This weeks task sees the Apprenti dragged to Imperial College London. Will their task involve building a mercenary army to conquer a wave of foreign territory on behalf of Lord Siral's empire? Sadly not, there just here because the place is associated with engineering and technology. But it wouldn't be an Apprentice task if the link between location and task was that direct. So Lord Siralan throws a curve ball, the teams will have to develop wearable technology. Which, technically, could just mean putting your phone on your head.
Lord Siral has decided that 'No-socks' Robert is an innovative, fashion-minded, Shoreditch obsessive and that this would be a good task for him to PM. He doesn't want to dictate the project managers. Remember that statement, it may be important later.
After a quick opportunity to coo over a dress with lights on it, the teams get down to business. And Robert weasels out of being PM with lightning speed. Apparently he is only interested in high fashion and this is too mainstream. Because everyone is wearing clothes with LEDs all over them these days. Nick Hewer says that going against Lord Siralan is "brave," in a tone suggesting much in the way that 'the Charge of the Light Brigade' was brave. Solomon is briefly in the firing line, because he knows about technology, but then Scott jumps in having been to a conference on wearable tech only two weeks earlier. The boys are pursuaded and Scott gets the job.
Over at team no-name, the girls are having to come up with a new name, Decadence having been rejected in the previous week, possibly because it suggests over-indulgence and something that's long past its best. Jemma suggests Tenacity or Pursuit, but manages to pronounce pursuit like proscuito and so Tenacity wins out.
The girls then get down to the important business of getting out of being PM. Bianca reckons her hosiery business doesn't mean she knows anything about clothes. In the end Nurun gets bullied into it on the grounds that her market stall sold some scalfs along with various other bits of vaguely ethnic stuff.
Back with team Summit and project manager Scott, who has an unfortunate tendency to pull a face like he just smelled something unpleasant and whose management style consists of repeating the same word over and over again in an increasingly loud voice. "Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys." After Scotts idea, for a jumper that monitors you health, is rejected he starts sulking and tells the team they have to come up with an idea without him. Solomon suggests leggings with lights on them. Though he sabotages it a bit by suggesting they would light up as you achieve your goals. How the leggings would know what your goals were or what progress you had made towards them is not explained. In the end, the team goes with Sanjay's idea for a t-shirt with a panel that can show photos from a phone.
The smell of success?
Armed with ideas for a jacket with colour changing lapels, a built in mobile phone charger and heater, team Tenacity divide in order to gather feedback from fashion professionals and the general public. The public, by which we mean one passer-by in a slightly mad yellow jacket, loves the colour changing lapels. Naturally, this is the idea the professionals hate and they prefer the mobile phone charger.
Public support
Summit have divided into a fashion team and a technology team, with Scott leading the fashion team and no-one leading the technology team because Scott didn't put anyone in charge. For someone who didn't want to be PM and thinks this task is outside his area of expertise, Robert has a lot to say about t-shirts, jumpers and material.
Unfortunately, the tech team hit a snag. The photo t-shirt would take ages and has already been done. This neatly sums up the problem with this sort of task, that it is essentially impossible to come up with an idea that is good, achievable in a day and that does not already exist. The boys contact their team manager, but after listening to a lot of waffle from Robert about jumpers are told they need to come up with solutions not problems and left to sort it out.
The girls aren't doing much better. Unable to agree on the features they are rapidly developing a heated jacket with a phone charger and light up lapels. Nurun thinks this is too busy but can't decide what to get rid of and seems fed up with the whole process. Katie decides to take charge, which just leads to more arguments, and somehow solar panels get added to the shoulder pads. But the team do compromise, by replacing the colour-changing lapels with a series of lights that will flash. So that's massively reduced the complexity.
Commanding
With no sub-manager, no direction from Scott and no ideas the Summit technology team has collapsed into chaos. In the end, James suggests a jumper with a camera in it and team run with it for want of a better idea. The jumper then quickly picks up a logo in the form of the word "On air" written in LEDs across the front to make it absolutely clear to everyone when they're being filmed.
The camera-jumper, now named Emoti-shirt despite having nothing to do with emotions and not being a shirt, arrives the next morning in a suspiciously massive bag which makes it look like a painting. The finished product is suprisingly decent-looking, apart from what appears to be a trail of Christmas tree lights emblazoned across the chest. Meanwhile, Team Tenacity's jacket has yet to even arrive, it being so complicated that there has been a delay.
Quite big
Fortunately, Team Summit decide to have a massive argument to kill time. The sub-team complain that Scott avoided key decisions and left them without a sub-team leader. Scott, who seems to have smelled something even worse than usual, belittles the team for needing hand holding. When the sub-team complain that Robert was giving orders despite not wanting to be PM, he decides to re-write history and claims he was overwhelmed by Scott's enthusiasm, before, again, trying to explain the difference between high street and high fashion to a room full of men who only ever wear suits.
By the time this is all over, Tenacity's jacket has arrived and appears to have picked up massive solar-powered shoulder pads. Bianca is shocked to discover the solar panels have to go on the outside. Not to mention the conceptual flaw of a solar-powered heating jacket. After last week's performance, Sarah has been reduced to a mannequin while the others argue around her.
On the way to their first pitch with JD Sports, the rest of Team Summit make fun of Solomon for knowing how the camera works. The tune changes when they take a demonstration video and it comes out sideways. Scott claims this is a birds-eye view, which suggests he doesn't quite understand how birds work. When asked if they can rotate the image, Steven agrees and then turns the laptop on its side.
Solutions not problems
But it's better than the teams other pitch. Daniel is confident that he can translate his market-trading skills into corporate pitching. Unfortunately, he seems to have taken the mantra 'the customer is always right' too much to heart and agrees with every criticism the customers make. 'Yes it looks a bit Christmassy', 'no, women wouldn't want people staring at the lights on their chest', 'yes I do have a face like a gorilla's arse'. When one customer raises the question of whether you could wear it in a night club because of issues with filming, Daniel says he wouldn't wear it in public. At this point James feels the need to step in and Daniel rapidly back tracks, claiming he wouldn't wear it in public at night.
Very good point, I am a cretin
In the car on the way to the last pitch, Daniel denies that he ever said he wouldn't wear it in public. Pity no-one took a video of him saying it. Though, if they had, he would have had to have turned his head sideways to watch it. When asked by Scott how it went, Daniel claims the pitch was "absolutely outstanding". Then the rest of the team remind him that he said he wouldn't wear their own product. But apart from that, how was the pitch? "Poor," says Mark. Scott decides to take Daniel into the final pitch anyway, because... reasons. Then Scott demonstrates the jumper by dancing around like a bird looking for a worm and Robert claims 'privacy is history', a view supported by many journalists at the News of the World.
Not that Tenacity are doing much better. Ella-Jade struggles to find a coherent theme linking the jacket's features, largely because there isn't one. In the end she resorts to giggling and flicking her hair. Bianca loses control of limbs momentarily and knocks over a sign. Nurun puts in a painfully nervous performance, calling their product a drug before remembering it's a jacket and then losing her thread completely and mumbling "oh dear".
Trashing a sign
Back in the boardroom, Jemma is very keen to take the credit for the name 'Tenacity', possibly because it was the only thing she did all episode or in the series so far. Nurun claims she was coereced into being project manager, and Bianca is criticised for not taking the job given her business involves tights. At this point Bianca decides this was a technology task, which doesn't help much because Nurun isn't in the business of selling robo-scalves.
Lord Siral is deeply unimpressed that Robert wimped out of being project manager and also wonders why Solomon didn't step up given that it was a technology task. He doesn't much like the camera-jumper either, saying "it brings a whole new meaning to 'I saw you coming.'" Is that a joke? I'm not sure, it sounds like it's meant to be, but I can't figure out what the funny bit is. The candidates offer a few nervous giggles. The problem with a Lord Sugar joke is no-one know how much to laugh. Too little suggests you don't think it's funny and too much could be taking the piss.
In the end, nobody much like either product. The website Firebox took a punt on 250 of the jackets and that's it. Tenacity a duly sent off on a jetpack ride. This is in no way a joke.
Yes, this is really happening
It turns out that when Lord Siral said he didn't want to dictate the project manager, he actually meant he did. It's tricky this business speak. Robert is thus immediately fired for "bottling it". In the car Robert is unrepentant, claiming that just because you can drive a canoe doesn't mean you can drive a £250,000 luxury yacht. Fair enough Robert, but were you really expecting to win claiming that only thing you can do is ride a canoe?
With Robert gone, Scott tries to pin the blame on Solomon for wimping out of being PM and Daniel for his crappy pitch. The rest of the team, and particularly James, blame Daniel, but also Scott for the lack of direction and the fact that all his sub-team actually did was design a grey jumper. Solomon defends himself by pointing out his idea for the light up leggings.
Lord Siral thinks that Solomon wasn't forceful enough and that Daniel can't sell to the trade. But in the end he fires Scott because he sulked when they didn't like his idea and Lord Siral thinks this is just another kind of hiding.
Back at the house, everyone is surprised to see Daniel. Daniel asks if James is happy to see him back, before pulling a face that suggests he is planning to make James his bitch
Next Time: The teams sell home fragrance products. Queue more frantic running, Sarah thinks Lauren is so bossy and Steven thinks Daniel is intimidating people. Possibly James.
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