Definately the right decision last night. We all know it's disheartening when people aren't keen or just plain don't like your idea. But sometimes you have to just accept that. Lindsay didn't. She split her teams focus by getting them to work up both the cards and the robot, when it was perfectly obvious she was never going to pick anything other than her own idea. Ignoring all the research from the focus groups, and even her own team-mates votes showed terrible business sense - and let's face it, it was a terrible idea anyway. SAS made the right choice.

I think Lindsey was most likely the worst PM in the whole of series 1....bad team leader, bad idea, no vision, didn't listen to her team, didn't listen to the focus group, didn't listen to the experts. She thought she knew best, but anyone with any commen sense would have known from the word go her idea was a non-starter!

Yes I think that was the most obvious firing of the series. There was little tension in the boardroom really - it could only be her. I wonder if she cringes watching that back.

Best line of the episode was either Paul's comment that the women really need their make-up....

or Ben's retort to Paul when he said that his wife would have missed his chance with him if she had been wearing that much make up.... "...she must be gutted".

Ah - it *was* swapped with Dragons Den, then. I wondered why my recorder taped the wrong thing.

Still, fits in with UKTV's Grand Plan to completely drive down their audiences to 0.01% by 2010. Anybody know if they're *completely* on the edge of bankruptcy yet? AKA "doing a Bravo", where the advertising revenue won't pay for the content, so they show cheaper content, which reduces audience, which reduces advertising revenue, so the content quality is reduced... ad liquidatum!

This weeks episode was quite a revealing one, in terms of sorting the wheat from the chaff. For example, it became clear that Paul and Saria's approach to sales was liable to be far more effective than that of Tim and Ben's.

I really don't feel Miranda should have gone this week, yes she had a sucky attitude, but to be fair to her, she had a point, and Adela was a very poor team leader. Why the heck did she need someone to be her PA FFS!

James really did annoy me at this stage in the series, because he really did seem like a waste of space! Fancy not checking that the shop they went to didn't sell new hats, and that business with the champers....I actually think Paul was spot on when he said he's used to buying 'nice' things and didn't quite grasp the buying cheap approach to this task.

The best part of this episode was the close up of Matthew when told he was being made PM....he looked like he was going to have a heart attack!!!!

On balance, I agree that Miranda should have stayed. It wasn't that she was particularly good this week, it was just that Adele was a lot worse. The best part for me was in the boardroom, when Miranda brought up Adele's 'You could end up coming back into the boardroom with me' speech, and Adele denied it, and claimed it was all on camera. Yes Adele, it was on camera. And you DID say it.


I was whether SAS saw that? If I was in his position, Matthew's response would have spoke volumes.

Reminds me a bit of the Paul/Saria disagreement later in the series

Mind you that was quite a funny moment though...



I think as Paul said, it shows he isn't PM material, and as such he isn't really a suitable candidate is he? I mean he got by because he sat back and let the more competent candidates do there thing, but that isn't really what a good PM should do!

I didn't see the first series so apart from knowing who was in the final this is just like a 'new' series for me. Really enjoying it. Agree totally re: Adele she really should have gone last night but Miranda was never going to set the world alight. Trouble is it really would be a procession of losing team leaders going unless AS made these type of decisions along the way.

Have to say much less 'playing it up for the cameras' with this series than we see now.

MB

Very much so, which is why, much as I still love The Apprentice, this will always be my favorite series. The other thing is, by and large this lot actually seemed to be here for the job, not just to get on TV!

Does anyone know is Thursday's episode is shown again before next Thursday? Missed it.

Thanks

I don't think so, though I'm not 100% sure...

I'm afraid not. Your only chance to see it again is on Dave +1 straight after the initial showing. Seems a bit daft to me. A repeat showing, maybe in the small hours, would surely do little harm to it's Thursday night ratings.

I will be watching this just to see Tim with his shirt off again later in the series!! He is so yummy and delicious!

Is that a agree with me eek? Or a disagree with me eek??

I think on balance the latter...

Interesting to note how well Paul and Saria were getting on at this point.....I suspect it was the very fact they were so similar in personality that eventually caused them to fall out....

Anyway, this was my favorite episode of series one...Paul in the bear suit was classic Apprentice!

Good riddance to Adele, what a rude b*tch she was, regardless of what her personal circumstances were, she had a nerve to speak to the Harrods staff like that. I think she thought they were beneath her to be honest.

She should have gone in the last show, and I think her attitude towards the Harrods staff actually shows that Miranda had a point about her, tbh....

Definately didn't see tonight's ending coming, but I wanted Adele to go so I suppose the end result is the same.

I found it quite difficult to pick between the teams tonight. Usually one team is noticably better than the other, but tonight they were quite evenly matched. They each made a few errors, while making up for those errors in other areas. I suppose the close final totals shows just what an even match it was in the end.

As for Adele, I think it was perhaps unfair that she stayed last week, so I was defintaely looking for her to go this week. I can't really think of anyone else this week that stood out for me as being particularly weak. Having a rude attitude towards the Harrods staff didn't help her either. It's a shame her ducking out stopped us from having the usual final three face-off with Sir Alan, but as I said, she was the weakest so I'm glad she has gone.

Yes, that's what made it a compelling episode for me....it was clearly too close to call for much of the day, with Tim's well organised team starting off stronger, but the stronger sales skills of Jame's teams allowing them to make up for their lack of planning.

One thing that James did that was right was to take action when he recognised he had made an error in not getting any entertainment organised. A lot of PM have sat back and hoped for the best in those situations.

I'm actually surprised how good Tim has been in these early stages. Volunteering to be PM twice in the first four episodes shows a certain degree of character. I remember my feelings watching it the first time round were that he didn't deserve to win in the end - maybe he performs more poorly towards the end of the series? I can't remember now but I'm looking forward to rewatching the whole thing through.

They do seem to be editing these episodes though. They keep chopping off the beginning and ends of scenes. I guess it's how they get a 1 hour programme into 1 hour + adverts.

There are some aspects of the show that can stand to be edited out for adverts - last week's catch-up for example, however I do wish they wouldn't edit quite as much. You never get to see the full boardroom sequence - only from the point when Sir Alan asks for the results. With Dave showing 40-minute programmes like HIGNFY and QI, I don't think it would upset the schedule too much to let it run for say 1 hour 10mins. It would still need a few cuts here and there (like the catch-up), but it wouldn't feel quite as hacked as it does now.

I do agree with you, however to there credit they have managed to edit things in such a way as to not favor one team over another, and nothing that has been edited out has been vital to the show.

Perhaps you should be covering you sentence about who wins with spoiler tags for those who don't know who wins???

That's actually a fair point, I have been doing this myself when discussing major spoilers for later episodes. I guess it's a bit late now though....

That a nice thought, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who is grateful to those who have seen the series for not revealing spoilers. However although I haven't seen this series before I already knew who won. To be honest, with all the publicty surrounding the BBC1 series earlier in the year, people would have had to have been very fortunate to not know already.