this year has got better as the weeks went on.

I thought the first few weeks were awful but it has got much better.

I don't think it can touch last year as the candidates seem a lot more blander and diluted.

Luisa was always going to be a tough act to follow and I think along with kate hopkins will be the two most famous candidates for however long the show still go

LOL.......who are these two strongest performers? Katie and...........no, it's not coming to me (please don't say Felipe, please).

Indeed, Big Brother is a different sort of programme - although,in its first few years, the vote went to someone with at least arguably the strongest , most positive show story. You now have the same winning criteria as on later BB being applied by some people to the Apprentice - in the argument that the winner ought to be the most likeable, the least pushy, the most saintly, the least invisible, or even the most unscrupulous gameplayer . If people want to judge it on those criteria, series 10 has provided several good candidates. If you apply other criteria like showing effective business and management skills, or having flashes of real understanding or talent, or doing any task really well, I think many Apprentice series started with more talent, and ended with more in the final - including series 9.

There's also of course a consequence - if more people want to see something more like Big brother, or the producers think they do - thats what you will get. I don't think its a coincidence that series 10 has followed Big Brother into more contestants, multiple firings, or putting more , big, negative, characters, and gameplayers in.

its Roisin and probably Katie. its almost certainly not Daniel, Solomon, or Mark.

Bianca is an interesting case. Her task record is a tad better than Roisin's even, and her CV looks really strong - like Katie, she's won major awards doing what she does. She also was successful in the tasks at doing what she does in her career. However, in show terms she hasn't featured much, and her howlers will be whats remembered by many. And in historical terms, I don't think there's anyone in this final who has looked as impressive as Helen, Luisa, Ruth, Saira , Clare, or Kristina, among the runners up.

That might be what the viewers want, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is what Lord Sugar wants. I don't think that Stella was any of those things, but she was still chosen - admittedly that was his worst decision ever. With this series, Mark has had a very mixed reception, but I think he stands a strong chance of winning, as he has performed very well generally. If he has a good business plan, he could easily do it. Which doesn't mean that I necessarily think that he will win, but I think he's more likely to than a couple of the others, and he is by no means the most popular candidate.

Actually, the 20 candidates thing was Lord Sugar's idea, not the producers'. I was surprised to learn this myself as I didn't think it would have been, but I read an interview with Nick that said as much. It also said that Nick personally did not think much of the suggestion and neither did Karren, and he's hoping they'll go back to the normal numbers next year.

I think that this has had some good performers. I would argue that Bianca, Mark, Solomon, Roisin, Katie, Felipe, Lauren, Jemma and Ella Jade all performed well on the majority of the tasks that they took part in, and with many of the others we only saw a small amount of them so can't always judge. As a matter of fact, the only people this series who I think had an overwhelmingly negative edit were Robert, Scott and Sarah. Everyone else had the odd moment - Pamela appeared a good director on task 4, and even people like Steven and James were fired more for their personalities than because they were actually poor performers. It may seem odd that I'm not including people like Chiles, Lindsay, Nurun and Sanjay into that - I would say that their appearance was so small that we couldn't see anything especially positive or negative from them.

Not sure if its what the majority of viewers want, but its clear from many comments here that people want people to win on personal factors, even accents - sometimes unrelated to show record, performance, or talent. .

Who went for more candidates or decided on multiple firings is very interesting. If it was his Lordship, that might explain the irrational consequences - like too many fired one week, no scope to fire more than one the following week, and having to fire two, regardless, last week. As soon as you decide to go for multiple firings, of course you need more people to fire - so it may have been the multiple firing idea that drove the need for hordes at the beginning?

I htink Stella was a better bet than the alternative left that series. He had already got rid of the highest flyer, - who would have been even more bored/underused in those jobs - and she went off to sell mega buck property for the Candy's. Someone left had to win, and I would have taken Stella too.

We differ on Mark. I think his strategic grasp has been questionable , and his creativity was questioned by his lordship himself. His selling is damaged by the last task. I also think his gameplaying has been destructive in his tasks, and raised other issues. I think Bianca scores brownie points by owning up to mistakes - blaming others, is a dangerous label to get placed on you. However, I note that Luisa thinks Mark wants this more than anyone else - which may count for a lot with his Lordship.

The bottom line, I think, is that they cast too many people, which has hampered the series on a number of levels.

a) The amount of airtime each individual person got at the start of the series was diminished, often in favour of nutcases who turned out to be utterly irrelevant to the story of the series. This meant that nobody competent really made a strong first impression unless they were, like Roisin, strikingly pretty.

b) The double and triple firings seemed arbitrary and splenetic, until the last one, which felt forced. This number of people might be fine for the structure of the show if they had as many episodes as they wanted to play with, but they don't and it all felt a bit random. Things like Robert being fired out of thin air for ducking PM or Ella Jade being fired just so there could be a triple firing made Loralan seem even more like a crazed potentate than ever.

c) There were several tasks early on where there blatantly wasn't enough to do such that 9 or 10 people could all be doing worthwhile things beyond being a carnival barker. This led to an exceptionally high rate of people being fingered for lack of major individual contribtuon, which became incredibly repetitive.

d) One of the key roles in building up people's edit is the PM role. You almost always, unless they're a subversive sort, learn far more about a candidate in an episode where they PM than any other episode. The increased number of people wanting a turn means we have seen our Final Five PM 7 times between them, fewer than any other series of the show (last year was 9, 10 if you count Apprenticoup '13). We've never had three candidates go into interviews only having PMd once, and it doesn't help that with one of them it was on one of the most vapid tasks in the show's history. This has led, I think, to the Final Five as a whole feeling a little underbaked and underdeveloped.

Other stuff about the show I'm happy with. I think the cast was well put together, I think the editors have done their best trying to find stories for them, I think the tasks have mostly been fine (Wearable Tech and Youtube aside) if a little unimaginative...it's just that they overstuffed at the start.

Do you think Lord Sugar was told that he had to get back to the normal number of candidates by Week 5, and that was the real reason he fired Ella?

Or was 3 the logical dramatic place to go after going to a double firing. You fire two - its all over - oh no it isn't.

i think Ella went because that week was the week for 3 to go, and Katie went because two had to go that week. Ella had committed the multiple crimes of being well off, doing a business degree, and running a student version of his show. Getting rid of Katie was a bit too embarrassing for the final stages - as he would have to argue that he he wanted 5-10 times as much return to his biggest audience, and biggest coverage. He also seemed to want to preserve Daniel and Mark for the final - he could easily have sacked Daniel in week 9, or Mark in week 10.

I don't think it was planned in advance, because they didn't know who would be in the final boardroom. If the other team had lost, or the team had lost by a really narrow margin and the losing PM had done a great job (as has happened numerous times) or Ella had brought back some strong contenders, the triple firing would have made no sense. And if it was supposed to create drama and entertainment, surely they would have been better off by keeping at least one out of Steven and Sarah? They were the most memorable candidates in the early weeks of this series.

I've really loved this series. It's been my favourite since series 5. I think there's been some brilliantly entertaining episodes - the coach task, board game, triple firing, the skeleton cock up and the selling at the Bath and West show. I've enjoyed watching the candidates, they have all been really interesting to watch. I thought 20 would be too many, but they've pulled it off for me.

I don't know, it'd just be speculation. I would guess he was probably strongly encouraged to do a triple firing at some point, and that felt like the best time because Steven and Sarah in the same place at the same time already puts you 2/3 of the way there.

In terms of edits, having 20 candidates was problematic. Too many invisible and under the radar. Sanjay was invisible until week 5, Pamela was invisible to week 4, Felipe was invisible/under the radar for a number of weeks, then the latter he became more prominent. Solomon was under the radar/invisible mostly after his PM win, same with Katie. The edits have been poor, and out of nowhere in week 5, Bianca was doing 'good' even though all I had from her mainly was a negative edit in week 2 about her not being the PM. Season 9 was much better handling contestants. But I enjoy the candidates more this season, purely for entertainment reasons.

Mainly due to the 20 candidates twist, I preffered season 9. Though the Daniel and Mark rivalry kept me hooked this season

I'm probably in a minority of one but this has probably been one of my favourite series. And a real return to form since I wasn't a huge fan of Series 9 (and wasn't wholly convinced by 7 either)

The first 3 weeks or so was a bit hectic with there being 20 people to begin but I felt the series really hit its stride after that point. A great cast of candidates this year and some memorable episodes (the one where three people were fired, board games and also the items task) and memorable quotes during this series.

I think it would've been a good series without the Daniel v Mark story arc but with that it became a great series. If it doesn't work out for those two then they honestly need a spin-off show - they were both very entertaining and really added to the series from an entertainment standpoint for me. Of course Bianca deserved to go through to the final because her business idea was very good (and so I have no problems with her goign through) - but in a way I wished she'd been fired because she didn't win anyway and while not the best 'business' choice a Mark v Daniel final could've been brilliant TV and the perfect finale for the series
Credit too to Stephen and Sarah who had me in stitches numerous times.

I felt Suralan's decisions got worse as the series went on though. I agreed with most of the decisions for the first 8 weeks but then I felt he started getting it wrong. I didn't agree with him at all on that whole skeletongate (felt very petty) and I really didn't think Mark's idea deserved to win (I'm no business expert but even I know there are loads of SEO companies and the market is saturated and Mark answers from what we saw didn't really answer any of the potential flaws that existed and issues with succeeding in such a crowded market).

It was a dreadful series...so many fillers (Sarah, Stephen...)

Although it was generally quite a boring series, the one where James was fired (Hottubgate) was one of the most entertaining episodes I've seen.

I didn't particularly like the tasks; the first task was ridiculous and the youtube task had no discernible business theme in it whatsoever. I thought the home fragrance task was the best task by far in series; Lord Sugar said it was easy but I thought it was fairly complex to produce a product like that in such a a short time from idea to production and that consumers and businesses would buy in a very crowded market and at a high price. In terms of the mid way through process, I was unimpressed with a lot of the candidates like Sanjay and Daniel who fluked way to final in spite of being pretty awful at everything. I thought Mark was a worthy winner as he had performed well all way through maybe apart from Week 7 and Week 10. I was impressed by Bianca in interviews but in final, it seemed she didn't understand the market whatsover in terms of price point etc. and she disregarded a lot of it when she was told.

In my opinion, series 10 has been my favourite ever, out of the ones I've seen. Mass firings, brilliant characters (Steven, Robert, Sarah etc.), Daniel vs. the world, and a really witty Lord Sugar made it amazing entertainment from start to finish.

Series 9 comes second as there some great themes and boardroom scraps, along with memorable people like Luisa. Series 7 in third as Susan vs. everyone was great and there were some great quotes. Series 8...meh!