Solomon though, what a waste. I'm sure all the fired candidates were thinking that this doucebag took up one of their places. At least they had a business plan...

I think Claude is softer on women than he is on men, at least in terms of his delivery. I remember him calling female candidates out on their mistakes quite harshly, but nothing like the absolute shredding he's handed out to Solomon/Jordan/Stuart in his time. Look at someone like Joanna - she turned up for interviews entirely unprepared and pretty ignorant, and easily could have got the sort of cannon-fire he's turned on men, but instead he adored her.

This has basically turned into a shitter version of dragons den. What's the point of the tasks if it all comes down to the business plan?

Marks business plan fits in a lot better with Lord Sugar's existing businesses than Bianca's. If he does well in the final he has got a good chance of winning on that reason alone. As said a lot of companies are into SEO optimisation so its going to take a lot of work to stick out.

It's definitely a competitive space, but then so is recruitment and Sugar went with Ricky. The business model is similar too insofar that all you really need to get started is a couple of people, some phones, some office space and a lot of determination and hard work.

Bianca's is a 'products' business which, if all else fails, creates inventory which can always be sold off to recoup some of the investment if everything goes wrong. We've often heard how Sugar is a 'products' man - and yet we have Ricky's recruitment business and Leah's cosmetic surgery clinics, both of which are service businesses.

If it all came down to the business plan, Daniel, of all people, would probably be a finalist.

Daniel's plan was imperfect, but Lord Sugar was genuinely interested in it, and on paper, as an experienced businessman, Daniel should've been the right person to helm it. But as he'd shown he was a bit of a loose cannon, he couldn't quite justify it.

Mark's business plan was just "Mark: the business." Mark turns up and does his day job. I don't think he's going to win it, but his role in the final is based more or less entirely on task performance. Which the interviewers noted, and which Lord Sugar noted. Lord Sugar needs to run the right business with the right person, and the tasks are a much better indicator of who he's dealing with than the scrap of paper they cobbled together in an afternoon.

The point of the tasks is to entertain us. It's a TV entertainment programme. They need to select candidates based on who will be the most entertaining and they all have a great time with fun and unique awards every week and a chance to get great TV exposure for their personalities and abilities.

Even if their plan was never going to win then what have they lost and what have we lost by them being there? Someone with a better plan may have been totally dull or incompetent. I don't see why it needs to be the sole criteria for casting.

So having made it to the final five, the candidates polish up their business plans, and hand the final versions over to Nick and Karren, then go straight to the waiting room and after a short time get called to the interview rooms and get grilled by the experts who, in the meantime, have spent hours and hours poring over the plans, even having time to pop out and buy groceries to present to a candidate as proof of porky-pies....

Have they got a TARDIS or what?