I didn't mean he DID nothing, he clearly was working on printing the photos

its just this week, and last where he waited on tables (again working hard) he seemed to be keeping low and keeping out the firing line to me, saying little and not getting involved.

its a strategy that works in most reality Tv series, most notably BigBrother, where the final few contestants nearly always said little for about the first 3weeks.

it's worth bearing in mind that the producers have to edit down all the weekly tasks to fit an hour show.

in that case they will often just focus on the stuff that losing team candidates did or didn't do that week. I could tell well before Simon said who he wanted in the boardroom with him, by virtue of the footage that had preceded (his arguments with Claire and Alex)

I daresay that various team members did a fair amount but because they probably didn't have a massive blow up like Lucinda or sniped at each a la Simon/Alex/Claire - it wasn't worth showing in final prog

unfortunately this can seem like quiet one's are slipping through
Last edited by Mike Teevee : 17-04-2008 at 12:31

Tough call last night, any of the 3 could quite easily have gone. I'm surprised SAS fired Simon though; he quite clearly liked some of his qualities but obviously had reservations about his management skills. I'd have thought he was worth another chance personally.

Still not getting what people see in Raef . As far as I could see his only contributions last night were to make up the cardboard boxes and to transfer a photo to a mug, which he managed to get the wrong way up!

Nice to hear Margaret & Nick have some real input in the boardroom for a change. Loved it when they put Helene & Claire in their place.

Sara's still my favourite of the girls ......hasn't she got a lovely smile

I'm sorry if this has been answered before but does anybody know how previous winners are getting on the the Sugar Empire?

I totally agree with this post - I thought Claire was the only one to stand up and suggest alternatives to Simon's 'bull in a china shop' mentality

I was really sorry to see Simon go. He was my favourite prior to last night's ep, and I thought he handled his exit and You've been Fired with great dignity and humilty.

But I have to agree with SAS's decision. As PM Simon just didn't step up to the mark when it came to organising, motivating and controlling the "team"! Although to be fair, Helene had equal problems and she had also looked like a very strong candidate in previous weeks.

Frankly how anybody's going to produce a viable, motivated and productive team from that bunch of back stabbing, self interested, egotistic wannabes is beyond me! If any of them can, I'd recommend Suralan hires them there and then.

Last thought - I fully agree it was nice to hear and see more of Margaret and Nick's input last night. As I recall that always featured in previous years board-rooms and I'd like to see it much more this year.

Tim and Michelle no longer work for him. Simon Muppet still does.

He should have gone with kids n baby photos instead of glamour - those pixi photo people always seem to be inundated with moms n toddlers and he could have charged a premium

Although a very likeable bloke, Simon was totally responsible for his own exit from the programme. He clearly didn't manage the team but got completely sidetracked by the buzz he got from taking photographs of the shoppers.

Before hitting Bluewater he should identified all the processes involved and allocated resources to each. This would have freed him up to concentrate on team management and problem solving.

God, before last nights show, Simon and Helene looked like two of the stronger candidates, but they both did quite badly as PM.

I'm gutted Simon went, he didn't do brilliantly, admittedly, but Claire should have gone. Its the second task in a row where she's been deliberatley disruptive and disrespectful to the PM. Whilst Simon was overexcited in places, he could have done better if he didn't have to keep battling with Claire.

I felt sorry for Lucinda, again she seemed to be getting it in the neck for something that ultimatley wasn't her fault.

No way....

Simon is and always will be a Number 2. He begged to be PM last night but neglected to carry out that role. Clare could quite clearly see this and was consequently right to challenge him.

What exactly did Claire actually DO in the task?? All I saw her do was deliberately sabatage the task at every opportunity and undermine the manager at every opportunity.

Are you allowing your dislike of an individual apprentice to influence your judgement on her performance within a task?

Think the person was asking...what did Claire do? Nothing- so on that basis, she should have gone.

Did anybody do anything...much of what was filmed must have ended up on the cutting room floor 'cos most people seemed to have been recorded standing around with their hands on their hips.

If they're playing Middlesbrough at the time, I'll take him from the front!!!!!

Indeed. What annoys me most about this show is the editing!

Just acting isn't it?

Just pretend that he's really angry with her so that it doesn't look that bad when he saves her.

Just a sweetener for the viewer to make out he can't stand her, when all along he probably had no intention whatsoever of firing her.

If he was as angry with her as he was 'acting' to the camera he was, she would have certainly been fired.

He was making out that it was all real, but if he felt about her the way he said he did, then there's no way that he'd want her to work for him.

You forget,..she really was.
In the first few weeks Ruth Badger was the hate figure. She was hated almost as much as Katie Hopkins.

But when she had a good week and sold some stuff really well and did a very good job on a couple of tasks, people suddenly decided that she was okay and wanted her to win.

People are fickle like that.

The same will probably be true for Claire too. She'll do really well in a couple of tasks and win as team leader,...and suddenly she'll have a fan club.

Some people didn't like Ruth, but she was never anything close to a real hate figure. I liked her from the start.

I don't quite agree with the spoilers that this was the most unfair firing yet. I think it was unfair, don't get me wrong; Claire should have gone. But there were reasons to fire Simon. He got too involved in the photography rather than leading the team, and he crumbled under pressure. It doesn't compare with the injustice two weeks ago when Shazia got fired for doing nothing wrong whatsoever. Her alleged sin, leaving the laundry, was on the instructions of her team leader. Incompetent, bullying Jenni should have gone. Firing useless Lucinda could have been justified. But Shazia, never. No way.

Further thought; the difficulties Simon had with Claire only increased my admiration for how well Sara coped with her last week.

I believe that she was responsible for relaying the information between Simon and the others in the printing department.

YES SHE WAS.
I clearly remember in last year's Apprentice threads that people were speaking about her in the same way that they are currently speaking about Claire and Jenny.
It wasn't 'some people' it was 'most people'.

I think that there's a bit of revising history going on to some extent on this forum. For the first few weeks most people didn't like Ruth Badger.
Then she had a couple of successful tasks and most people revised their opinion of her again.
A lot of people even do this with Katie Hopkins and put a positive spin on her if she appears on some other programme.

And I stand by what I said. As soon as either Claire or Jenny do well in a few tasks, a lot of people will decide that they like them. I guarantee you of that.
Of course it depends on if they actually do well in future tasks or not.

It's all in the editing. Any one of them can be made to look like angels or villains by taking some choice select cuts from episodes, and they can just as easily turn it around by using more positive edits later on in the series.

We like to think that we 'know what they're like', but we don't really. We just know about them based on very short clips. We may get an essence of sides to their characters, but we can never truly know them for sure.

I clearly remember last year most of the forum were gunning for Ruth Badger just as they are with Claire and Jenny. This can turn around at any future point in the series and people WILL revise their opinions on them if they do well in tasks.

Queue Diary Room & 24 hour monitoring being introduce to the house for next series of The Apprentice

You are quite right but I'm sorry to break it to everyone but actually The Apprentice is quite like the real life that I've experienced at some big City of London companies with big projects on the go. There are loads of slopey shouldered "nothing to do with me guv" losers like Alex at these companies - I come across them all the time. And there are STACKS of stab-you-in-the-back-in-an-instant / disruptive / deliberately destabilizing / negative characters working in loads of City projects. Especially amongst freelance project/programme managers who can instantly go from nice-as-pie to step-all-over-everyone-else when the project is nearing the end and they want to grab any credit at whatever cost in order to get on the next project. Rather than have any actual skills that would speak for themselves. I don't know why these people keep getting employed, a lot of it is their mates (who are equally useless and scumlike) get them in on some project and they go from there. But it is real life. Alex, Claire and Helene types exist on every big paying project. Good project managers can control them or kick them out. But they are sadly few and far between.

It's why I don't (and will never) do project management of any sort in the city, even though it pays loads. I couldn't stand the incompetence and then the blatant back stabbing that went on time and time again. I want a pleasant and polite life for me and all those around me thanks.

Ratings for this episode

around 7 million viewers, peaking at 7.6.

I believe these are the highest the show's ever gotten for a finale episode, maybe any episode?