Well, if they did the editors should have showed that. What am I supposed to take from the fact that they didn't?

But the video was a viral youtube comedy designed for internet users of a particular sub type. Her proposal was to make documentaries. It fails on the concept and the comedy - not the direction. You don't send Attenborough out to make comedies, or the comedy team out to make Panorama. The task tjust old us no one could make a comedy well

i doubt if para two was the case. Solomon seemed to have two potential collaborators - one with 10 million monthly hits, the other with 10s of thousands of hits .If Ella had had one as big as solomon's 10 million hit offering, plus one with 5 million, she would have been the one advantaged unfairly and solomon the one with the easier choice?

The problem with this task was that outside of the pitch, which she flubbed, she had little chance to shine because the roles were limited. Branding and product design was in the UK. Felipe directed the video. Mark led the pitch. Her only chance at avoiding being fired was to be PM, and Mark made sure he got that. Both of them needed to be PM after last week so it was a shame they were in the same team battling for that spot.

That said, I'd rather keep someone who was more of an unknown quantity and let her be PM next week than keep the disaster area that is Daniel who is never in a million years going to win. He's got the opposite of the Midas Touch, everything he touches turns to shit....he can't sell, he can't pitch ("I wouldn't wear it"), he screwed up the questions for the board game which lost them the task, he couldn't prepare a decent lunch for his bus tour, he created a terrible design for the drink which lost them the task....he's a running joke and a total liability. Yes, he tries but he usually fails, and he fails big. I think he's there for entertainment and his feud with Mark. His delusional narcissism is almost comical now. Not for Lauren though I'm sure.

what really confuses me about some of these decisions is people who make horrendous decisions which directly lead to the failure of the task get less criticism than someone who is marginalised by stronger personalities

sugar himself said that first and foremost you need the right product and imo it didn't really matter how good the US half of the team was they were let down by the product they were given

how much of that comes down to the PM having the wrong people in the wrong place and how much comes down to the people themselves is open to debate

Yes and no. I agree the editors should try to treat candidates equally fairly, but the reality is they also have to create a narrative that makes it clear to viewers why a particular candidate was fired, why others were brought into the boardroom and why team X lost the task. To tell a narrative, there's a degree of exaggeration that goes on to emphasise why people are winners or losers, or why some candidates should be loved or others hated - it creates distinct 'personalities' for each candidate that differentiates one from the other.

In reality - as in real life - things are rarely as clear-cut as they are made to appear on the show. The good guys don't all wear white hats to distinguish them from the black-hatted bad guys.

This week was perhaps the least clear firing of the series so far. I think you can make a good case for firing any of the final three (and Felipe too):

Mark: Did he put the right people in the right places? (Actually, I think he did. I didn't buy Sugar's assertion that it was automatically a mistake to take two lawyers to NY - they're both articulate and should have been able to pitch decently, while Katie had shown relevant skills in the home fragrance task.) Did he do enough himself? (Arguable, but the job of the PM here really was to lead the task and the pitch, both of which he did.)

Daniel: Did his best given his limited creative experience (which Mark acknowledged), but he did let down the team with a poor design. Mark was right to bring him in rather than Katie, who doesn't have his history of overpromising/underdelivering. He was lucky not to get fired after his emotional attack after being brought back into the boardroo.

Lauren: Intelligent, articulate, but didn't really contribute much and pitched poorly. I've argued (and still do) that she is quick to analyse/criticise but has rarely contributed much to the commercial success of tasks - she hasn't sold much, she contributes ideas rather than actions, and while she made a great tour guide that wasn't what won her team the coach tours task. There weren't many obvious reasons to fire her, but equally she hadn't given Sugar many reasons to keep her either. (And her business plan idea as revealed on YF feels way too niche to ever recoup Sugar his investment.)

Agreed.

You could see from early on that Lauren was being lined up to be the fall guy in the event of Tenacity losing the task.

Mark is so transparent & predictable, but his Lordship seems to like him.

Perhaps, but it's not as if Mark was deliberately trying to lose the task - trying to win would have been his top priority. As he himself said, he knew he was majorly at risk if he lost.

Lauren made a big error up front. Having lost out as PM, she should have offered to take leadership of the sub-team, which would have meant that Mark couldn't marginalise her.

Lauren had no way of predicting she'd be marginalised. She expected her US experience would help her stand out...I mean, there was going to be the market research, the video, and the pitch.

It would IMO have been a greater risk to stay in the UK. The PM often scapegoats a sub-team rather than the candidates who've been cosying up next to him/her. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

And honestly, after her drubbing by Sugar, Pamela and Mark last week, nothing less than a stellar central performance was going to stop Mark choosing her, right from the get go.

True, hindsight makes geniuses of us all ...

But Lauren's "extensive local knowledge" consisted of four previous trips to New York. By that token, I'm an expert on New York too. (I'm really not.)

To be honest, I think it was eminently predictable that Mark wouldn't be in a rush to give her lots of responsibility on a sub-team that he himself was running. For me, she would have been much better saying that she would take charge of the sub-team, which would have guaranteed that she would have made a definite contribution. For sure, that might not have saved her from the boardroom, but it would definitely have given her ammunition to refute the argument that she did nothing.

Ah well, we'll never know!

Was it predictable to her though? She's not been observing Mark from an objective distance like we have. And someone in the thick of the process (and his feud with Daniel) with a modicum of self-belief could have expected Daniel to be at greatest risk.

She admitted on YF that having watched it back, she thinks she was set up. So did Richard Reed (who BTW was very sexy ) and Claude. Her fatal error was more naivete than lack of foresight.

No, good point. It's easier for us as viewers to observe from carefully edited episodes what's going on from a distance than it is for the candidates. But at the same time she should have known from last week that she and Mark were in the firing line.

If it had been me, I'd have gone all out for the PM job (knowing Mark would be doing the same) but ensured I'd thought through what my plan B was if I didn't succeed. For me that would have been "If I can't demonstrate my leadership skills in the US team, I'll do it by leading the UK team."

Of course, it's easy to say that from a distance. What I suspect happened is that Lauren was so blinded by her desire to go to NY (she was hardly alone in this) that this overruled any tactical considerations.

Actually I think she'd only been 3 times to NY, when asked on YBF "how many times, have you been" she replied "4"

Only problem I can see is that the sub team didn't really need leading, more like co-operation and less places to hide. And as a solicitor, what skills would she bring to a design task.

That team was very heavy in thinkers not doers or dreamers.

Just need to say, cos she was slightly ridiculed on YF, that there's a big difference between visiting a country as a tourist and going on business and/or regularly dealing with international clients or colleagues. The latter does give you insight and that could explain why she felt qualified to lead a NY-centric task.

Even if the narrative they create is false or misleading? When you say "a degree of exaggeration that goes on to emphasise", you seem to be assuming that the created narrative is essentially true, even if its been simplified and painted in bright colours. Often, shows like The Apprentice create narratives that are fundamentally false instead.

Surely they shouldn't be creating a narrative at all, or creating 'personalities' that aren't the candidates' actual ones.

Oh yes I agree, they never really said for how long she'd been in the US. Yes she may of only been 3 times, but those 3 times may have been for months at a time, had she had a case there etc. I thought she came across really well on YBF, it's a same she didn't on the actual show.

I agree. Misleading isn't ethical or fair, not when their future careers are at stake.

It's interesting how different and likeable they seem on the after show. Sometimes dramatically so. And while Luisa wasn't a completely different personality on CBB, I couldn't stand her on The Apprentice and was bewildered by her popularity with other candidates because she seemed horrible, but I found her infectious, funny and much 'lighter' on CBB (although I know she's a bit marmite). Point is, she'd clearly been edited in a very specific light on The Apprentice.

BiB - I agree that PMs will always try to win the task as that obviously means no chance of being eliminated, but most weeks you also see whoever is the PM trying to set up someone in their team as a scapegoat to cover their own back if things go wrong

I still cant accept how people who make decisions that lead directly, not only to their team losing the task, but basically give their team no chance of ever winning it, get credit for at least having tried over someone who the PM sets up to cover his own back

I don't dispute that there's often an ulterior motive, but it's also the right way to project manage a team. If you have a team of people, you give each one a clear area of responsibility. What people often assume is scapegoating is just a PM trying to make his/her team efficient.

Last night we saw Mark verbally backing Daniel 100%. Absolutely, this boxed off Daniel with a possible view to the boardroom, but it was also Mark saying "this bit of the task is your (and Katie's) responsibility, and I'm empowering you to make your own decisions because I'm too far away to really get involved". There's nothing wrong with that. How much people want to read into this being about setting up Daniel is a matter of personal opinion (a bit of both, if you ask me), but to say it was all about setting Daniel up to fail is far too one-sided a view. Anyone who has ever managed a team knows that clear roles are vital to avoid overlap and confusion, and giving people responsibility for specific bits of a task is generally motivating. Would, say, Jose Mourinho send his Chelsea team out to play a match with the instructions "just run around a bit and hopefully we'll win". Of course not. Specific players play specific positions with specific instructions.

Ultimately Daniel had no complaints about the way Mark PM'd the task - compare that to Sanjay and Roisin with Bianca.

I don't think things appear clear-cut at all on the show, as a matter of fact. I feel as though I am being fed a version of a story which twists facts in a way which is supposed to make me feel a certain way about things. That doesn't reassure me that things are clear-cut, it makes me think there is something to hide.

I don't think it was told in this way quite so much in the early series. I don't know if you read my theory on another thread about the quality of Mark Halliley's narration (it would be really interesting to hear your thoughts on that actually) but in the old days it seemed that we saw a lot more of both sides of the candidates than we do now. Therefore, we were presented with a more rounded picture of them. If you see a more rounded picture, that, in my opinion, is what makes a situation more clear-cut.

I agree.

It's an interesting point about the narration. I don't know if the two examples you gave are representative of the series they're drawn from, but if it is true it would suggest to me that the show is now less about telling the story of the task and more about telling the story of the candidates.

Is that dumbing down? Maybe. It may also be indicative of the fact that, after ten series, the tasks are now very familiar and it's only the candidates who change. That's pure supposition, but just my two pennies' worth.

Back to the original discussion, I do definitely believe that we now only get a one-dimensional view of most of the candidates (except maybe the final five or so). I think that makes the narrative easier (but less 'true') for viewers, but in this series in particular with 20 candidates at the outset perhaps it's been necessary to squeeze everyone in.

Does that make things more clear-cut? Not for the discerning viewer/fan, perhaps, but for more casual viewers it helps if we can neatly divide candidates into those we're supposed to cheer and those we're meant to boo, with no grey area in between.

But I do think we are starting to see different sides to some candidates. We saw a more vulnerable and human side of Mark this week behind all the alpha male hyper-confidence. And Daniel showed a lot of maturity (but, sadly, not ability) during the task in getting on with things and even praising Mark.

Sanjay's stroppy side was new too, wasn't it? He'd always struck me as a smiley kind of bloke, but he didn't half whinge! Mind you, I think he had a point to an extent given the way Bianca treated him and Roisin. How could she not have told them the brand name when we saw them agreeing it even before they got to Heathrow - more than a day before?

I actually don't think that we should be 'meant' to feel anything about a candidate. If we're meant to think something, I question what the point of this forum even is. We constantly debate people's qualities, whether they are likeable or not, and that is as it should be. I frequently disagree with Lord Sugar's opinions, with the candidates when they say that a certain person is great or a certain person hasn't done well, and with Nick and Karren. Of course, I frequently agree as well, but I pride myself on being able to reach my own conclusions about things. Surely the whole point of a show like this is to be able to look past the surface and see whether underneath it all they'd actually do well as a business partner.

I'm the same as you, George - I watch the show carefully and frequently disagree with Sugar too. But equally I think the DS community isn't representative of the vast majority of viewers. We all read between the lines and pick apart every little clue - the spoiler thread being a great example of this - which means we all form our own views based on our own opinions and experiences, which means we often disagree among ourselves, and that's a good thing.

I don't agree with everyone here, but seeing things through other people's eyes better informs our own view, and even though, as a reviewer, I watch every episode like a hawk and make copious notes, people will always spot things I've missed.

Equally, I know I see things differently from many others, but that's informed by the fact I've worked 20+ years in sales and marketing organisations, so I believe I understand the dynamics of team-working and the mechanics of the tasks better than most. (I don't believe I'm always right, mind you! Just mostly right ... )

Anyhow,. back to the point. For what I would call 'casual' viewers who are there to be entertained and have a laugh at some of the misfortunes that befall the candidates, the editorial process *does* lead them to think a certain way. I don't think it ever shows characteristics of a person that aren't there, but they will emphasise certain aspects and play down others. There's no question that James is a bit of a jack-the-lad and he has been portrayed as being misogynistic too, and yet I doubt he's that one-dimensional. This is the same guy who instinctively put his arm around a distraught Lindsay in the boardroom as she imploded. It's possible to have a problem with women and yet still be able to care, but we've only been shown the latter.

But for the purposes of making good TV we have to have distinct characters - shades of black and white instead of grey. Every fictional series has them - so, in Friends, Joey was the dumb one, Chandler the funny one, Phoebe the ditzy hippie chick, Monica the uptight anal retentive, Ross the dork and Rachel the spoilt princess. Of course, there was more to them than that but those labels sit easily on them. It's the same with reality shows such as TA - in fact, even more so, as the characters have a maximum shelf life of one series and some only one or two episodes. It simply isn't possible (or desirable) to paint everyone fully, so instead we get a set of caricatures, which is enough for the casual viewer to know who to cheer and boo, with enough snippets of detail thrown in occasionally to give the dedicated fans something more to work on.

Can you imagine the nightmare if the producers even attempted to show us the full personalities of all 20 candidates? It's been hard enough for viewers to distinguish the candidates even with their exaggerated portrayals. We'd have stood no chance if we hadn't been able to identify them as "the arrogant one" (Mark), "the airhead" (Sarah), "the one who was out of her depth" (Lindsay), "the deluded one" (Daniel), "the barrow boy" (James) and so on.

BTW, if you haven't ever read them, Ben Elton's books Chart Throb and Dead Famous are marvellous satires on reality shows (specifically Pop Idol/X Factor and Big Brother) which people in the know say cuts very close to the truth about how orchestrated reality shows really are in terms of things like candidate selection and editing. You wouldn't think it, but he actually knows his stuff about reality shows.

After last week I wondered if Lord Sugar might appoint Lauren and Mark as PM's and put them head to head. Once Mark nailed the PM role I thought Lauren was going to struggle, having said that on the basis of what happened on the task I think Mark and Daniel carry far more responsibility for the failure than she did. Then again - as previously mentioned -if decisions are being made factoring in candidate business ideas rather than actual task performances, what chance have you got. I thought Mark and Daniel could go in a double firing, how many more lives is Daniel going to get through I would have given her a chance to be PM and fired Daniel.

That might well have happened, with Sugar moving one of them to the other team to achieve this - but Bianca also hadn't been PM yet, so there wasn't much point in doing so.