Sometimes, it just doesn't work. Probably the most memorable example was back in series five, the cereal task, in which one team gave a master class in how to hang together and perfectly complete a task while the other was bullied by the serially obnoxious Phillip into creating Pants Man, the most irritating and nonsensical idea in Apprentice history. The editors tried to suggest that the winning team were falling out over a voice over, or that their advert wasn't quite as well shot, but ultimately they had to give in and let us watch one team be given a comprehensive spanking, the outcome never in doubt.
Watching a totally one sided drubbing can be entertaining, particularly if the losers are both obnoxious and arrogant. Sadly, this was not the case in Week 10 of this series.
Movie night at Apprentice palace
Lord Siral put in his series-ly home visit, this time in video format as he had an urgent business meeting. Don't put yourself out Lord Siral, there's only 250 grand at stake! The teams were put back to boys versus girls, given a starting budget of £150 and told to use it to buy up some stock to sell, before investing the profit in more stock. In other words, they had to 'smell what sells.' Or they could just count the number of items sold and determine it from that if their olfactory senses aren't up to much.
Previously, this task has been quite fun as Apprenti badly misjudge their market or insist on buying a jumble of everything. Not this time. Putting it simply, the girls spent their money sensibly, made some money, bought some more stock, sold some more and made a clear profit, while the boys bought the wrong items and didn't sell much of anything. I'd like to dress it up as more than that, but there really wasn't much more to it.
Okay, in slightly more detail, the girls chose Luisa as project manager, because she has retail experience, something she was willing to admit to. They decided to focus on fashion and Francesca, after asking some market stall holders who, presumably, had no idea she was planning to undercut them, suggested hats. The girls bought a large stock of hats and sold quite a lot. On the second day they were moved to a 'pop-up-mall' made of old storage containers (which made each 'shop' impossibly long and thin). They bought some, slightly more expensive but still fairly cheap, dresses. The dresses didn't sell very well, despite the team changing into them, which was their only blip. They ended with a comfortable £809.05.
A long, thin clothes shop
The boys, lead by Myles (sort of), dithered all morning before deciding on mid range ceramics. This included a decent looking, wipe-clean, ceramic note pad and a, frankly, baffling ceramic rubber glove. Because they cost a lot to buy, the boys had hardly any to sell and mostly didn't. Jordan tried to diversify into greetings cards, but after a reasonably big sale to a newsagents, spent the rest of the day looking for another and ended up making very little money.
Pads...
...and Gloves
The next day, the boys moved to their shop, but with virtually no stock, ended up moving everything to the front and setting up a mini-market stall in an attempt to dispel the impression that they were planning to drag their customers into a deserted container and murder them. Jordan disappeared for most of the day buying candles, before returning with some that looked like it belonged in a medieval church or a Necromancer's lair.
The boys stall shop
Jordan's super candles
With sales slow, the boys decided to gamble on investing their profit in a single big ticket item and hoping to grab a last minute sale. Jordan returned with an odd looking designer vase retailing at £199. Myles and Neil, who were evidently expecting more for their money than what looked like a model of a bundle of toilet rolls, gave up and sent Jordan off to sell it. Despite some interest from a boutique in the last few minutes, no sale was made and the team lost the task with £550.26 of profit and assets.
High-end candles
There wasn't even much to say in the boardroom about this. Myles got in trouble for dithering and not understanding the market, while Jordan got it in the neck for picking the vase. Jordan wasn't willing to concede this, continuing to insist that the vase was a good buy. He still doesn't get that disagreeing with Lord Siral is not a good way to get him onside. Neil was the only who came out of the task looking at all good, having made the bulk of the sales, but he so good at claiming credit for everything that I don't think he needs any from me.
What, what, what...
What the hell is this?
With the task abandoned as essentially boring, Lord Siral moved to the more fruitful topic of the boys business plans.
Tense situation
Myles plan is some kind of online business, doing marketing for high-end events, which is pretty much the same as the job he's already doing, but online in some way. Neil's plan is some kind of online business. He wants to set up an online estate agency. He's been researching this for years, apparently, and his main competitor made £80 million last year. Which means its either a market with a lot of money to be made, or one dominated by a hugely successful competitor.
Jordan's plan is some kind of online business. You may be detecting a pattern emerging here. Jordan has some plan that involves enabling users to make games for tablets and mobile phones. He starts to explain that tech people are not business people, but Lord Siral scoffs because he knows all about computers and games, what with the enormous success of the Amstrad X-Box.
Not the time to be smug
But Jordan has another revelation, apparently there is another person involved in this deal, in the form of his invisible tech-savy partner. This would be a very good time to explain that this person is in no way Lord Siral's problem and that Jordan will take care of him. But no, Jordan is expecting, in the increasingly unlikely event of his victory, that there will be a further round of negotiations. When this annoys and confuses Lord Siral, he petulantly asks if he should throw over his existing partner. No, Jordan, I think you should gather your things and head for the door. Lord Siral already didn't like him, now he figuratively thrown shit all over the board room and he still thinks he's going to win.
Try not to puke Jordan
Lord Siral sums up. He thinks Neil didn't a decent job of selling and his business plan doesn't entirely suck so he's safe, he has some kind of unspecified bad feeling about Myles, but he has no idea what Jordan is talking about. Jordan does his best to resist vomiting all over the table and, just about, succeeds. The writing isn't so much on the wall, as broadcast in twenty foot neon lights and yet, amazingly, Lord Siral wants to think about this some more, and Myles is fired for having starey eyes or something. What is going on? Has Lord Siral mistaken Jordan's business plan for some kind of word puzzle and now he's heard it he wants a chance to work out the answer? Or maybe Lord Siral just wants to stretch Jordan's torture over another week? Speaking of which...
Next Time: It's the interview week in which the candidates are abused to their faces by an agent from the Matrix, a mutant frog in a tight shirt and Margaret Mountford. One of the candidates is accused of being a parasite by Claude Litner, takes one to know one I suppose.
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