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Old 04-11-2015, 22:02
hownwbrowncow
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What were your five thoughts on this week's episode?
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Old 04-11-2015, 22:07
hownwbrowncow
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1) Ok I love Sam. Extremely nice man. And I actually liked the way he managed the task.
2) Felt sorry for Natalie. I feel like they've been gunning for her since week 2 (LS and aides), waiting for her to slip up. Even if she did, many times.
3) Once again, no one really shined. This is the problem we had with last series, as there are just a bit too many candidates, and the producers like to focus on the failures.
4) Richard has very much gone down in my estimations in the last two episodes. He is so smug, and was a bit rude toward Charleine.
5) Really good episode actually, with many memorable moments.
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Old 04-11-2015, 22:08
ChateauMarmont
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1. Richard is even more smug than last week and that's saying something. I can't wait for his face when he's fired

2. David is still as sweet and enthusiastic as ever

3. Charleine is actually good at sales. The place she went for the 125 copies was an outstanding effort

4. Natalie wearing a Deirdre Barlow behind bars t-shirt for bed made me chuckle

5. Gary has the most awful gurning face I've seen so far.
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Old 04-11-2015, 22:16
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1) I agreed that Natalie should have been fired - I don't doubt that she was a little ill but her coughing fits were very convenient and a little laughable to be honest.
2) Charleine should have let somebody like Richard pitch, although his smug face in the BR was unbearable - overall I don't think she was a great PM despite being enthusiastic.
3) I still find Selina very unlikable and I'm not too keen on Brett, although I don't know why Sam brought him back into the BR.
4) I'm intrigued by some candidates that we still have seen too much of, and surprised that April has been so quiet after an explosive week 1.
5) Sam is lucky to still be there but he is one of the most likeable candidates in the competition for me.
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Old 04-11-2015, 22:24
Alex_McNamee
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1) LOVE Charleine. Okay, she sidelined Richard, but she's still my favourite.
2) How many candidates are on "final chances" already? Pretty much everyone in the final boardroom.
3) Lord Sugar's struggling to get rid of people he feels he hasn't seen enough of. Maybe he shouldn't have so many on the show then...
4) Some people I think are potential winners. Not a spoiler, just my guesses. Charleine, Scott, David, Richard (but atm he's definitely getting a Daniel edit)
5) There's an alternative name for Richard that feels more appropriate for him in the given scenario.
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Old 04-11-2015, 22:27
JavarnJohnson
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1. I can't stand Charlene. I actually find her to be worse than Selina who is herself all kinds of awful.

2. I liked Richard this week. He was a lot more patient with Charlene than I would have been. I thought he earned the right to be smug considering how much she belittled and undermined him, only to then fluff her pitch twice.

3. Sam's nice but going nowhere fast. He should be gone soon.

4. Did Elle even speak this week?

5. Scott and David are emerging as my early favourites to win the whole thing.
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Old 05-11-2015, 00:18
lightdragon
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1) Sam was rubbish, he did nothing, the name, concept and book design was Elle, and Selina pushed him to get a draft so the sub-team could get the audio book done.
2) April has a degree in creative writing yet didn't put herself forward for PM? She hasn't done much of anything since week one.
3) Charleine was poor, she nailed the time keeping, but didn't let her team work properly, she was lucky her team won, otherwise she might have gone tonight.
4) Joseph had a good week, his bee idea was good, he tried to push for extra orders and seemed in his element.
5) How did Sam dodge that bullet?
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Old 05-11-2015, 00:50
danielleh
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1) Natalie was the right person to go.
2) I really like Sam, but wouldn't have been surprised to see him go as well as Natalie.
3) Pitching a book called 'Snottydink' in a shop where they sold editions of Tom Sawyer for Ł25,000 - classic Apprentice.
4) Why did nobody pick up on Selina's glowing pricing errors - the way she presented it, it would have cost more per unit if the retailer bought more.
5) Charleine is really starting to annoy me.
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Old 05-11-2015, 01:13
ShotDownInFlame
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1) Just when I thought nobody could outdo Selina in the "unlikeable" factor, Charleine goes and tries her best to prove me wrong

2) If you think Richard is smug now just wait until he's outlasted Charleine.

3) Natalie has to be one of the poorest Apprentice candidates of all time

4) So does April, seriously has she done anything truly note-worthy that wasn't silly?

5) Mergim getting appraisal in the boardroom, "calm before the storm" type situation that sees him out next week perhaps?
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Old 05-11-2015, 02:09
SwanGirl
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Charleine went down in my estimation this week, being a Swansea girl I'm still rooting for her but she made a huge mistake in not involving Richard in the pitch's to the chain bookstores. I know she managed to get a very good deal done which ultimately saved her, had they lost I think Charleine might have been fired to be honest.

There's always going to be people you work with that you dislike but if you know their strength, you HAVE to utilise it and put any personal differences aside for the good of the team.

Natalie's 'illness' in my mind was made up or she played on it far too much. In the shampoo task she led the pitch and she was dreadful, I believe she used the illness to back out again because she knew if she failed in another pitch it would probably be the end of her. As it was, she got fired anyway so her avoidance technique did not work.
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Old 05-11-2015, 02:14
ShotDownInFlame
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Charleine went down in my estimation this week, being a Swansea girl I'm still rooting for her but she made a huge mistake in not involving Richard in the pitch's to the chain bookstores. I know she managed to get a very good deal done which ultimately saved her, had they lost I think Charleine might have been fired to be honest.

There's always going to be people you work with that you dislike but if you know their strength, you HAVE to utilise it and put any personal differences aside for the good of the team.

Natalie's 'illness' in my mind was made up or she played on it far too much. In the shampoo task she led the pitch and she was dreadful, I believe she used the illness to back out again because she knew if she failed in another pitch it would probably be the end of her. As it was, she got fired anyway so her avoidance technique did not work.
Having gone to uni at Swansea I'm ashamed I thought Charleine's accent was a northern one

Agreed about Natalie, some of those coughs seemed a bit "for show", particularly in the boardroom, me and my dad were thinking she was trying to milk it a bit for pity but of course what with Lord Sugar being Lord Sugar that was never going to work. Reminded me of the time Jenny from S4 tried to get out of being fired because it was her birthday...we all know how that went down
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Old 05-11-2015, 03:58
thenetworkbabe
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David is looking rather good

Sam is toast unless he has a nail file.

The male self made Sugar types are awfully inarticulate and unimpressive - except when they pull off a market trader moment. That should rule them out, but may rule them in

Charleine is an effective PM - who needs to learn when to let go and deploy her team's talents, as well as when to keep them out of the way.

Natalie was oddly poor at defending herself , even though she otherwise showed she was perceptive, and articulate, and you need brains to think that fast.
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Old 05-11-2015, 04:05
thenetworkbabe
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Charleine went down in my estimation this week, being a Swansea girl I'm still rooting for her but she made a huge mistake in not involving Richard in the pitch's to the chain bookstores. I know she managed to get a very good deal done which ultimately saved her, had they lost I think Charleine might have been fired to be honest.

There's always going to be people you work with that you dislike but if you know their strength, you HAVE to utilise it and put any personal differences aside for the good of the team.

Natalie's 'illness' in my mind was made up or she played on it far too much. In the shampoo task she led the pitch and she was dreadful, I believe she used the illness to back out again because she knew if she failed in another pitch it would probably be the end of her. As it was, she got fired anyway so her avoidance technique did not work.
Charleine did well as PM. But not farming out the presentations was an important mistake,. Not largely because it mattered that much, but because it left her with no one else to really blame for losing if they lost. She needs to spread the blame - Lord Sugar often misses good work, and you can still lose if you did well, someone else to blame is often necessary.
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Old 05-11-2015, 09:44
slouchingthatch
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Swimming against the tide somewhat, but I think Charleine was appalling in this task.

The way she treated Richard was terrible. Whatever she thinks of him, to deliberately marginalise him the way she did wasn't clever, as she seemed to think. It was petty and personal, and anyone who manages people like that in a real-life business environment won't last long.

The way she pitched was terrible. Her decision to pitch was selfish. She knew there were better pitchers in her team and she even admitted herself that she's not a natural presenter - as a rational management decision, well, it wasn't rational at all. She did very well in face-to-face selling and her sale at Rainforest Cafe saved what would have been a crushing defeat otherwise, but her decision to lead the pitches was disastrous. (At the very least, she should have let someone else do one of them.)

As for her attempted put-down of April, who then revealed she has a degree in creative writing - well, I had to laugh. I know all the candidates are looking after numnber one, but Charleine seems to show no interest in using her team's strengths. That makes her a terrible leader, although she is a good candidate in other respects.
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Old 05-11-2015, 11:09
stupidityno1
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3) Once again, no one really shined. This is the problem we had with last series, as there are just a bit too many candidates, and the producers like to focus on the failures.
I was thinking the same thing. There's not enough time to focus on each person and it results in the early weeks becoming an unmemorable blur.
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Old 05-11-2015, 11:20
Max Love
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Swimming against the tide somewhat, but I think Charleine was appalling in this task.

The way she treated Richard was terrible. Whatever she thinks of him, to deliberately marginalise him the way she did wasn't clever, as she seemed to think. It was petty and personal, and anyone who manages people like that in a real-life business environment won't last long.

The way she pitched was terrible. Her decision to pitch was selfish. She knew there were better pitchers in her team and she even admitted herself that she's not a natural presenter - as a rational management decision, well, it wasn't rational at all. She did very well in face-to-face selling and her sale at Rainforest Cafe saved what would have been a crushing defeat otherwise, but her decision to lead the pitches was disastrous. (At the very least, she should have let someone else do one of them.)

As for her attempted put-down of April, who then revealed she has a degree in creative writing - well, I had to laugh. I know all the candidates are looking after numnber one, but Charleine seems to show no interest in using her team's strengths. That makes her a terrible leader, although she is a good candidate in other respects.
She was trying to grab the glory for herself and Marginalise anybody she saw as a threat.
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Old 05-11-2015, 11:22
Philip Wales
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I personally thought Charlene was wrong about Richard. She knew she couldn't control him, so sent him off to the sub team, where she basically ignored him every time, asked to speak to David, who then promptly told her exactly what Richard had just said, total waste of time. And this was commended by LAS, had she lost he'd of torn a strip of her. And she didn't trust the sub team, having to check every box herself, what she doesn't realise is that it can come back and "bite you on the ass" as then the sub team can blame her for a failure.

Sam was very poor, can't make a decision for himself, likes to get everything decided for him, you can see he hasn't spent long in the real world.

And who the F•uck is Migam (sp) he's like golem, just hangs around.
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Old 05-11-2015, 11:28
Reggie Rebel
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1 - This came five years too early for Natalie. She needs a bit more life experience to deal with some of the characters she came across here.

2 - Charliene lucked out selling those books at a silly price. The RainForest Cafe will have used them as a consumable. Had the task been calculated on profit rather than raw sales then she could have been in serious trouble.

3 - Elle's gone next time she's in the boardroom, she's offered nothing for a couple of weeks.

4 - I can't see much hope for Brett, April and Sam either, unless their BP is a chain af Alchemists.

5 - Watch out for Joseph, he could be getting the "gets stronger before totally buggering it up" edit but he's growing as the weeks go on.
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Old 05-11-2015, 11:39
jtnorth
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1. I work in children's books, so this episode nearly broke me. I don't think the candidates should be mocked for not coming up with a good picture book story in half a day. On the other hand, I don't believe ANY of those sales would have happened without the cameras there.
2. Sam seems a sweet man but he lost me when he hadn't decided who he was taking into the boardroom - he should have known that when he left the cafe of doom. It's all very well being nice, but dragging out the agony in the hope that it somehow won't be your fault isn't nice it's feeble.
3. A frightening number of them this year seem to think that the numbers are someone else's problem - not only that they don't know them, but that they don't care that they don't know them. And neither of the men stepped in to tell the buyer the percentage when she didn't know it, while Scott stepped in to the other sale (very well), which would make me think they didn't know them either.
4. That whole 'Can I talk to David' thing was appalling management, but hilarious. Charlene really was the one that got away last night. Her sale at the end saved them, so credit to her there, but it's not really fair. Messing up a pitch to a chain like Waterstones would outweigh that in the real world.
5. Lots of them seem to be slipping under the radar.
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Old 05-11-2015, 11:45
slouchingthatch
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She was trying to grab the glory for herself and Marginalise anybody she saw as a threat.
Yes, that's how it appeared to me too. They were terrible, personal decisions which could easily have cost her team the task. If they had lost, I don't see how Sugar could have fired anyone but her.
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Old 05-11-2015, 11:49
slouchingthatch
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1. I work in children's books, so this episode nearly broke me. I don't think the candidates should be mocked for not coming up with a good picture book story in half a day. On the other hand, I don't believe ANY of those sales would have happened without the cameras there.
For sure - that's the same with the products/ads the teams create in many of the tasks. They ask a 'team' of people who know nothing about the market and have none of the necessary skills to do something that would take a professional team weeks or months. The fact the teams come up with any product at all is a miracle - of course, the task is meant to test the process they go through as much as the actual product.

And, for sure, many of the orders placed are for show. I very much doubt that Waterstones or Foyles actually bought anything! And as for independents, if I were them I would be tempted to buy a few purely for the opportunity to get my face on TV and to potentially sell the products afterwards on eBay "as seen on The Apprentice", which I believe is already happening.
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Old 05-11-2015, 12:18
lightdragon
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3 - Elle's gone next time she's in the boardroom, she's offered nothing for a couple of weeks.
Didn't that book actually have her as it's author on the cover? I think she's doing a hell of a lot more than we are seeing, perhaps she's just not the type to make a fuss about everyone acknowledging her input. (Although her lack of blowing her own horn may be her downfall later when she doesn't pipe up in the BR).
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Old 05-11-2015, 12:30
slouchingthatch
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Didn't that book actually have her as it's author on the cover? I think she's doing a hell of a lot more than we are seeing, perhaps she's just not the type to make a fuss about everyone acknowledging her input. (Although her lack of blowing her own horn may be her downfall later when she doesn't pipe up in the BR).
For what it's worth Elle, as the only ever-present on Connexus, is the only surviving candidate who has yet to win a task.
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Old 05-11-2015, 12:53
omgitzjustin
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Mergim has been flying under the radar massively. He sold 2 books to a focus group... ok. Can't think of anything else he's done so far, for everyone else I can
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Old 05-11-2015, 13:09
slouchingthatch
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Mergim has been flying under the radar massively. He sold 2 books to a focus group... ok. Can't think of anything else he's done so far, for everyone else I can
It was a smart move even though it was relatively small - it showed he had a nose for a sale in an unusual situation rather than just plodding along and following the task rules. But, yes, pretty much all he has done so far other than that is ask whether a spring onion is an onion, try to sell fish to a vegan and wonder whether Samuel Johnson might have anything to do with Samuel L Jackson.
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