Oh Ok sorry will do. I just assumed everyone in this forum would know the winner. Will be more careful!

First things first. What an Earth was with the cut to the first advert break? Right in the middle of a scene, and right in the middle of a sentence by the narrator!

Anyway, quite an interesting episode tonight I thought. It was pretty obvious they were going to go for the same artist. I do wonder why when Saria and Raj got such a bad vibe, they didn't go for another artist. Rather than waste time on an artist they weren't keen on, and one the whole team would eventually be convinced they wouldn't get anyway, why not cut your losses and check out another artist, rather than ask what their favourite colour was?

I thought perhaps Saria should have gone into the boardroom at the end. If their chances of getting the artist they wanted were slim to begin with, her presentation ruined it completely. I also think she would have been better in the remaining selling, time finding someone that might buy, rather than pestering someone who was indifferent at best. Between all that and the favourite colour thing, it wasn't the strongest week for her, and that's before we get to talking up the Big Issue seller.

I did like the older guy from the other gallery getting worked up over one of the team's pinching his customers. He should have done the same - pinch customers as they left the team's gallery. Might have got him some extra business.

I understand Sir Alan's reasons for firing Matthew, however I think I might have preferred Paul to go. His attitude outside the boardroom was awful. I could sort of understand his point with Saria, but his anti-female rant didn't exactly do him any favours.

I do agree, any chance her team had of securing their first choice painter was ruined by Saria and her repetitive and stupid pitch to the dealer...that Big Issue seller made me laugh, I thought it was quite funny how Paul gave him the thumbs up as he walked in....


Yes he was a bit of a character, I wondered if he might not have had a drop to much of vino?


I think Matthew was overdue going, he had very few positive contributions to make. Paul is the best salesmen there, imho, and I understood what he was trying to say and tend to think he has a point in part, even if it was expressed poorly. I always cringed when he made those silly anti-female rants, but I'm sorry he is still the best candidate by a mile for sheer entertainment value and also is arguably the best natural salesmen they have ever had in the show. I can't help but like him in spite of myself!

That bleeding Rachel is a waste of space...all these weeks in and she has still done beggar all of note, even having been PM this week!

Maybe, but he reminds me of Adam from the last series in a way. When selling what they know (cars), no-one can beat them. But ask them to sell anything else and they seem to flounder, unless they can tie a car analogy into it, like Paul did last night.


I think she was very lucky last night. Because Paul and Matthew both had faults that Sir Alan decided to take issue with, she more or less flew under the radar. I think on another week she would have a much harder time in the boardroom.

I disagree, Paul has sold very very well till this week..the flowers task, the Harrods task etc, plus he showed excellent negotion skills in the week they had to buy the list of things as cheaply as possible.

He is in propery's not car sales anyway?

Actually come to think of it you're right. Why did cars gets brought up so often last night then?

He used to sell cars didn't he?

It's because he started off in the car trade, but had long since moved on to property.

I think the editing was quite anti-Paul last night, even though he doesn't help himself, so they took a comment or two out of context to make it appear he spent all evening talking cars.

I started watching the Apprentice from series 2 and am now really enjoying the first season. It's so much better than the 2 that followed it! The contestants are so strong, there are good all rounders like Tim, James, Mirriam, and excellent salespeople like Paul and Saira.

I also didn't realise that SAS repeated (almost exactly) a lot of the tasks from series 1, can't he come up with new tasks?

Also, with the ad breaks, the repeats on Dave are cut down to about 45mins, whereas the BBC episodes are 1 hr, what do they cut out of the repeats? is it the little candidate interviews and stuff like that?

I believe a catch-up of last week's episode is cut from the start of the show. When the teams return to the boardroom, SAS usually has a fairly long chat with them before asking for the results. In the Dave edits, this chat is cut out and he asks for the results straight away. (Note that this week's art task was short, so they did include the pre-results chat). They also cut out the surviving contestants returning to the house. I'm sure there are a few other minor cuts here and there, but these three are the most notable.

Not a lot to say this week really. Paul's team were shambolic from the word go. Every member of the team was weak. Even the strongest member Raj has had better weeks. The final three were definately the right ones, and Rachel was the correct choice to go. The other team ran rings round them, simple as.

Funny moment of the week - James messing up the voiceover, swearing and even Margaret cracking up.

Not a very interesting episode all around.

Task was quite dull. I didn't much like the work done by either team, though the right team won. James was on good form this week, I must say..

This is the week to be forever known as:

The week Saira proved what an utter liar she us!

Nasty piece of work, that women...

For all his faults, Paul does not make it personal and is honest in the board room. He damn well did shake her hand last week...but Saira wants to use it as a way to get him out.

Paul was perfectly accurate in terms of the root cause of their disagreement, they are similar in some of their personality traits!

Bye bye Rachael, no one will even notice your gone..

I agree. Come to think of it, I didn't really enjoy the advertising task in this year's series (the trainers). Although better than last night's episode, it was still quite slow compared to other episodes in the series.


She comes across as a nice enough person, with her heart in the right place. However it's been growing increasingly clear for weeks she wasn't quite cut out for the business world. The collage last night was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Ha ha...I couldn't belive she wasted her time on that 'bit of tat'...

I think she was fairly honest in her assessment that she wasn't 'pugnacious' enough.....

Quite an interesting episode tonight. The task was different which was welcome after last week's rather mundane task.

I think it became obvious early on that James' team just weren't pressing hard enough. The only one willing to force the issue was Saria. Sadly it backfired with the Paul McKenna items when they just ended up with a load of clutter that detracted from the main item.

I quite liked the tactics of Ben's team. Aim very high, and if you get knocked back slightly you still end with something good. Even when their confidence took a knock with Ian Wright, they still managed to secure something decent.

I think it was pretty obvious as soon as they returned to the boardroom that Sebastian would go. Saria did well this week (at least in comparison to her team mates). James and Raj, although both having a bad week have both shown potential in previous weeks. Sebastian has just been more or less making up the numbers. As the series passes the half-way point, people like this are inevitably going to fall by the wayside.

A good episode on the whole, and a definate improvement on last week's show.

Yeah, I think this was a rather interesting task - it was as much about people skills as anything, and it was quite telling that, Ian Wright aside, those on Tim's team were able to connect much more with their chosen celebs than James team.


Not only that but I think they pickes some of the wrong people, I mena Mel Smith?? And I'd never even heard of the rugby player!!



Not

I think it was pretty obvious as soon as they returned to the boardroom that Sebastian would go. Saria did well this week (at least in comparison to her team mates). James and Raj, although both having a bad week have both shown potential in previous weeks. Sebastian has just been more or less making up the numbers. As the series passes the half-way point, people like this are inevitably going to fall by the wayside.

A good episode on the whole, and a definate improvement on last week's show.

Yeah, I think this was a rather interesting task - it was as much about people skills as anything, and it was quite telling that, Ian Wright aside, those on Tim's team were able to connect much more with their chosen celebs than James team.


Not only that but I think they picked some of the wrong people, I mean Mel Smith?? And I'd never even heard of the rugby player!!



Not quite sure what Tim was up to there, with his comments about being in a 'competition' to Ian Wright, it almost felt like he was trying to impress him. Miriam did well to rescue the situation.


I'm not convinced that Raj has made too many major contributions, but Sebastian seems to have gotten through almost purely by being 'eloquent' as Nick put it.

I agree. Under normal circumstances Raj should've gone last night, because as you say he hasn't done that much. However in comparison to Sebastian he's done quite a bit, so it was only fair Sebastian went.

I found it quite amusing that Sebastian seemed to think he'd been hard done by in some way when he was interviewed in the cab....

I wonder whether when watching the show back on TV, those who say they shouldn't have gone ever change their mind? Whether the heat of the moment makes them feel that way and reflecting back they feel different?

I have a lot of time for people that can hold there hands up and say I made mistakes, or it was my time to go. I remember being bemused beyond belief when Paul was on Your Fired! after this series and was still going on about the flaming banner as if that made one bit of difference to his teams performance...

A weird episode tonight. At first it looked like Ben's team were going to walk it. Raj and Saria were doing a good Laurel & Hardy while poor James was caught in the middle. Ben's team meanwhile seemed extremely organised. By the end, as detailed at length on the show, Ben's teams over-spend and poor product choice finished them off. But I think Saria's hard-sell technique that helped turn it around too. Between getting the cook to work for free and her not taking no for an answer techinique at the market, it really helped them out.

I actually think Ben going was the wrong choice. I know he was pretty weak as a team leader, but he has been generally dependable, if not exactly exceptional in the past. I didn't like Paul's angry and fiery replies. Every person in a team has to bear some responsibility. He doesn't seem to accept this and gets quite angry when accused of not being 100% perfect. Thinking about it, I think his anger may actually be a defense mechanism, a way to shift attention. Indeed it feels like almost everything he says is designed to deflect the focus from himself - even putting Ben on the spot in the first place. It's been building for a few weeks, but for me tonight he finally showed his true colours. Perhaps he feels he isn't as good as some of the others, and now feels he has to fight to stay in?

Quite an interesting task, and another good episode, even if I don't agree with the result.

Paul is an interesting character - he can be utterly charming and very good humoured, but when he's in a corner his true colours show. I think it was the art gallery task in which he made several misogynist (?sp) remarks to Matthew prior to the final showdown in the boardroom. He clearly likes to think that he's being very principled by not stating who he feels should be fired to SAS.

I thought it was interesting when he fired 'you said you've got catering experience' at Miriam in the final boardroom, which she denied. I thought that he was trying to remind SAS that he had sacked Rachel for claiming to have advertising experience on her CV (in the advertising task).

Interesting comments, as one of the reasons SAS liked Paul was for the reasons you weren't so keen, he liked his tenacity, his determination and his ability to fight his corner. And to be fair, since the show Paul has done better for himself than anyone else out of that series, so I can't agree with the idea of him being a lesser candidate, he's just less polished.

I also think Ben has done nothing to merit him staying this whole series. Not one thing. He was one of those candidates who has snuck along to this stage by keeping a low profile, and as such he was always going to be very vulnerable in the board room.

Interesting. The way I view it is that in order to improve and better yourself you have to learn from your mistakes. However in order to do that you have to admit you make mistakes in the first place. In the final showdown on last night's show, both Ben and Miranda admitted they made errors (even if they did sugarcoat their admission a bit). I haven't seen Paul admit being in error once. Combined with his fiery attitude, I'm starting to really not like him.


A fair assessment. However other than being able to talk his way out of a corner. I'm not sure Paul has acheived that much either. In a purely business mindset, I'm not sure he is really any better than Ben was. Put him next to Saria or Tim and he doesn't seem all that good.