In spite of no longer being able to afford to have his suits cleaned, King Alan of Sugar-land has once again stumped up 250 grand for a dedicated entrepreneur and they have flocked from far and wide with plenty of business-bollocks on offer.
"I'm the reflection of perfection" says Ricky. Many is the time that I have looked at something and thought "that would be perfect if you flipped it 180 degrees on its vertical axis."
"I will literally roar myself to the top," says Gabrielle. I think the only way to achieve this would be to face the ground and hope the resulting sonic wave propels you all the way to the boardroom.
With the candidates arriving in said boardroom, the means by which they got there is not specified, Lord Siralan launches into his customary speech. Apparently if he was there age he would still be sitting at this boardroom table. This prompts some head scratching until he clarifies that he means that he would be entering the competition. Queue an image of a middle aged Stuart Baggs haranguing a bunch of suits about how when he was there age he was a whole field of ponies.
Lord Siralan is looking for investment opportunities and, this time, he has actually looked at their business proposals, which should avoid mad ideas like posture analysis companies, budget concierge services and, horror of horrors, charities, but does raise the question of what all these tasks are actually for? Can't he just pick the best proposal? Nevertheless, the tasks are set to continue and the first is the customary manufacturing task. This time printing stuff on stuff. Buy some plain items and add value by printing some designs. I suspect a not too subtle satire of the whole concept of "adding value" is on its way.
But first there's the apprenti's new home to visit. And it appears to be the longest, thinnest house in London. It comes with it's own indoor swimming pool, I think, or maybe its a big fish tank? Divided once again along gender lines the teams have to come up with a name for themselves. The boys go with Phoenix, which is suitably cliched until you realise that it implies they will have to crash and burn at some point before succeeding. The girls go with Stirling which is either saying something about their many admirable qualities or their naked greed, take your pick.
Swimming Pool or Fish Tank?
After names comes project managers. Gabrielle works in a print company and Lord Siralan frowns on those who have skills in an industry and don't take charge. The boys are more cagey, wary of the dangers of being project manager in week 1. With the whole team sat silently around a table its a case of waiting to see who will blink first. And its Nick, a man with a suit and, bizarrely, hair that appears two sizes too big for him, who cracks. Barely has the word I gotten out of his mouth than the rest of the team are slapping him on the back and offering their whole hearted support.
The boys decide to focus on tourists, and reckon Teddy Bears are the way to go. None of you crappy small bears though, Nick will only accept big bears. The girls focus on children, risky as it restricts their market. With the discussion over the teams further sub-divide with half going to see some designers and the other half to buy some raw materials. This sort of thing is justified on the grounds of time constraints (though the deadlines are all arbitrary) but is actually a brilliant way to prevent co-ordination and ferment argument. The buying team has no idea what to buy, the design team doesn't know what their working with and either way the project manager is left out of the loop.
This is amply demonstrated by team Stirling who appear to be plucking numbers out of the air because they like the sound of them. Eighty T-shirts, Ninety? When calling Gabrielle for guidance she pretty much just says "okay" and puts the phone down. To be fair, the design team are very busy. Jade, who has a croaky voice and a nice range of odd facial expressions, has come up with three animal designs of the sort a child might draw and the team are busy testing out a range of colours. To be fair, the designs look pretty decent and wouldn't be out of place in a proper shop, but it would be nice if more than one of the team had the slightest understanding of the concept of profit margin.
Phoenix have the opposite problem. Having spent all day working out exactly what they are going to charge and how much they are going to make, the design team only have thirty minutes left for actual design and decide, re the bears, to just slap a Union Jack on and have done. They then manage to come up with a back design so poor it even insults tourists: a huge red bus with the caption "This is a". There's something almost artistic in the tautology of the statement. It can be added to absolutely anything and be true. I look forward to seeing some enterprising artist adding "This is a" to everything in the Tate Modern.
With design and not design out of the way, its on to the print factory. G gets to show her experience, neatly printing bibs, T-shirts and jigsaws. But Nick (Hewer) is worried about Katie. She's not doing very much. Alright Nick, you're not her dad. Still Katie's contribution does seem to consist of standing next to a printer and very occasionally pushing a button.
Phoenix have bigger problems. With no printing experience between the eight of them, their struggling to get the paint mix right and stained bags litter the floor and walls. The bears are doing better, requiring only a quick design be added to their T-Shirts, but even some of them seem to have been caught in the crossfire, sporting red paint stains that make them look like casualties.
The next day comes and Phoenix are down at the Southbank. Nik gives a pep-talk in which he lets slip that he intends to gouge tourists for £15 a bear. Stephen is so outraged that he quietly takes the Project Manager a side to have a word. Actually he doesn't, he tried to incite a revolt amongst the team. This goes down like a lead balloon and he is duly dispatched to Kings Cross for his trouble, to flog bears to weary travellers fresh off the Eurostar.
Stirling meanwhile are setting up in Greenwich Market and the decision to focus on children doesn't seem so bad as their are plenty of young mums about. Plus they have found a smart way to make use of their printing equipment by personalising the goods they sell with children's names. The plan is to send another team to London Zoo, but they can't seem to get a move on and end up stuck in midday traffic. Gabrielle doesn't seem to quite believe it, having to be told several times that no they definitely haven't gotten there yet.
Having failed to make much of an impact at the Eurostar terminal, the Phoenix sub-team have, somehow, managed to find a shop owner who believes her customers would be interested in a canvas bag with a strong sense of its own identity. She obligingly takes the lot at a cut down price. The logic in Nik's bear pricing structure starts to appear, the team can drop them to £10. By lowering the price from actively insulting to simply outrageous, customers feel like they are getting a discount and sales start to pick up.
Meanwhile, the Stirling sub-team have arrived at the Zoo at last. Unfortunately, there is dissent in the ranks. Bilyana keeps charging off to make sales by her self and, rather than split up to cover more ground, the rest of the team decide to sit around bitching about how she won't let them have a turn. The zoo abandoned in favour of looking for bulk sales in shops, the rest of the team get an opportunity to back stab when Bilyana takes them on a detour so massive it may be via the Communist tower block she apparently grew up in.
The Phoenix sales sub-team have also hit a set back. Apprentice candidates have always done well out of flogging cheap rubbish, safe in the knowledge that repeat business is irrelevant as the company won't exist the next day. Unfortunately, Phoenix have managed to find a customer who actually bothered to look at what she'd bought and, having discovered that her bags look like they were used to clean up after some horrifying domestic incident, has called them back demanding a refund. Queue shame-faced apologies and no money as the candidates walk shamefully past Karen Brady in full on headmistress mode.
Not that Stirling are exactly covering themselves in glory. In a desperate bid to make up for lost time the Zoo team have taken to desperately haranguing a shop worker. All four are shrieking at once, it's a bit like being attacked by a girl band. When their poor victim has finally had enough Jane storms off in a huff claiming they're "wasting time." This leads to a dressing down from... actually I've no idea who. The shop manager? The manager of another shop? A passer by? Their victims DAD? The King of the shopping centre? Regardless, Jane is left apologising profusely just like team Phoenix.
With the day ending on a sour note, the two teams are dragged back to the boardroom. Lord Siralan seems genuinely impressed with Jade's design skills and the use of printing equipment to personalise products. But having a viable long term strategy counts for nothing in the face of short term gain (wait what?). Never underestimate the willingness of tourists to buy any old rubbish at a stupid price. Phoenix are triumphant £616.20 to £214.80. And the boys are sent off to eat canapes off bathroom tiles. Off course none of them would make the obvious joke about a "night on the tiles", no wait they would.
Stirling are packed off to Bridges cafe, who seem to have gotten a nice new table big enough to sit all eighth comfortably. This seems awfully generous given none of the candidates ever get much more than a tea. Honestly, it would be nice if during the recriminations you could see one of them tucking into a fry-up. Bilyana blames their failure on Gabrielle's inability to make quick decisions, her sub team blame her because she's mean. Also, the massive detour.
Back in the boardroom the detour is again mentioned, though her team-members general pathetic-ness counts in Bilyana's favour. Nick rats out Katie for being rubbish, the snitch. Gabrielle brings Katie and Bilyana back into the boardroom, though at this point in the series it may be more about whose name she can remember.
Bilyana gives a comprehensive account of herself, going all the way back to school. Apparently she was head girl. Katie is stuck spouting business platitudes because she hasn't actually done anything. Gabrielle comes under fire from Bilyana and doesn't so much roar as squeak, becoming increasingly high pitched to the point where she appears to stop breathing. Please fire her just to shut her up!
Despite Bilyana's interruption of Lord Siralan's summing up, Katie has committed the unforgivable crime of being boring and she's clearly for the chop. But what's this? Having clearly failed to read the mood, Bilyana leaps in begging for another chance that she was going to get anyway. This unexpected turn of events hits a bug in the Sugarbot's programming. Programmed to ignore pleas for mercy, he isn't sure what to do when the person begging for mercy is not the one being fired. Ultimately a need to destroy the weak overcomes, the slightly feeble finger of doom is drawn leftwards and Bilyana is fired. In the taxi out she doesn't even seem to realise that she more or less fired herself. Katie does, on the other hand, and reckons she owes Bilyana a drink.
Next time: The invention task in which fifteen people are expected to enter an industry in which they have little or know experience and produce a product no-one has ever thought of before in about an hour. Phoenix invent the bin and you can't fault Jane's ambition, asking for orders of a million units.
