What puzzles me is why they saved her, she escapes as not fired when she was never exceptionally talented in any task. Jadine had a better record?

SAS queried Kristina for experience in pharmaceuticals not so good for his industry, but what has Katie done? Abandoned the Army after an expensive training and education (MBA) on the taxpayers bill, gone in to Consultancy with no commercial experience.

I definitely think it was a set-up and SAS knew that she wasn't going to take the job. The way the camara went to her fidgeting was so obvious, and the whole thing was totally fake. I just think he offered her the job to create a bit of controversy and to make good tv.

I'm sure the "What Katie Did Next" series is already at the planning stages.

^ Or possibly "Who Katie did next"......

It did seem a bit odd. From what the interviewers told Sir Alan, it seemed like Kristina was a definate finalist and the second finalist was between Katie and Simon. Why would Sir Alan tell Katie that she was in the final first? It would have been moe suspensful if Kristina had been told she was in first, and then Sir Alan pick between Katie and Simon.

What a risk though! What if she hadn't backed out?! Personally, I thought that was a very stupid move of Sir Alan.

Totally agree. They both (unfairly) look like 2nd choice now.

Why the hell did she bother to appear on the show if she had no intentions of moving from Devon in the first place.

After the pictures of her shagging in the field, I expect we'll see her in the Sport this Sunday!

Do the Sport use Transvestites?

What was stupid is allowing Katie to come out of it all as the potential winner, as Sir Alan's favourite, etc, despite her appalling & unprofessional behaviour.

I don't mean her general nastiness and backstabbing here (though that would have put me off employing her, Sir Alan's horrible advisors seemed to see that as a plus.)

I mean her arrogance at taking the show's hospitality and personal benefits without having any intention of working for Amstrad at the end of it. She knew her situation and the changes she would have to make in her life all along. Both she and the programme makers should have asked those questions much earlier in the process.

He makes the rules so he could quite easily have turned round and said you know what, you obviously don't want the job, I've changed my mind.

I feel cheated by it. How much else is pre-planned and staged (but not so crassly as last night)?

If the producers are going to give us a fictional programme perhaps they could be more honest about it in the first place. What a waste of time.

'I hate liars...' Sir Alan?

By selecting her she now has the ability to say she turned down a job offer from Sir Alan. Feather in her cap. He should have given her the boot, not let her make the choice herself.

I found her 'resignation' scenes baffling for the many of the reasons you have all already given. Her reaction when told she was 'in' seemed genuine, if surprising. She looked downcast and uneasy. It appeared that SAS did not notice this immediately, but a moment or two later he turned back and said 'you don't look like a person who has been told they are in'. It was as if he had received some kind of prompt - or the scene had been re-shot at that point.

I suppose it comes down to this: do we really think SAS is that smart that he realised she would back out, and was calling her bluff? And if he IS that smart, why didn't he fire her for some other reason - IMO his advisors had put her third behind Simon and Christina anyway. Very high risk to depend on Katie to show some integrity, so surely there was some arm-twisting behind the scenes to ensure she WOULD drop out when pressed.

I got the impression from the interview with Katie (plus Tre and Lohit) on BBC Radio Five Live this morning that Simon had been fired - or was about to be - when Katie spoke up and told SAS she was standing down.

The scene was re-shot.

Otherwise it would have been Katie v Kristina for the final.

Ah so maybe she was wanting to actually win it and then 'stand down' but when she realised she was in the final with Kristina and turning it down if she won would mean handing the job to Kristina she decided to go now and at least have some hope that someone other than Kristina ends up with the job.

now, would that be prime time or 'specialist' channel?

Which fits the point I forgot that the interviews are before the final two go off to work for SAS in previous years. The gap explains why Katie might decide at that point as she would have had to work for him in London for 6 months before the final. SAS would look an idiot letting her through if she doesn't want the job and he would have no final or a very odd one if she walked away after becoming one of the two finalists. its in both their interests that thay reshoot and the offer stands and she rejects it.

She has an explanation. Nick sees her as a gameplayer. SAS can claim that "no one makes a fool out of me" regardless. It works.

Thanks, that makes sense. I didn't hear the interviews, and I only saw the last half of You're Fired, so I wondered if I had missed some hint of an explanation.

What does surprise me though was that he was ever intending to pick Katie rather than Simon - I actually thought Simon was his favourite over all. As networkbabe says the solution means they all save face, although not very convincingly. Shame SAS did not realise what Katie was about without all that prompting.

I thought it was bizarre! Can someone just help me understand why she quit??? I don’t understand going through 9 months of constant auditions, interviews and no money coming in, to at the last moment drop out?

Weird woman!!!

That was awful - totally planned by her

can any of you see the smug, odious and snobby Katy working for Sir Alan in Brentwood or Radlett? of course not, and she's known it all along

now she can safely say she wasn't fired and boast about how she would have won the final and we'll never know!

personally I was very surprised she got through the interviews - she totally ran rings around the the chunky one, had him believing all her crap

glad the other two saw through her though

and what gave the impression she was capable - I've not seen her perform really well in a single task, it's all about how much money she was earning in the outside world

pah - what a cop out by Sir Al, he should have said 'Katie, you're not committed YOU'RE FIRED'

So if Simon was fired then surely Kristina is his choice for the Apprentice.

Also, everytime the camera shot to Kristina her face was like thunder! It makes me wonder if they all knew that she didn't really have any intentions of taking the job.

I think Kristina knew that as usual, she was making it 'all about Katie'

what's the talking point? not the two that got into the final, but the odious person who walked out with a smirk on her face

the other thing that really got me was what she put on her CV about 'stealing someone else's husband because I wanted him'

I really have a problem with that - why would you be proud of it ever? It says everything about her that she would even think to boast about it

Have you all read, there was an article where Katie's stepdaughter has accused Katie of being a stand by for a past series of Big Brother and also accused her of wanting fame!

She was just a bullsh*tter. The interviewers got it right when they said she was just there so she could say 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt'. She came across as one of these middle-aged neurotics, desperate to achieve a transitory fix of power and importance, just for the ego boost it gives them. So they undertake these 'grand' projects but lack the conviction to see them through - because, of course, they're not really interested in anything other than themselves.

Reality television is of course an ideal medium for that sort of thing. You get to piss about for 12 weeks; it's all being filmed so you're guaranteed a bit of exposure, and you get the chance to prove yourself against others. However, on The Apprentice, there's a crunch - eventually the cameras are going to get switched off, all the clowns who made you look good will have disappeared, and you're left to do battle with a variety of corporate gangsters and deal with Sir Alan Sugar, who's grumpy because he didn't get his cup of warm milk before naptime. All while choking on car fumes in our nation's glorious capital.

Katie was completely flighty, and she got sussed. 12 weeks did her down to the ground, but she wasn't interested in it long-term. Which is why this news that she once applied to go on Big Brother doesn't really surprise me - it seems like her kind of thing. For all her crap about "I'm not going to be seen as a mother", it was all about her being a mother. She just liked these little excursions to try and prove she's more than that.

Unless she WAS a plant, in which case, yeah, it was all orchestrated. But if we take her on face value as a genuine candidate, I think Alan Sugar knew she didn't want it and pushed her into acknowledging that. And, wisely, she took her cue - knowing that if she'd have got into the final there'd have been a chance she'd have lost to Christina or Simon (humiliating), or, had she won, ended up with a job that she knew she didn't really have the greatest capacity for. So of course, she walked - thus avoiding being fired and preserving the self-image she's so concerned with.