[AUK] Heading North

TV Programme: The Apprentice (UK)
Season: 5
Episode: 7
Date I watched this episode: 06/05/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 7 days.

Team Leaders: Mona (Em-1) and Lorraine (Ig-7)
Winner: Empire
Ignite Boardroom: Lorraine, Kate, Phillip
Fired: Phillip
The One That Got Away: Lorraine

This episode seemed like an attempt to create a mini-Dragon's Den within The Apprentice. Dragon's Den is BBC's other main reality business programme. However this structure didn't really work within The Apprentice; it seemed like a bit of a list most of the time: a lot of repetition of situations within the episode. This wasn't necessarily the editors' fault, but the task wasn't designed very well.

It seemed odd to me that both teams strongly decided to take the approach of trying to choose products which would sell well on the second day rather than the first. This was a huge risk and it paid off well for Empire but Ignite fell into the plainly obvious trap of not getting enough buyers lined up.

Everyone seems to be raving about Mona's performance in this task but I don't think it was all that great. Sure, she did some really good deals in the selling, but she didn't have the dynamic leadership qualities that other candidates in this series or past ones have had.

Howard is generally quite negative in his body language and facial expressions. He is also rather naïve if he thinks he can appeal to Debra's "generosity"! He says that "this is not about how many sales Debra can make, it's about how many sales the team can make" but his logic is flawed because every sale Debra makes counts towards their team total and obviously Debra is going to look out for herself; that is what the competition is about.

Lorraine is also looking out for herself in a much less subtle way when she says to Yasmina that she is going to do the pitch but doesn't give any kind of valid reason. In general Lorraine didn't demonstrate professional behaviour this week. She said that it takes a bit longer for things to dawn on her - in front of Sir Alan - so she is clearly a bit mixed up about how this entire thing works!! In my opinion, she should have gone this week. As she said herself, the fact they didn't sell was largely down to the product choice not being targeted to the more simplistic out-of-London market and she was the one making the product choices.

Kate has gone from "Hero to Zero" in Sir Alan's words. She really has gone down in his estimations and he is going to be keeping a much closer eye on her from now on. She however did demonstrate a professional approach by giving negative feedback on Phillip's performance in the boardroom, despite their previous romantic liaison. This was more than could be said for Phillip!

As for Phillip, he was thoroughly corrosive this week but the major failure was not standing up for himself in the boardroom enough against Kate's criticism, and instead employing the strategy of just laying into Lorraine. This was what got him fired. And like Sir Alan said, he showed his true colours in the end, when instead of thanking Sir Alan for the opportunity, he uttered the single word "Joke".

Next week however looks like it should be interesting with Howard pushing his homosexual tendencies on the group. However his generally uninteresting personality could mess up the dramatic feel of the episode, so we'll have to wait and see.