Aagh, my neck!
This week it's the design task and the teams have to come up with a new piece of flat pack furniture. Design tasks are always unreasonably hard given the time constraints, but somehow the candidates always make it worse for themselves in the most obvious ways.
Surprisingly, Lord Siral keeps the teams the same this week. Not sure what this is about, maybe he's just hoping the girls will continue to screw up so he can fire them one at a time in some sadistic revenge plan against their entire gender for Stella English (Add link)? Natalie, who wants to do something with fashion and declares herself to be creative, but is also a bit shrill ends up in charge. Predictably, she is unable to keep them from all talking at once. Jordan leads the boys and at least seems to keep them taking turns, though Kurts earnest pitch for a chair that doubles as a bin suggests that giving him the chance to talk may have been a mistake.
Kurt and the shit-chair
Naturally both teams fall into the usual design task trap of coming up with a 'multi-purpose' product, despite just about every designer we have ever seen on the show saying this is a terrible idea. The girls idea kind of originates with Francesca's idea for a cube, but rapidly mutates into some kind of surreal dream. Each side has to have its own use, but the ideas seem more numerous than the sides with cushions, storage space and laptop holders all being suggested. Alex's idea for a chair that converts into a table, for people who definitely need furniture but are nonchalant about what kind, is positively restrained by comparison.
The Infinity cube
With the ideas pretty much settled the teams have to sub-divide, one half to do design and the other half to do market-research which is largely pointless as they have already decided on a product. Team Morse seem to have realised this limit theirs to question two people at a bus-stop who don't really like the idea. They do somehow manage to come away with something useful, deciding it should probably be upholstered. On the design side Jason thinks this is impossibly complicated, but he's quickly overruled, the rest of the team having worked out by now that anything coming out of his mouth is the opposite of good sense.
In a rather unusual twist, the market research team are also expected to gather materials for the prototype. Having pushed for upholstery, the team goes shopping for fabric. Zee thinks he's found something, in a kind of sickly green. He thinks it looks "minty fresh" I'd say more mouldy. Meanwhile, the design team are arguing over how to use a ruler and Jason thinks Jordan is too unusual a height to serve as a model.
Alex determines the exact size of his arse
Under the direction of Uzma, who seems to have slightly more sense than most candidate if only because she seems faintly horrified by them, the Evolve sub-team are trying to whip the cube into a shape that isn't wholly an abomination. They've dispensed with a lot of the maddest ideas, though they still seem obsessed with putting a cushion on it, but Uzma wants multiple units to interlock in some way, and for to have rounded corners, and a lid, and need no glue for assembly. This product is rapidly trying to encompass all of human experience in a single flat pack.
Jason struggles with the hobbit door
Prototypes arrive the next day. Team Morse's looks a but undsteady and too high, but you can essentially see the point. The Evolve design team seem to have produced something that doesn't look wholly ridiculous, essentially its a novelty coffee table on wheels with a lid so you can store things in. But is made out of a nasty rough wood and coloured in what might be best described as 'wet newspaper grey'. The forlorn beige cushion, procured by the market research team sits forlornly on top, the prototypers having given up on finding a way to attach it. Karen Brady thinks the team is putting a brave face on it, but an 'into the valley of death road the five hundred' face on it might be nearer the mark. Only Rebecca seems non-plussed, having apparently not got the memo about staying mindlessly optimistic.
With built in cushion
As per usual, Lord Siral has "laid on" (seriously, what is it with this man and "laying on", laying on what exactly? Toast? The slab?) two companies for them to pathetically beg for orders, sorry, pitch to. One of them is referred to as a 'major retailer' which I suppose is because of BBC advertising rules. They start by calling the other one a 'catalogue retailer' but give up pretty quickly when everyone realises that just means Argos. They don't seem particularly impressed with either product, though it probably doesn't help that Alex spends the demo showing the Argos representatives his arse as he twists and alan key.
At least it's perfectly measured
As well as pitching to the big names, the two teams also have to trawl around looking for small shops that might take an interest. The girls have decided to divert attention from the cubes cube-ishness by giving it the somewhat twee name 'Tidy sidy'. But by completely ignoring the supposed 'multi-functionality' and presenting it as a designer coffee table they manage to give a presentation that isn't actively humiliating.
Over at the boys teams Zee is trying to assert his right to present. He is given a couple of goes, but seems to have interpreted 'don't take no for an answer' as don't even listen to what the customer is saying. He decides that being told that the product doesn't fit their demographic is a good time to start talking about numbers. After two goes Jordan has had enough and cuts Zee off in a show of authority that suggests he may be a candidate to watch.
Back in the boardroom Lord Siral inspects the merchandise. He makes sarcastic remarks but seems to like or hate both of them roughly equally, though he seems slightly impressed by the glue free construction of the cube. When it comes to totting up the numbers, the boys have sold slightly more to the small shops, but then the 'major retailer' likes the chair and puts in 1000 (check) orders but not the cube. Every thing's riding on Argos. They order 2000 (check) chairs. Karen drags out the tension, or just tries to extend the run time of the episode. They loved the pitch and the team, it looks like we're in for an upset, but no they hated the product the Evolve get no orders and lose for the third week in a row. The boys are ordered to climb up the side of the O2 arena, which is a treat, apparently, and not another task.
With the boys gone, Lord Siral lays into the cube, which he decides is a "wishy washy, poxy boxy" (see what he did there?"). One thing you can say for Lord Siral, he can always spot a dodgy product. All he has to do is take one look at the sales figures and he can immediately tell that it was shit the whole time. The girls, lacking his insight are in trouble. Uzma gets a lot of the blame, having headed the design team, and is suddenly on the receiving end of a barracking from an increasingly shrill Natalie. It's starting to look like her head is boiling.
Lord Siral dithers back and forth about whose getting fired, before finally settling on Sophie. Not uncommon for week three, if they haven't done anything interesting by now they probably aren't going to.
Next Time: the teams genetically engineer their own breed of cow or something.
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