Episode 8 - June 19th 2013 - the Horror!

Lord Siral gathers the Apprenti at a Registry office. He's not planning on some kind of Reverend Moon style mass wedding, instead this weeks task is for the teams to set up dating websites and make TV adverts for them. Because there aren't enough terrible dating website adverts on TV at the moment without getting a group of inept, egotistical amateurs to stumble their way through two more in less than a day.

 We are gathered here today

Lord Siral 're-balances' the teams by moving Jordan back to eam Morse. I'm not sure how 'balanced' this leaves things given that we now have a team that includes Luisa and Neil on one hand and Jason on the other. Amazingly, the newly reconstituted team Evolve make Jason the project manager, because he managed a dating website at University and because it may be the best way to avoid mutually assured destruction if Luisa and Neil both decide to go off on one.

Meanwhile, Alex things he should be PM of team Morse because he has experience running an Internet business and hasn't been project manager yet. The team consider this carefully and then put Jordan in charge, possibly to see if Alex's eyebrows will rotate if he gets angry enough. I'm not sure what the lack of trust in Alex is all about. He is the youngest candidate and looks faintly like a Vampire, but given that Luisa and Neil have been put in charge before and Jason is, amazingly, about to have a second go, it really does feel a bit extreme.

Alex is happy with the team's decision

Evolve, under Jason's leadership, decide to pursue the over 50s market. Jason is keen to do something young, trendy and vibrant. Unfortunately, this is nixed by the focus group Neil and Francesca go to see, who seem to prefer something more sedate, possibly to the point of immobile. After last weeks cock up with the caravans, no-one is keen to contradict the target market. The problem is that they are now basing the whole strategy on the opinions of three people in a pub. Plus, the over fifties aren't strictly the target market. They will be pitching to a team of 'advertising creatives' with there own pre-conceived ideas of what the over 50s want, regardless of what actual over fifties have to say on the subject.

Relaxed

Unfortunately, the focus group feedback clearly throws Jason. Having taken the name 'Friendship and Flowers' from the focus group, Jason then spends 45 minutes trying to decide on the colours for a logo that's looking increasingly like it should be for a funeral home. Jason is clearly dithering to a ridiculous degree, but it probably doesn't help that Luisa is squawking "make a decision, make a decision Jason, I can't believe you haven't made a decision," over and over again into his ear until  the words lose all meaning and it starts to feel like tinnitus. She then moans at him all the way out of the door. By the time the two of them make it to the web-designer, two hours late, Jason is so broken he lets Luisa take over. The end result looks like a printout that got cut off half way through. "Make a decision, just make a decision Jason."

"Make a decision, Jason, just make a decision"

Team Morse, meanwhile, have chosen to target young professionals. Themselves in other words. Alex and Jordan come up with the name Cufflinks, which is one of those Apprentice names where the slightly weak pun distracts them from bizarreness of the name as a whole. The task was to design a dating website and now we have a funeral home and a men's fashion boutique.

As they are their own target market, Morse don't need a focus group. Instead, Francesca and Myles wander around taking promo pictures. Unfortunately, there's two of them, one camera and they want pictures of couples. Myles suggests they get a member of the public to take photos of them, but Leah is horrified at the prospect of posing with someone as shockingly old as Myles. Honestly, he's nearly 40, he should be in a home! Instead they accost a random passer by, and Leah does her best to pretend she isn't repulsed by him.

 In no way awkward

Back with Evolve, and Jason has been so brow-beaten by Luisa that he doesn't think he is capable of making decisions any more an plans to abdicate in favour of her. Neil is less than impressed by this, thinking that its somehow against the rules, but Luisa is insistent and Jason just looks broken. Neil declares Luisa project manager, as though its some how up to him. Jason decides to re-brand this wimping out in the face of Luisa's sustained assault as courage.

 Jason takes the courageous decision

Next day and the teams have to work on TV adverts. These are always good fun, because every person on the team fancies themselves as a potential Oscar winner. This inevitably leads to fighting and a finished product that looks more like a bad short film than an advert. Francesca comes up with a fairly twee effort that's clearly unsettling Nick Hewer's stomach. Poor man, this series has done terrible damage to his digestive system. We also get the bizarre site of a middle aged woman trying to wink down the camera lens and being ambivalent about which eye to close.

 You thought I'd go left, but in the end I went right

But its nothing to the fun at team Morse. Leah and Alex have been put in charge, the team having decided to cast Alex as an example of the kind of person you would never want to date. Having decided Alex can't lead a team, they have now decided he can't get a girlfriend. But Alex throws himself into the roll with gusto. Probably too much gusto. The team wanted undatable, but they ended up with a horrifying cross between the Child Catcher, a panda and a character from a Japanese horror film. It's a performance so unsettling it reaches back through time and justifies the BBCs decision to screen every episode of the Apprentice after the watershed simply because of its association with this. Leah and Alex spend half the day fighting over camera angles, which leaves them short of footage and Alex in character for far too long.

The remainder of the teams are preparing for the big presentation in front of a group of advertising creatives. Jordan has delegated this job to Myles, while Luisa has decided to give the presentation herself, apparently solely to piss of Neil, which seems to be as good a reason to do something as anything.

Evolve go first, forcing Luisa to justify a website that consists of a logo and a single middle aged man staring blankly out at them. Apparently its a 'work in progress' presumably in the same sense that a passport photo is 'a work in progress' for Facebook. The creatives find Francesca's advert funny, but not in a good way, particularly the disturbing winking woman, who may be having a stroke.

 Work in progress

Myles is up next. But his pitch is frustratingly boring and professional. The creatives even find Alex's horrifying performance funny. The site name comes in for some criticism as does the lack of coherence between the tone of the advert and the tone of the website.

A consistent marketing strategy

With no money on the line this week, Lord Siral gets to pick the winner based on the advise of the creatives, which essentially means he can pull it out of his arse. In the boardroom, Jordan comes in for criticism for delegating everything and not doing any work himself. I bet he's regretting telling Lord Siral to try buffalo. Morse's website and advert are criticised for their inconsistent tone, but Evolve's is just twee and patronising. Lord Siral decides to give Morse the benefit of the doubt, which will rapidly transform into accusing Evolve of being totally useless.

Morse are sent off to eat £35,000 worth of caviar off the back of their hands. Alex decides it's like fish pate.

A return to the boardroom creates a problem of jurisdiction. Who is actually project manager here? Luisa and Jason claim joint responsibility, but Luisa wants to bring Neil back and Jason Francesca. Francesca is so furious about this that she volunteers to come back so that she can chew Jason out. Francescai is rapidly becoming so angry she's in danger of boiling the boardroom. This time she's angry because Jason is blaming her for the team's failure when she finished her advert and he didn't finish the website. She presumably believes the birdy song to be superior to Beethoven's 10th symphony, because Beethoven didn't get it finished.

 Back away Neil

Jason is still trying to claim that "his" decision to step down was courageous, because he put the team first. It's not looking good until Nick Hewer steps up to blame Luisa for badgering Jason, and claims it was the worst display of rudeness he'd ever seen. Suddenly Luisa is on the defensive. It might not be enough to save Jason, but Lord Siral may have marked her card. Jason is fired, but "with regret." He even calls Jason a "nice fellow," another one of his oddly twee expressions.

Luisa and Francesca return to the hourse where Alex declares the remaining Apprenti the "magnificent seven", not sure magnificent is the word I would use, but I think there's a decent chance most of them will end up dead.

Next Time: The teams produce ready meals and... HOLY FUCK!

Episode 7 - June 12th 2013 - Caravan show

The Apprenti find themselves dragged to the Tower of London, cue a tenuous link by Lord Siral. This weeks task is about leisure and tourism, specifically flogging caravans and camping equipment at a caravan show in Birmingham, and the Tower of London is a tourist attraction. Next week he'll be meeting them in the International Space station to tell them about a task involving restoring a Victorian pipe organ because the organ is on Earth and the space station is orbiting Earth.

 Extra security by the cash point, you can't trust Lord Siral

Lord Siral moves Neil to team Evolve because... meh and he immediately makes himself team leader because he's God or something. Alex is keen to lead team Morse because he hasn't had a chance yet, and possibly, because he's still recovering from his sojourn as a Dictator last week. On the plus side he didn't show up in camouflage and sun glasses. In the end, the team choose Kurt over him because even though he has all the charisma of a breeze block and talks like a deflating set of bag-pipes, he did go on a caravan holiday once. So experience trumps eyebrows and Alex already feels like the team has it in for him.

 Alex is perfectly happy with their decision

The teams are split in two, numerically rather than bodily, unfortunately, with three members from each sent to choose cheap products to sell, while the rest are packed off to the Birmingham Caravan show to do some market research and pick a caravan to try and flog.

Miles is in charge of the Morse sub-team and has been joined by Natalie and Leah. Despite living in Monaco where caravans are, apparently, banned and hating them and everything they stand for, Myles believes that the key to securing good products to sell is to show enthusiasm for the product. He really goes for, waxing lyrical about the products brilliance to the extend that even one of the designers seems to think he's milking it. Nick Hewer claims he felt nauseous.

Speaking of Nick Hewer, watching him this series has been an education. He seems to be losing whatever enthusiasm he had left for the show. He's taken to hanging around the edges pulling faces, stealing snacks and prodding the scenery. Last week he actually started stroking a fibre-glass flamingo. I'm slightly concerned that one day in the boardroom he'll put his head down and quietly go to sleep.

 

Returning to the task in hand, Natalie and Leah don't seem to have gotten the memo about enthusiasm. Leah has the look of someone who just smelled something unsavoury, while Natalie just looks vacant. Instead of fawning over the designers like they've just arrived from Renaissance Italy, they get down to brass tacks and start pushing for discounts. To be fair, this makes sense, they need something to encourage  impulse purchases, but Natalie blatantly pushes it to far in the face of a designer who insists that the product sells itself (which raises the question what they need the Apprenti for. Couldn't they just leave a box at the show and let the product sort itself out).

Enthusiasm

Actually it isn't easy to get enthusiastic about these products. They include an electric bike, a storage box that turns into a boat, a chair with a fold over roof, a flowerpot barbecue and a children's activity kit that would be quite nice if it didn't cost £103. In fact all of these items are too expensive for impulse buying. The bike costs £999. Not that this stops both teams going crazy for it. Unfortunately for Myles, team Evolve display more co-ordinated enthusiasm and they manage to snatch up both the bike and his second choice, the activity kit. Myles is stuck with the boat-box and the chair.

On their way to Birmingham, Kurt and Alex do some market research, by staring at cars pulling caravans and trying to get a look at the drivers. From this they decide that the market is old. Amazingly, this 'research' is pretty much confirmed at Birmingham, where they are joined by Nick Hewer. Hang on, he was with the sub-team a minute ago, either he has a teleporter or some cheeky editing has been used to make it look like everything happened in one day.

Nick beams in

Sure enough, Karen Brady has also made a very quick trip to Birmingham to join Neil and Jason. Neil thinks his job is to keep an eye on Jason. Jason spent two of the last three weeks locked up in a kitchen with Rebecca keeping a close eye on him. But with Rebecca gone he's been let out, though Neil is keeping him on a short leash. At one point he drags him away from talking to someone. Neil doesn't rate Jason and doesn't know how he's still in the process. He's not the only one, the team seem to treat Jason as a slightly slow relative they have to look after. It probably doesn't help that he packed his teddy bear earlier.

 Jason packs his best friend

Both teams have to choose a caravan or camper to try and sell. The two front runners are a retro-looking trailer in the style of an old Volkswagen van and a small trailer that opens out into a tent. Both teams prefer the retro-trailer, but the sales figures for the tent-trailer are much better, even with the lower price tag. Neil decides to go for the tent-trailer because it sells better, but Alex pushes Kurt to go for the retro-trailer because... something. It looks nice, I think.

Retro trailer versus...

Tent trailer

Next day the teams divide again and, having been instrumental in choosing the retro-trailer, Alex thinks he should be selling it But Kurt thinks people won't be happy buying an expensive item from him because he's too young. Alex might be 22, but he looks about 40. But Kurt thinks his Internet business won't prepare him for face to face sales, even though he's been doing this for weeks. Myles has experience selling big items, even though he hates caravans, and Kurt wants to show off to Lord Siral, so Alex is relegated to boat and chair sales with Leah and Natalie.

This is probably a good thing for Alex, because things don't go well for the sub-team. Myles is a decent salesperson, but, as Nick Hewer points out, he hasn't understood that a lot of the people here just want to talk about caravans. He spend something like ten minutes listening to a potential customer ramble before discovering they aren't a potential customer after all. Kurt, on the other hand, is entirely out of his depth, standing around staring at the trailer and occasionally making dull observations to passers by like an old man leaning over his garden wall. Nick Hewer, meanwhile, has been assaulted by a teddy bear.

Over at team Evolve, Neil is having a similar hard time. It turns out Jason's bumbling posho personality is ideally suited to selling to old ladies. Once again, the Boris Johnson comparison is apt. Because he comes across as harmless and friendly, it doesn't feel like he's trying to sell something and you end up feeling guilty saying no to him. Jason grabs the first sale of the day, cue comical celebration, and Neil is forced to up his game.

 Yes!

Not that things are going much better for the Evolve sub-team who are having trouble convincing people of the merits of an electric bikes or activity kits. Over at team Morse, Alex, Natalie and Leah seem to be having an easier time of it, though they are hampered slightly by Natalie's confusion about the purpose of the plank of wood in the middle. She's convinced its a picnic table and is repeatedly frustrated by Alex's and Leah's attempts to sit on it. To be fair, this is the same person who couldn't tell the difference between a cow, a horse and a dog a few weeks ago. I'm starting to think she might not be the a few wheels short of a trailer.

 Natalie figures out how a boat works

With time drawing on and still no sales, Kurt and Myles resort to desperate measures and call Leah over to act as "eye-candy", not that they tell her that. She does seem to be attracting more attention, but not quite enough and in the end no sales are made.

 "Eye-candy"

Back in the boardroom, Evolve, unsurprisingly, slaughter Morse on trailer sales but, surprisingly, also confidently beat them on accessory sales as well. And I thought Alex was doing so well. They are packed off for cycling lessons with Chris Hoy, which sounds like a good idea, but is actually a great opportunity to demonstrate your lack of expertise in cycling to one of the best cyclists in the world. But before they go, Lord Siral calls back Jason. A petrified Jason creeps back in only to be congratulated for his sales prowess, Lord Siral having forgotten to do it earlier. Jason creeps out of the room backwards, perhaps out of respect or perhaps to hide the brown stain on the back of his trousers.

Please don't kill me!

Kurt decides to pin the blame on Alex, he was the one who pushed for the retro-trailer. Alex does himself no favours by claiming this was the right choice and justifying it by claiming that he couldn't see the trailer tent selling when the number indicate it did. Alex is still put out by the fact that he didn't get to sell the trailers. But Nick Hewer claims he hid away by the accessories because he could see thing going wrong. I'm not sure this is a fair comment given that the only person on either team to change sales positions was Leah and that was at Myles and Kurt's request. Nick is clearly feeling slightly sadistic and points out that Myles and Kurt described Leah as "eye candy" in a voice so creepy it's as if they called her over to pimp her out.

Kurt brings Alex and Natalie back into the boardroom. Natalie thinks this is tactical, because he knows that Lord Siral said she would be fired if she came back into the boardroom again. She also insists that she's not crying but angry, presumably those were tears of rage streaming down her face. She also claims that she would have been good at selling trailers because she works in recruitment. She later claims on 'Your Fired' that she meant she's used to advising people to make big decisions, but it still sounds like a couple more wheels have fallen off her trailer.

Kurt's defence is pretty weak. Essentially if he hadn't made the mistake of listening to Alex, then all of his other mistakes wouldn't have mattered. He is duly shown the door. But Lord Siralan isn't finished yet and in a 'shock' move Natalie is booted out after him. Given that there has been a double-firing in all but two series (once because they lost a candidate before it started and once because someone dropped out in week two), the program-makers really can't expect us to be surprised can they. It's time for a new gimmick, firing the top half of one candidate and the bottom half of another maybe, or forcing the bottom two to fight for a place?

Next Time: The teams set up dating websites, one team attempts a coup and Alex puts in the creepiest performance since the child catcher.

Episode 6 - June 5th 2013 - Away day Dictator

Despite my dedication to this series, I normally miss the first couple of minutes putting the kettle on, so I haven't really paid much attention to the clips at the start of the show. But this week I caught them. What the hell is Kurt doing? He looks like he's having a stroke!

Anyway, the Apprenti are summoned to the Guild hall, a rather grandiose setting which slightly overwhelms Lord Siral, who isn't exactly the most physically imposing of men. This weeks task is to plan a corporate away day on a budget of £5,000. But for once it's not just about money, the team will also be judged, in some unspecified way, by the customer's feedback. Myles is moved back to Team Morse in order to balance numbers and Leah is put in charge of the team, presumably because she spend so much time last week wishing she was. Team Evolve will be lead by Francesca because she does something that is in someway related to this stuff.

Luisa gets off to a cracking start by telling Francesca that she hates the corporate world and everything about it and hates theses sort of events. Though she does it in the same vapid squeak she uses to talk about everything else. Francesca looks impressed.

For reasons that surely have nothing to do with sending the team off in the wrong direction and creating unnecessary conflict, the teams are expected to come up with a theme for their day without consulting the client first. Francesca quickly settles on a school theme, though Rebecca's idea for a wine-tasting event suggests they might be struggling to come up with themed events. Or Rebbecca went to a very interesting school.

I'm not sure what's so great about the school theme, but Neil is aggressively pushing it over at Team Morse. Apparently he's been to a school-themed corporate away day before, which in Neil-world is the same as being an expert. Leah doesn't like the idea, though I think I might be put off breathing if Neil was trying to sell it to me. She prefers a history theme. Neil puts it to a vote and the team are with him. So, stuck between alienating the group or looking weak she goes with alienation. Karen Brady comments that she has been criticised for not following her instinct before, but she's still wrong now.

 All in favour of ditching this stupid task and going to the pub?

Team Evolve meet with their clients, an 'online travel agency' who want the day to focus on team-building. They seem happy enough with school theme and so the rest of the team are sent to source activities. Luisa and Jason check out a chocolate-making workshop, but Luisa thinks she can do a cup-cake workshop that offers the same value and costs a lot less, an opinion she is very keen to state to the chocolate-maker's face. And then asking if she can buy some piping bags. Is she compelled to be rude to everyone she meets?

 The chocolatier is impressed by Luisa's tact

Meanwhile, Jordan, in his role as Finance guy, is failing to keep Francesca and Rebbecca under control as they wander around a supermarket hurling items into a shopping trolley more or less at random.

 Just think of all the Nectar points!

Team Morse spent so much time arguing that they're late for the client and then follow up by arguing some more in the corridor outside. They take so long that Karen Brady has to come out and get them. The client in this case is Barclays who, evidently, are famous enough that mentioning their name isn't considered. advertising. The client wants a day that focuses on listening and communication skills, but Leah ignores all that and starts banging on about how majestic her history theme will be. The client looks less than impressed. He's "not here to solve this assignment for you" but it looks like he's going to have to.

The sub-team of Neil, Alex and Myles, fresh from sourcing archery activities, are informed by Leah that the new theme will be army. Alex nearly blows his top. I'm starting to think he needs to get fired for the good of his mental health.

Casting around for new activities, Neil suggests sumo-wrestling in fat suits, which Leah, for some unaccountable reason finds 'offensive.' Offensive to what exactly? I know there are some religions with some pretty wacky beliefs. Maybe Leah  subscribes to some obscure sect whose holy book includes the line 'Bankers wrestling in fat suits is an abomination unto the Lord. He shall set his face against them.' She finally agrees to keep it as a backup, but only if the sumo-wrestlers touch and don't wrestle. Because this is less offensive to God or something.

Both teams want to end the day with a motivational speaker. Rebecca is convinced they need a professional, Luisa, wants to save more money by doing it themselves. Francesca decides that as they are being judged on quality they had better spend the money. Over on Team Morse, Neil has 'persuaded' Leah into letting him give the speech. He's listened to people talking so that pretty much makes him a professional speaker.

The next day dawns and Team Morse meet their clients at what looks like an abandoned supervillain's headquarters. The picture is completed when Alex marches in in camouflage fatigues and sunglasses and demands that they call him Colonel. He looks so much like a military dictator that if this goes on he likely to be brutally murdered on national television.

The clients seem to go along with it at first, submitting to his orders with good humour. The activity, which involves one person giving instructions to another who has been blindfolded, at least fits the theme of communication and goes down reasonably well. Unfortunately, the weather turns nasty and the event has to move indoors. Unfortunately, Leah turns out to have no plan B. She ends up giving a long, rambling lecture about conflict resolution before resorting to the sumo wrestlers despite her religious objections. The sumo suits run in, crash into one another and run out in order to communicate the message that you shouldn't deal with conflict by running around in a sumo-suit, or something.

Conflict Resolution

Team Evolve don't have to worry about the weather, but that's mostly because they have kept their clients indoors drinking tea for what seems like hours. The event is starting to feel more like an OAP coffee morning that a corporate away day. Eventually, Francesca decides to start things off with a somewhat incoherent speech in which she tries to outline the theme of the day. It goes a bit wrong when she says they have one goal for the day before outlining four. It doesn't help that there's little evidence of the theme. The team spent £600 on props, but I can't remember my school featuring a large plastic flamingo or a series of fake flame lights.

The weather at least holds long enough for an exercise that involves teams walking along a plank, before lunch lovingly prepared by Jason and Rebecca. These two found themselves in the kitchen a few weeks ago. I think they put Jason there to keep him out of trouble and Rebecca to keep an eye on Jason.

They are released from the kitchen for wine tasting, though it isn't the most focused of sessions. The idea is to guess which wine is the most expensive, but no-one including Jason or Rebecca has any idea about wine so no-one knows what they are looking for and when it's time to reveal the results, Jason and Rebecca can't remember which is which. Nick Hewer seems to be enjoying himself at least

Luisa's cup cake session goes down like an offended chocolatier, with one client claiming he lost interest and looking like he might be suffering from depression. Another client tells the camera that she can't see the point. To be fair, you can say that about most corporate away-days.

The day ends with the two motivational speakers. Team Evolve's goes down well, but he should do, he's a professional who cost them £600. At Team Morse, Neil takes the floor. The tone sounds like Neil's usual monotonous drone to me, as he recounts his childhood history, born on a mountain top, his birth heralded by a double rainbow, or something like that. But his story about taking inspiration from the death of his father and having one goal in life to focus on seems to hit home and the clients are impressed. Maybe the best parts were edited out or possibly the clients, having worked in a hermetically sealed environment, are impressed by anything that sounds even vaguely like human emotions.

Back in the boardroom, Leah's project management is torn to shreds. Neil is eager to claim the credit for everything good. Though he rewrites history to claim that she called a vote about the theme which she subsequently ignored, when it was actually Neil. More troubling is Alex's determination that they get his self-declared rank right. He's already gone mad with power.

 Viva El Presidente!

There's a lot of focus on Team Morse, which can mean only one thing. Team Evolve have lost. Both teams were fined 25% of the fee for basically being crap, but Evolve spent more money.We had to see Leah get shredded now because she wasn't going to be called back later. Neil is pretty much given the credit for the win, Karen Brady claims the client was 'very impressed' by him.I'm not sure if it's possible to make Neil worse without causing some kind of ego gravity collapse and the formation of some kind of black hole. For everyone's safety, the team is packed off to a spa where the Great Dictator gets his eyebrows waxed. Somehow this is not a joke.

Team Evolve are keen to criticise Francesca's project management, but the cost of the motivational speaker is quickly blamed for the loss. They lost by £500 and he cost £600. Ignored is the fact that client satisfaction was also part of the task. They already had to refund £1250, if Luisa had stood up and given a speech they would probably have had to refund the lot and pay a fine. Nevertheless, Lord Siral singles out Rebecca as she suggested the speaker and because of the inappropriateness of the wine-tasting event. He then gives Francesca a warning that she had better bring people in to the boardroom for the right reasons that is so unsubtle he might as well have said 'bring back Rebecca or you're fired.' Francesca complies, but there's no way Luisa is getting away with calling her a bad project manager and so she gets pulled in as well.

Francesca tries to defend her theme with some blather about creativity and team work. It's not the most coherent of statement, but Karen Brady responds by asking 'can you hear what's coming out of your mouth,' in a tone that would have been more appropriate if Francesca had claimed the Jews were responsible for 9/11. Lord Siral scoffs, which is a bit rich from a man who regularly fails to complete a coherent sentence.

Francesca plays her trump card, Luisa's claim that she hates the corporate world and everything about it, deciding to play this as though she just personally insulted everyone on the other side of the table. Luisa recasts this as hating corporate bullshit of the type just espoused by Francesca. Karen scornfully claims she would have a hard time at the bank. So corporate bullshit bad when Francesca does it, good when banks do? Also, if any of the people on this show could get money out of the banks they wouldn't be humiliating themselves in front of an audience of millions. Karen really is in a foul mood in this episode.

Lord Siral dances around the point for a while. Francesca should have been better at this as it was her are of expertise (to be fair she supplies stuff for corporate events she doesn't run them, it's like asking a brick maker to build a house) and the fact that everyone hates Luisa may reflect badly on her. In the end, he decides to get rid of Rebecca, which is pretty obvious given how determined he was to get her in the boardroom. Lord Siral is rapidly running out of women, at this rate they'll have to put Jason in a dress.

Next Time: The teams attend a camping and caravan show, selling products they don't understand to people they hold in contempt. Pretty much business as usual.

Episode 5 - May 28th 2013 - Dubai scavenger hunt

Dubai, in no way over the top

Last year the Apprentice budget wouldn't stretch to sending the candidates past Edinburgh, but this year we have a proper foreign jaunt to Dubai. I suspect this improvement may have something to do with co-production money. The narrator reckons this is the shopping capital of the world and fails to mention the insane spending on ridiculous vanity projects, the foreign workers with no rights, the obscene levels of inequality or the mental religious laws. But then who cares about that, lets head for the mega malls! Luisa certainly has the right idea and has packed her bikini.

Gratuitous bikini shot

The teams arrive, in a ridiculously over-choreographed car ballet to meet the disembodied head of Lord Siral, who explains that the two teams have a list of items to acquire at the lowest possible costs. The justification for this is that they need to get these for the hotel. A multi-million pound hotel that apparently can't source a pot plant in Dubai. We're not fooled, it's the scavenger hunt! They claim this is a negotiating task, but given the teams have no leverage whatsoever their negotiation tactics essentially boil down to lying or begging. Maybe this is why Luisa packed her bikini?

It's Davros!

Only a small amount of re-shuffling this week as Leah is moved over to team Morse in order to spread the rapidly dwindling cast of women.

Not able to source a coffee pot

Zee has been banging on about how he lived in Dubai for two years and knows the country like the back of his hand. This is in no way setting him up for a fall. The rest of the team are keen to take advantage of his local knowledge, with the exception of Leah who quite fancies being PM herself. When the rest of the team backs Zee she is not happy and quickly appoints herself sub-team leader without consulting Zee. Further conflict ensues when Zee instructs his team to head for the souks where they are more likely to find bargains. Leah ignores him and heads for the nearest mall, essentially because Zee told her not to.

Back with team Evolve and Myles has been put in charge. Though he seems to have given up already after hearing about Zee's local knowledge. His sub-team quickly track down a plant, but he can't even be bothered speaking to the manager and settles for a 15% discount before rushing off to get a flag.

Jason, Jordan and Luisa are wandering around the mall. They pretty quickly track down the kandura, which is traditional Arabic dress, but then stall struggling to find out what the items on the list are, let alone where to get them. In the end Jason takes to accosting random passers by. It looks like Jason may belong to the "'Allo, 'Allo" school of language, believing that if you get the accent right then people will be able to understand you. In the end Jordan has to drag him away before the police are called.

 I don't think he works here Jason!

Leah and her team have also arrived at the Mall, but disaster strikes. Zee calls and, when he finds out where they are, insists they head for the souks. When Leah stands her ground he demands to talk to Neil, eventually Leah bottles it and the car turns around.

 Not a souk

Myles is waiting around at a flag shop having given up on rushing and having decided to wait while they do the work. Then Zee, Kurt and Natalie waltz in and go straight to the front of the queue having per-ordered their flag in the car. Things are looking bleak for Myles, until Zee's flag in unveiled and turns out to be the size of a tea towel (Nick Hewer thinks napkin, which suggests to me that he must have pretty big hands). Turns out Kurt confused centimetres and inches and Zee's team are stuck waiting for a new flag and paying for one they don't need.

Okay it's smaller than a flag, but definitely bigger than a napkin

Leah's sub-team arrive at the souk and pretty quickly track down a kandura. Neil manages to get it for less than half the price that Myle's team paid and is proud of his negotiating. His tactics seems to consist of speaking in a loud monotone that suggests he might be a psychopath, he also throws in a "very, very rush" just to make sure the shop owner is suitably patronised. I think he just gave him the discount to get him out of the shop.

Unfortunately for Zee, at this point the team stalls. There are always one or two items on the Scavenger hunt that no-one has ever heard of, and the teams can't look them up on the Internet because it doesn't exist in Sugarworld (can't run it on an Amstrad or something). Zee should be of help here with his local knowledge, but he's convinced that the oud the team are searching for is a perfume, but Alex has discovered that that's spelled oudh. Alex is seriously worked up about this, but Zee manages to avoid being labelled a 'silly shit' so he's at least spared Jason's fate.

While we're on the subject of Jason, he Jordan and Luisa aren't having much more luck at the mall. They also think oud is a perfume, but at least they aren't fighting with a project manager who refuses to accept he's wrong. A kindly perfumer informs them that it is, in fact, a musical instrument. The team manage to find it and get a hefty discount.

 Perfume-guy plays the air-oud

Back in the car, Zee and Kurt are hard at work trying to source the remaining items. Natalie would be hard at work if Zee would let her get anywhere near the phone. Is there a law in Dubai that women aren't allowed to use mobile phones? The team eventually tracks down a plant and gets it for half price when Zee asks to see the manager. Not that the manager actually shows up, just dropping the name is good enough. Is 'the Manager' a pseudonym of some kind? Is he some kind of Dubai crime lord and the mere mention of his name is enough to secure a discount?

Shut up Natalie!

Back in the boardroom Leah puts the boot in early with Zee. But she may well be right it turns out that Zee's team got some much better discounts, but were only able to track down four of the eight items, and one of those turns out to be wrong. Neil's prided negotiating netted them the wrong k(?) and the team has to pay up the full RRP of the item, as well as the other four they didn't manage to get.

Myles team got six items and manage to secure a win, despite paying much more for the items they did get. Incidentally, this puts paid to the idea that this was a negotiating task, the better negotiators having been beaten by the people who tracked down the items (like in a certain kind of contest that rhymes with bavenger grunt). Local knowledge is defeated by fake tan? Open necked shirts? Defeatism? If I'm honest I'm not sure what Myles leadership brought to the task, except perhaps not being Zee?

Thanks to his boasting, Zee is looking vulnerable. But he has two likely scapegoats: Neil who cocked up the flag measurements and Neil who bought the wrong item. So he brings back Leah and Natalie. I can understand Leah, no-one likes to be insulted to their face, but Natalie's major failing appears to be that Zee didn't let her speak. She's certainly compensating for it now and accuses Zee of blatant sexism. Leah's quite happy to jump on that bandwagon, happy for any excuse to put the boot in.

Natalie loses it...

...and Zee pisses himself

The women don't escape entirely unscathed. Natalie is criticised for failing to show the same level of passion in the task as she does in the boardroom. Leah is in trouble for her insubordination, though, in this case, the problem is that she didn't just ignore Zee out right and go to the Mall because, apparently, the reason Neil bought the wrong kandura is because they didn't go to the Dubai branch of Marks and Spencers.

Zee is pretty much doomed as soon as he steps back in the boardroom. With three women and only one man fired so far, Zee would have to be pretty special to survive. Lord Siral tries to keep up the tension, but to no avail. Zee is given the boot, Natalie and Leah don't even bother to acknowledge him on the way out. Zee still thinks his name will go down in history. Perhaps he's right, Napoleon conquered half of Europe, but he never lasted to week five of a reality TV show did he?

Next Time: The teams run team building events for corporate sponsors which may lead to a bullshit super nova. And Alex dresses in army fatigues, which makes him look like a Third World Dictator.