I'm posting this on a seperate thread because I've put this theory forward and I thnk I've consolidated it now. I would really like know what people think of it.

I'm sorry to say but I think Shazir was just a pawn. Look at it this way... he could only fire one. Therefore he had to keep either Jenny or Lucinda. If he fired Lucinda, it would look as if he agreed with Jenny, which I'm sure he didn't. If he fired Jenny it would look as if he had fallen for Lucinda's bull, which I'm sure he didn't. He dearly wanted to fire both, but he couldn't do that so it the next most important thing is that neither of them triumph. Result: Shazir goes. He made it clear she had done nothing much wrong.

This kind of thing happens all the time in chess. You could go for the oponent's bishop or the rook, but by doing so you would lose your one of your rooks. You do not wish to do this, so you settle on a strategic pawn instead.

Shazir was a pawn. Does that make sense?

Yeah I thought that! I thought he should have sacked all but her. A mass firing - which must happen at some point as there are too many people!

I don't think Shazia was a pawn so much as the other two are better television.

I honestly think that the producers had a chat with him and said that to keep Jenni and Lucinda would mean more confrontations and he wasn't going to hire Shazia anyway.

I sooo think that it was Shazia's idea to categorize all the washing and she thought that she had put such a good system in place that it didn't matter whether she was there or not (but apparently it did!)

Also, it was her idea about the irons and Jenni told her to go.

Also, why wasn't it mentioned in the boardroom that Jenni called Lucinda a fungus???

Does salan not watch the day's vt? or does he just rely on Nick and Margaret and boardroom??

I have often wondered that..

P.s Love your T-shirts I have many

I agree with you all the way Pammi, its what I thought too. Both Jenny & Lucinda deserved to go but as you say it would have condoned the other so he took the other option wrong place wrong time for Shazia

I can see where you are going with the chess strategy, however I'm apt to agree with abercrombie on it being more likely to be a ratings decision.

I thought all of the girls were weak tonight. There was no team effort whatsoever and they all seemed either 'ruthless' or 'individualistic' for the game purposes.

I'm not charmed by any of them so far, but do agree with you on Shazia being a pawn......but for what purpose? Who knows?

I think it was pretty clear that neither three of them would ultimately win - therefore it didnt really matter who he fired because in the next few weeks both Jenny and Lucinda will be gone. I see what you are saying about the "pawn" and that the decison he made means that neither Jenny or Lucinda are victorious. However, I think he is less concerned about that than the entertainment value of having two warring factions in the team. Considering Lucinda seems the petulant type and Jenny is rude, aggressive and openly horrible - the producers probably warned him that those two would create better TV. Jenny should have been fired, Lucinda could have been fired but his decision was wrong (but possibly prevented another Ghazel type???)

Shazia was very unlucky because her mistake was late to be picked up on and was not even that costly in terms of the teams overall victory. Lindi's pricing errors (£5000 for the hotel ) and 24hr hotline could easily have come under more scrutiny. Shazia didnt deserve to be fired.

I thought Jenny should have gone, but Shazia was deffinatly not faultless and I can see why she was fired, though I dont comletely agree with it.

Good post and also good observations regarding Lindi.

This girl is going to avoid the firing line at all costs....and yet she talks to most 'sales BS' I've ever heard

Why thank you

No you're wrong. He certainly COULD fire both. He did it last year.

I was surprised by her firing but on the BBC2 show her Apprentice colleagues painted a completely different picture of her (can't remember exactly what they said but it appears she was generally a pain in the a*se).

So maybe we had not seen the complete picture?

Anyway, the other two definitely make better TV.

I think that is the problem, we don't get to see enough of what actually happens just an hours highlights of the day. I am sure Nick & Margaret feed back to Sir Alan and he takes a lot of store by what they say. They are like his fly on the wall and are with the contestants all the way through the assignments.

They might make better TV but neither came out well from this. I also think Shriza did not defend herself adequately in the board room and that was her downfall

Yes that's my take on it too. Jenni is another one we love to hate, like Kate last year and Lucinda is a bit eccentric whereas poor Shazia is just more cannon fodder. Perhaps he is trying to stop people just flying under the radar from week to week but I think he made a wrong decision. Jenni was definitely to blame IMO and should have gone ... Maybe it's just me but I didn't really get the impression that Lucinda tried to sabotage the task but that Jenni just didn't like her ...

I'm sure I've seen Sir Alan talking about this in the past. I'm pretty sure he said that he DOESN'T see the VT and relies totally on what Nick and Margaret tell him. That obviously creates problems when a team splits up. Which half of the team does Sir Alan's representative follow? I also have never seen Nick or Margaret in the same car as the apprentices. So anything that goes on in the cars is unseen by Sir Alan or his aides. Most of the big incidents in last nights episode happened in the cars (The £4.99 per item and the extreme bullying of Lucinda).

Was it just me or did the summing up/interrogation of the losing team (and subsequent 3 in the boardroom) seem very quick last night? Maybe it was so poor it was edited right down?

I also think that SAS wasn't listening to what was being said. He said that Shazia deserted her team and went back to the house when actually she had suggested to her Team Leader to go back and get the Irons. Her Team Leader had agreed. This had been explained to SAS. To therefore call it a heinous crime was totally wrong and uncalled for. I think when SAS eventually sees the VT of the show (presuming he does) he will be totally embarrassed by his actions and it wouldn't surprise me if he apologised to Shazia (even privately).

Ridiculous! It's only a bl**dy tv programme! Sir Alan probably has access to far more information than us anyway. Did you watch the BBC2 programme? Some of the other Apprentices clearly did not like shazia at all. Maybe she needs to apologise to them?

Why do people call all the contestants "apprentices"?

Anyway , I think all three women were partially to blame but Jenny mad so many mistakes that not firing her was undebateably unjustified.

Reminds me of when SAS fired Samuel instead of eventual winner Michelle when she spent the whole time in the private room sipping champagne with a client when she was Pm instead of selling.

Just a thought, but would it be out of the realms of possibilty that Shazia could come back to the show. It seems to be that about 90% of people are saying SAS messed up big time last night, and it reflects bad on him that everyone is questioning his judgement and saying that he does'nt know what he's doing. There could be a major twist and bring her back. After all, it IS a reality show, and it's happened on other shows like BB. It would certainly grab the headlines for the show. Im probaly talking rubbish.......it's been a long day

Wasn't it announced that beginning of that prog last year that he was going to do that? Or am I getting mixed up with the X Factor?

I tend to assume that these things are controlled in order for a certain number of contestants to be present each week. I suppose they could always send in a stand in - has that been done in this programme before?

Maybe the programme makers wouldn't let him sack two in this programme. Unless you have inside information, you are only surmising that I'm wrong. In fact, you might be even wronger than me!

SAS definately fired 2 one week last series but I cannot remember if we were forewarned

He only fired two people last year because one of them actually didn't want to be there and said he wanted to quit.

I think the whole series of The Apprentice was filmed a while ago, the winner has probably been hired already or else the show is reaching the final couple of weeks by now, so it would be too late to bring her back.

Nice thought, but I've got the impression that by the time the first episode airs the two finalists are already working for suralun leading up to the final.

SAS fired Ifti and Rory in the same week, Ifti was fired because, as you said he wanted to quit (due to missing his son) and when Rory and Tre went to leave SAS said he'd still fire one of them and inevitably, Rory was fired.

I think it was week 2 but I'm not sure.

SAS sacked Rory after Ifti in week 2 - I feel he had made his mind up to sack Rory already and felt that Ifti's idiocy got in the way of this.

I think Shazia was a shame - I really really liked her for some reason, especially towards the end of the episode. It seems SAS is keeping in the bullying and extroverts at the moment and especially keeping the team leaders. Perhaps it is rather unfair to pile everything onto the task alone and forget about personal merits - Shazia probably seemed far more useless to SAS, just like Nicholas did last week.

If Shaz had been just as loud as Jenny, Jenny would have been fired. It's a shame that these loud people are automatically going through. We hadn't seen enough of Shaz yet, whereas Ghazel last year you could kind of tell was slightly, well, useless.

Again, BBC may be trying to be controversial. It seems there was more to Shazia's firing than it appeared (BBC2 sister show)