are people who are a bit fiery and passionate, who make good television anyway which is why he's so great for the show, but I don't think that's his priority. If it was, he wouldn't have fired Melissa over Jamie, or Bilyana over Katie, or Vincent over Natasha.

Okay, let's talk about Jo. I didn't think she did a good PM job so I'll eliminate that task from my assessment, but on the others I thought she was pretty decent. On Task 2, she was the one who argued against the cat calendar, which was heavily criticised (although I personally quite liked the cat idea and thought that they lost for other reasons, but that's a moot point - she argued with the team, and the progression of the task suggested she had a point). On Task 4, she worked just as hard as the other girls on food preparation and selling, and seemed to really get stuck in. On Task 5, she came up with the 'Let the world revolve around you' slogan, which was a pretty good slogan, and Ruth couldn't justify bringing her into the boardroom at all. On Task 6, she might not have sold anything, but she took the blame for something that was mostly Ansell's fault and didn't complain or try to land him in it, which I thought was pretty sportsmanly. Having said all that, Week 6 was definitely her time to go, but I did think she was a decent candidate, and she seemed to be pretty helpful to Ruth on the final task.

I thought Sharon was quite skilful, and had some bad luck in the series. She did complain a lot, but I thought that everything that she complained about were things that were legitimately annoying (Jo's constant phone calls, Mani's team management, the team's general lack of support of her in the later tasks). It's a shame that that became what she was known for, because I think she was genuinely quite bright. No one seemed to have any issue with her on the first two tasks. On Task 3 she was on the half of the team that bought the most. On Task 4 despite her arguments with Mani she worked hard, as did all the girls. On Task 5 she was one of the two selected by Paul for his team, and they did a good job on their advert and won the task. On Task 6 she wasn't an amazing PM, but I think she drew the short straw a bit there because they had to choose team leaders before they knew what the task was, and it turned out to be something that she knew nothing about. I think if she'd been PM on either the advertising task or the Topshop task, she would have been a lot better. Nevertheless, she did the best she could, knew that to win she'd have to utilise the skills and experience of her team members, if not herself, and they won that task. On Task 7 Topshop commented that Sharon was the best person on the floor, and offered her a job. On Task 8 she didn't get many chances to sell as Paul wanted most of the pitches for himself, but he admitted that the one she did get she did quite a good job on, even though she put the minimum order a bit low.

I really don't particularly buy into what you're saying, particularly regarding Jo.

It's the way she went about things on Task 2 which weren't great.. Instead of eloquently justifying her reasons, she just became very emotional and was a bit of a liability.

On Task 4, as you said, everyone on that team performed well, so that doesn't tell me anything.

I agree with you on Task 5, that was her best task probably, but on Task 6, she completely bombed.

Rachel, who was fired on Week 6 the previous year, was a far superior candidate IMO.


I still think the Series 1 and 2 girls are about equal, but the Series 2 ones do edge it. I actually think the girls improved year on year, across the first seven series on the whole, so I am not sure why the Series 8 and 9 girls bombed out so badly (even if Fran, Leah and Luisa were the final 3).

I agree with you about the way she went about things. Her emotions did get the better of her and I didn't like that, but that didn't take away from the point of what she was actually saying.

On Task 4, whether the rest of the team worked hard or not makes no difference. I think that that task is a boost for the credibility of each of Michelle, Ruth, Sharon and Jo. The fact that the others did equally well doesn't take anything from their individual performances.

As to whether or not Jo or Rachel was better - overall I'd agree that it was Rachel, as she was consistently strong across five tasks whereas Jo was a controversial candidate.

Ruth had sales as a strong point but not that much else apart from a positive losing pM performance in week 5 - where she brought the wrong person back, and her team missed the point, and a win in week 8 where she had Michelle on her team, and Syed lost for the other team by incurring a penalty . Michelle has one bad week in week 7, but thats offset by Ruth failing that week to sell Philip Green even the £100 of goods he asked for - which is a cardinal sin in Lord Sugar's book.

On the other side of the equation, even on sales Michell may do as well or better than Ruth. There's several weeks, including when she wins as PM, when Michelle's team did better on selling tasks - and she's shown as doing well. Someone got those wins for them. Ruth loses even on the carsalesman test - because she sells well but misses the point about selling the extras being crucial. Michelle gets the point and sells the extras. That issue of understanding the detail, and seizing the opportunities on offer, turns up yet again. On the cruise task, Ruth doesn't read the small print - as she explains it - which is a concern in someone you want to set up a company and negotiate new contracts. The alternative explanation, the show offers, shows Lord Sugar jumping to the conclusion that she's not telling him the truth - which is also not exactly what you would want in a winner. Even if you go with Ruth's explanation, which seems most credible to me, it still leaves her seriously holed the week before the interviews.

By the end its a slam dunk on the arguments shown in play and series record. The record shows Michelle with 7 winning team placings in 10 weeks to Ruths 3 . 70% wins is a lot better winning record than 30% - however you allow for individual effort within a team. Ruth is never in a winning team that hasn't got Michelle on it, and Michelle's team beats one with Ruth in it 4 times. On the Lord Sugar arguments shown, Michelle also wins pretty clearly . Both are selfmade people, but Lord Sugar, again possibly unfairly, has more trouble with Ruth's story - he queries her success figures, but accepts Michelle's salary figures. Ruth also falls foul of the setting up your own business issue - she works for others. Mchelle has already set herself up in business. Most importantly, Michelle has set herslf up successfully in business in a related technological field, and has experience of successfully negotiating contracts, and doing so overseas - which is precisely what the job on offer requires.

Series 1 isn't much different. Saira doesn't recover from week 9 when she's shown wandering around aimlessly as PM, and she's still having difficulties with her people in the final. She has no wins as PM and is only in a winning team 4/10 times. They both look doomed finalists to me.

The competition to Tim, that will look better, and possibly do better in any final, are Miriam and James. The only way of picking Tim over them would be to go explicit on what the Apprentice needs to be - which would make the competition look pointless as most people couldn't win because they were too mature, too immature, or had the wrong experience and skills for the job. Tim needs an opponent with more obvious flaws, if you don't want a more mature, smoother, winner. Series 2 is a bit different. Michelle has no obvious weaknesses for the job in hand, apart from those shown in week 7 - which are countered in week 9 , and past history of similar success. Her other potential competition doesn't need disposing off artificially - like Miriam or James - because its Syed, or Ansel, and has its own obvious flaws.

You're not actually making specific points about Michelle though, it's all very generic.

I was going to write out what Michelle does, but I literally can't think of anything from Weeks 1 to 5. In Week 6, as you pointed out, she did well with the extras. Week 7, she was a bad PM, hiding in the background, and in Week 8, iirc, Ruth and Ansell did all the selling, and Michelle was just there, alongside Ruth.
Week 9, I acknowldge she was a good PM, and did some good sales, but in Week 10, she again slid into the background.

So, I don't see why you think she's so strong. All you've pointed out is trivial facts, such as how many tasks she won, which actually don't really bear any relevance to how good she was at all... You've got to remember that Jason won six out of eight tasks last year, whereas Leah only won three out of the first eight. Does that make Jason a better candidate?

I don't think that the winning records say anything. Tom Pellereau only won three tasks out of eleven, and every winning team he was on had Helen on it, and yet he still won over her.

I'd also point out that out of Ruth's four boardroom appearances, one was by default as PM, two were by default as she was on a team of less than four and on the only one where she was actually chosen to come back by a Project Manager, Michelle said that she didn't actually want to bring Ruth back because she hadn't lost them the task, but both she and Ansell were fantastic and she had to choose Ruth based on a minor error.

Having said that, I do think Michelle was a stronger performer than Tom is making out, because unlike him I tend to focus on the candidates who don't show up very much in the edits, but I would have chosen either Ruth or Ansell to win over her, as I feel that either of them would be more suited to the job at hand. I don't feel that Michelle wanted it for the right reasons, and this became clear by the fact that she left the job after a few months. I think she was probably Lord Sugar's worst winner decision, after Stella obviously.

Without having seen that Series in many a year, I personally thought it was just to conclude the Paul/Saira storyline by putting them up against each other, one in the final, one out.

But they didn't know that Saira was going to choose Paul. They chose the people to help them from a draft as normal, but unlike the later series they chose three people each from all of the previous candidates, except Adele. There was no guarantee that Paul would be on Saira's team; he might have been on Tim's team, or not have been picked at all.

That's not what I meant! Sorry, I phrased my previous post terribly!

What I meant was by "firing" James first, the final decision looked like it came down to Saira and Paul. (Wasn't Tim already told he was in the final at that point?) Their rivalry was a massive running theme throughout the season and I think they wanted to portray that as the climax to their rivalry, even though as you say Paul ended up with her the next week!

I don't think Kyle is making reference to the final, just the semi final, where saira was victorious over Paul, and Kyle thinks they wanted to emphasise that by editing that Paul was 3rd place, not 4th.

The saira vs Paul storyline is only really there in episodes 5, 6 and 12, which is surprising because its one of the things people remember about the series. I think in later series, Paul and Saira would have been kept on the same team after Week 6.

I think Lord Sugar just wanted to make sure that they could do the tasks effectively, without personality clashes getting in the way, which is reasonable enough.

I don't want to reignite this discussion, but I still don't believe Alan is in charge of team reshuffles

So you think it was the producers' decision to split up Paul and Saira? It seems to me something that would benefit Alan Sugar a lot more than it would benefit the producers. If anything, the producers would benefit more from having them on the same team, whereas Lord Sugar would be able to gauge their skills more from having them on different teams.

I've personally got the impression as the years have gone on that Sugsy has been far more interested in the "reality show" side of the TA (putting on a good show if you will) than he was in the earlier seasons. I'm quite happy to believe that he still designates the teams (or at least has a say in it) because I think he embraces that side of the show more than he seemed to do in near the start.

Him seperating Paul and Saira for the greater good of the other candidates seems like something that could feasibly happen in season one, but these days I think he's more than happy to let them scrap it out, as long as his desired winner isn't likely to come out of it looking like shite!