After, Laura's ejection last wee, the teams are slightly unbalanced and so Phoenix are given a free pick from Stirling. This has Adam almost ludicrously excited because he gets to pick Nick. In fact, the entire team are practically falling over themselves at the prospect of getting Nick on the team. I know he's more human than most of the other candidates, but this is a bit much.
Yay Nick!
Phoenix are pretty quick to choose Tom as their project manager, which is brave given that he lost last week, but then he is actually a wine merchant so should know something about the subject. Over at Stirling, all four team members have put themselves forward for the job. They hold a vote and everyone votes for themselves. So they have to go to second preference votes, and then have to explain to Stephen that he can't vote for himself twice. It was electoral systems like this that got Hitler elected. Finally, they manage to decide on Ricky as PM.
Following a brief discussion in which both teams essentially agree that emphasising quality is the way to go, the teams are divided. Two team member will get to work on the campaign website, while the other two will head out to the country to sample lots of wine. Somehow this doesn't feel like a fair division of labour. Still, Ricky, who has nominated himself to go on the research trip, doesn't actually like wine, so no-one can say he's enjoying himself.
The same cannot be said for Tom and Adam who are having a grand old time. Say what you like about Adam, he certainly throws himself into every task, albeit with undue confidence. With Tom deploying wine-speak left and right, Adam decides to join in. He's getting hints of Granny Smith. I sincerely hope he means the apple. Personally, I'm getting a strong scent of blagging with just a hint of desperation..
Back with Stirling, Gabrielle and Stephen have been set to work on marketing material. Stephen thinks they need a word to sum up their campaign and suggests Grandeur. This carries all the right connotations, except for being French. Next up, Stephen re-brands Champagne as Fizzy Plonk. The team next stop off at Tesco's to look at branding. Unfortunately, this particular branch doesn't stock any English Sparkling Wine. Gabrielle decides to make the best of it by looking at the design of champagne bottles. Stephen, however, will not be deterred and goes on a desperate hunt for the in-store Sommelier, a quest that he abandons after about an hour and a half of wandering up and down the bread aisle. Stephen decides to pin the blame for his dismal failure on Gabrielle, suggesting she's happy not to have seen a bottle of English Sparkling wine. Not really a question of being happy Stephen, more a case of recognising that you can't get what you want simply by looking really earnest about it.
Stephen on an epic quest for a Sommelier
Nick and Jade, meanwhile, are hard at work on their campaign website. It lookas professional, which it should given Nick's background in technology, and seems to convey the right atmosphere. They also have an ESW logo ready to go. But the team are feeling pressured and could do with some help. They get Project Manager Tom on the phone, but he seems to be very busy running a wine tasting for a group of ladies. Be fair guys, you can't expect him to do everything. Karen Brady questions whether the team leader should be having this much fun. Maybe you should go over and kick him in the shins Karen? Actually, this would probably do him some good. Having availed themselves of all the free samples on offer, Tom is now convinced that they are marketing "English Wine Sparkling" while Adam is just giggling to himself in a corner.
The next day dawns along with, presumably, a few hangovers. Adam still seems fine, possibly because the alcohol couldn't actually find his brain. Tom looks pretty subdued, but what else is new? The second big task for the teams is to produce a video advert to show on their website. This leads to a new division of labour, with half the team filming and the other half finishing the website and working on a presentation. Ricky puts Jenna and Stephen in charge of filming emphasising that the finished product must be classy and of high quality. You would have thought Ricky would have learned a lesson about putting other people in charge of videos by now.
Meanwhile, for Phoenix, Jade and Adam are working together. Jade is directing and Adam has, once again, declared himself choreographer. As far as Jade is concerned, this is like giving a small child on a plane a hat that says Assistant Captain. Unfortunately, Adam is labouring under the delusion that he has something useful to contribute and starts interfering in everything from object placement to telling actors how to hold their glasses. Everyone else just rolls the eyes and waits for the sweet embrace of death.
Not a good idea to put Adam next to so many guns
Still, it's better than the situation for Stirling. Jenna seems to have interpreted Ricky's instructions to keep it classy as "get a massive throne out." The setting is a country-house wedding and the idea is a vignette in which a bride refuses the offered champagne in favour of English sparkling wine. It could work, I suppose, except that Jenna practically has the bride spitting the stuff across the room before starting a fight, which isn't quite conveying the intended atmosphere. At one point Ricky gets on the phone to see how things are going and checking that high quality is still the by-word. Jenna reassures him that it definitely is, suggesting that she has a different understanding of words than most people.
With the video work done, the teams sit down to watch the finished product. Jade and Adam's video shows a group of people sitting around drinking in a gastro-pub with a voice-over. Tom and Nick think it looks a little bit dull. For Ricky, dull is the least of his problems as he suffers the horrible realisation that he will once again be shafted by a video he delegated to someone else. But it's too late to do anything about it now, it's offer to the pitches to a bunch of wine-worthies.
It's happened again!
Say what you like about Ricky, he gives a good speech. He introduces the website, emphasises the choice of colours designed to suggest luxury and quality and Gabrielle's nicely designed rose-wine glass logo. Then he has to introduce the video, which has the effective of pouring a mass of raw sewage, vomit, bile and filth into his wine-glass and asking that the audience drink it. They are so shocked that the best they can come up with by way of criticism is to ask if any champagne producer would represent themselves in this way. Someone else asks about Stephen's tag line "less fizz more sparkle," which, frankly, the least of their problems. Stephen waffles on a bit without saying anything, but the audience seem satisfied, suggesting they haven't sat through enough business presentations.
With Stirling out of the way it's Tom's turn. He's not as confident as Ricky and his video and website are a bit dull by comparison. But, dull is probably preferable to borderline criminal. The audience think he missed the target market, with a campaign focused on existing drinkers. Plus, they're concerned that the website may prove difficult to update. Tip, if you don't think you can update a website you may not be ready for Internet marketing.
After getting some feedback off the sparkling wine people, Lord Siralan drags the teams back to the boardroom to pick who wins based on whatever he feels like. Neither team seems to be in his good books. Phoenix are in trouble for missing the target market and producing a boring video, but even Lord Siralan would be hard pushed to justify Stirling winning the task after their video. Phoenix win and are sent off to a jacuzzi on a roof, which is less a treat and more a form of torture.
Oh God my eyes!
Ricky reckons he was the underdog from the start and decides to blame the whole thing on the video, which to be fair is largely true. Jenna claims she took a risk, not quite understanding how risk works. The idea of a risk is that you do something that might go very well or very badly, not just do something incredibly stupid. But she says she "doesn't shy away." Oh God not again. Not being afraid to do something really stupid isn't actually a virtue.
Stephen decides to try his usual plan and blames the the awful video on Gabrielle, who wasn't actually involved in making it. He reckons she didn't do enough. Gabrielle points out that Stephen was more of a hindrance than a help. But Stephen has a defence in place, he keeps interrupting telling her to be "specific." So she describes the incidence in Tesco in detail. Stephen is still saying "be specific, Gabrielle." If Gabrielle described what happened at the sub-atomic level he would still be complaining that the Heisenburg uncertainty principle wasn't specific enough. In spite of his vigorous defence, Ricky still decides to bring him and Jenna back into the boardroom. Stephen pulls his "well it isn't what I would have done face." He is rapidly going from endearingly hapless, to actively obnoxious.
Stephen promises Lord Siralan that if he makes him the next Project Manager he will definitely win the task, and he would put money on it if he had any. Ricky gets in trouble for not going on the video shoot himself. But of course, if he had, he would be in trouble for not overseeing the website. In any case, I think Ricky has learned not to trust anyone to make a video ever again. But in the end it's Jenna who gets the boot, if the video didn't seal it then her annoying voice would. Jenna sounds quite upset to be leaving, but not as much as Gabrielle, who has lost her best friend. Still, things are looking good for her and Jade, with only two women left it's going to be difficult to loose any more before the final. Oh, and Stephen will be PM next week, which should be good for a laugh.
NEXT TIME: The teams try to negotiate for discounts and end up essentially begging for scraps from unmoving sadists.
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