Week Seven - Star Spangled Branding

This week the Apprenti are woken up by Lord Siralan's alarm call at 4.30. These seem to be coming earlier and earlier. At this rate they'll be woken up for the final half way through the penultimate task.

 A subtle hint as to the theme of the task

They're going to the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. Cue much pseudo-american music and gratuitous shots of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. Lord Siralan can't be bothered to turn up this week, but he's sent a video instead, which makes him look like Oz the Great and Powerful with his giant head floating in mid-air. The teams will be inventing, branding and advertising a new soft drink for the American market. This bit gets emphasised, so it's clearly important. Half the team will stay behind the handle the drink and the branding and the other half will go to New York to film and advert and pitch to some advertising execs.

So only half the Apprenti get to go to New York. This is in no way designed to cause conflict.

After last week's criticism, both Lauren and Mark are keen to be project manager of Team Tenacity. Lauren thinks she would be ideal because she has worked in New York and has extensive local knowledge. Mark, however, claims advertising is essentially his day job. Nick Hewer points out that he is actually the Sales Manager of a Marketing firm and has no creative role. But given the task is about dramatically exaggerating the value of a mediocre product, he's probably gotten off to a good start.

Bianca is project manager of Team Summit and, again, we have no idea how they decided this. I'm now having visions an elaborate ritual conducted in a dark cellar, with hooded and masked figures, occult symbols drawn in blood and candles sticking out of skulls. Bianca has decided to take James and Solomon with her to New York. Or James has decided to take himself. Bianca comments that she'll have "four days of this". Then why take him? Maybe she's hoping to leave him in America? Sanjay is not at all happy to be left behind and makes his feelings clear. This is as animated as we've seen him all series. Get over it Sanjay, it's really just a big dirty city. Eat a subway sandwich in a public toilet while listening to a car alarm going off and it's pretty much the same experience.

Sanjay, ecstatic to be left in London

Sanjay is not the only one unhappy to be left behind. Daniel thinks he should be going so he can do the pitch. Given his last pitch involved criticising his own product and saying he would never use it, I think that's best avoided. He is somewhat placated by being put in charge of branding. He hopes to show Lord Siralan his creative side. He gets started by suggesting the name "Love Water". At this point the blog is broken. There is nothing I can possibly write that can out do the name itself.

Honestly BBC this could be anywhere, you need to make your establishing shots more specific

The sub-teams go to experiment with drink flavours. But, who cares? The others are in New York, where James is excited by how straight the roads are. I think road-straightness is pretty far down on the list of things New York is famous for. The teams have arrived just in time to sample their new drinks. Team Tenacity's tastes mostly of pineapple, despite containing raspberry and lychees as well. Mark would prefer a nice tasting pineapple drink than something that tastes horrible. Speaking of which, Team Summit are not enjoying their dragon fruit and passion fruit based energy drink. James criticises the taste based on his extensive experience running a bar. Sanjay blows his top wanting to know why he didn't stay behind if he knows so much about drinks. Roisin points out that he's a fool if he listens to James, a lesson he really should have learned after the coach trip.

The teams test out their drinks on the population of New York, and both take the opportunity to get the ingredients wrong. Felipe manages to mispronounce lychee as leach, while James claims that their drink has dragonfly in it. The New Yorkers seem indifferent to Tenacity's drink, but seem to quite like Summit's, which suggests they are only interested in genuine insects. None of your blood-drinking wanabee slugs here. This could be a slogan, "when only insects will do".

Back in Britain, the sub-teams are working on the branding. Daniel and Katie have come up with a logo in which a pineapple appears to be exploding into a splash of water, which suggests their wasn't much fruit in the pineapple. They also have a yellow logo on a yellow background. The name is Aqua-something. Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to care. Lauren calls up with a brilliant idea for some kind of twisty bottle with fruit rising up out of it. But she doesn't explain herself very well because the sub-team think they've already had that idea. Mark concludes that Lauren is contributing nothing to the task, clearly getting his excuses in early.

Meanwhile, Bianca has come up with the name "Big Dawg" for her team's drink. The sub-team aren't overly impressed, but Bianca reckons its aspirational. Personally, I don't aspire to be an obese dog, but who am I to judge? The sub-team get to work on a bill board advert and suggest the slogan "what dog would you be?" Bianca doesn't like it, largely because it's completely meaningless, which leads to Sanjay complaining about a lack of feedback from the main team. What are you talking about Sanjay, she just said she doesn't like your ideas, what more do you want?

 Solomon and James not staring at an actress in a faintly creepy way

The next day, the New York teams are filming adverts, but first they have to take delivery of their newly bottle drinks. Summit are happy with Big Dawg, the name incorporates a bone in place of the i in "Big". Tenacity are less happy. Mark doesn't think the logo is creative, fresh or healthy. Though, to be fair, it's quite difficult to communicate healthiness in an exploding pineapple.

Felipe has been put in charge of directing the advert and wants to prove that he is "super creative" despite the stereotype people have about lawyers being boring. Unfortunately, Felipe's creativity manifests itself in blind panic and lots of running around, especially when it transpires that the actor he cast as a basketball player can't catch to save his life. This almost becomes literally true when is pelted by a basketball thrown by Felipe. Mark is worried that Felipe is overstressed and attempts to reduce his stress by threatening to throw him off the advert and take over. Fortunately, Lauren has been cast in the advert and uses her extensive local knowledge to pronounce the word "Mom" as "Maaaawm".

Bianca is directing team Summit's advert, which stars Solomon, who decides not to attempt an accent. Bianca's direction consists of telling him not to a weird squinty face and draining all the life out of the advert by refusing to let a skater spin his board and taking out the music, because the last thing you want is for your energy drink advert to have any energy.

After a quick editing and website building session, in which Lauren is, once again, not given anything to do, the team's go to see the digital bill boards the sub-teams have set up. Mark claims that it's amazing to be in time square given that he works in advertising. Give it a rest Mark, you're project manager now, no-one cares if you really work in advertising or not. Felipe is surprisingly emotional and even tearful, given that he didn't actually do any work on the branding or billboard design. Maybe he just gets emotional about billboards? Was his father killed by a falling billboard?

Team Summit are happy with their billboard and the new slogan "it's bark is as big as it's bite". James claims that "the world is as big as our oyster". This is actually about the most sensible thing he's said all episode.

The New York sub-teams have to give presentations to an audience of ad-execs and industry types, while the UK sub-teams watch them on a monitor and judge them, letting them experience life as an ordinary viewer. Bianca gives a confident performance and the audience seem to think the brand and slogan fit the US market. Unfortunately, the advert proves to be slightly less interesting than the blank screen it's projected on. When Bianca is asked why she didn't include any music, she claims it's because she wanted to do something different from everyone else. Fair enough, but no-one's made a soft drink advert in which they drop puppies into a blender either, possibly for a good reason. One of the execs asks if the bone-shaped i in 'Big' is supposed to be a phallic symbol. Either he's reaching for criticism, or suffering from an unfortunate medical condition.

Team Summit are on next and Mark seems uncharacteristically nervous. Then Lauren loses her thread and has to resort to note cards, prompting another winge from Daniel about how he should be pitching. To be fair to Lauren, she might have lost her way, but she never claimed that she wouldn't drink the product herself. The audience want to know why the branding didn't make more of the different types of fruit in the drink. Felipe waffles something about not making very specific claims and Mark tries to make a joke about how there are two lawyers on the team which goes down like a cup of cold Aqua-fusion.

Lord Siralan consults the ad execs who tell him that the Big Dawg brand is strong but the advert is poor, while Aqua-fusion had a stronger advert but the brand is trying too hard to be all things to all people. And there was me thinking it was trying to be a drink made from an exploding pineapple.

Back in the boardroom, Lord Siralan emphasises that this task was about making a drink for the American market, so the writing is already on the wall for Team Tenacity. Lord Siralan claims the drink is bland and that Mark delegated the key part of the task.


But there's still plenty of time to criticise Team Summit. Sanjay is still pissed off about being left behind, but Bianca accuses him of whining and says she chose her team for business reasons. Karen says there was no way James wasn't going, though if it came to it, I don't think he'd have clung on to Bianca's leg like a limpet. Lord Siralan thinks there advert is less Big Dawg than chihuahua, but their brand and pitch was better than Tenacity and so they win. But Lord Siralan still has time to be pissed off at James for his stupid remarks. James grins, wrongly believing himself to be a lovable scamp rather than simply an annoying tosser.

Summit are sent off for a meal at the top of a building or something, but have plenty of time to argue over dinner about who actually won the task.

 Everyone in this room hates everyone else in this room

Back with Tenacity and there's scandle in the boardroom as it's discovered that Mark's claim to work in advertising is slightly dubious. Lord Siralan claims to to understand what Mark's job is. Given that he works for a company that manages online marketing and Lord Siralan used to run a computer company, I think this says more about Lord Siralan than Mark. Lord Siralan conceeds that their advert was better, but says only marginally and claims they made the "Piers Morgan of drinks". Piers Morgan being one of the many people Lord Siralan has gotten in a twitter spat with over the years. But it was a smart fight as Piers Morgan is one of the few people who is more objectionable than Lord Siralan on every possible level.

Mark launches a well prepared attack on Lauren for not doing anything, but is joined in this by the rest of the team. When Lauren claims she had the idea for a health drink, Katie turns on her, claiming it wasn't her idea alone. Mark brings back Lauren and, "reluctantly" Daniel, because he was most responsible for the branding.

 Impressing Lord Siralan with their creativity

Lord Siralan is wondering if Daniel is past his sell by date. But Karen says Lauren's pitch was like a sermon and that Mark's first attempt as Project Manager resulted in a terrible product. Surprisingly, at this point Nick Hewer sticks up for Mark's management style.

Despite Mark's attempt at an olive branch by claiming he was "reluctant" to bring him back, Daniel is having none of it. He seems to be taking it personally, possibly mistaking 'one hundred percent support' for 'will not expect you to be responsible for anything'. In the face of this onslaught, Mark changes his mind and says he should have brought Daniel back "without hesitation". He also claims that if he had a pound for every time Daniel talked rubbish he would already have the £250,000. Daniel reckons he can see through Mark and that he tries to articulate himself well. Mark is so transparent with his actual sales skills and ability to construct a coherent sentence.

 Daniel takes it on the chin

In spite of this, Mark still thinks Lauren was responsible for the failure of the task because she didn't contribute. This is a pretty self-defeating argument, if Lauren not being there wouldn't have made any difference she can't exactly be responsible for their failure.

Unfortunately for Lauren, she just isn't interesting enough to stay. He claims Mark made a fatal error, but not the kind of fatal error that results in death as he gets to stay. As does Daniel, who, back at the house, says he is running out of lives. Maybe you should try some Aqua-fusion, apparently it's really healthy.

Next Time: The Royal Bath and West show. I'm pretty sure none of these events exist until the Apprentice comes along. James decides the day is all about him And, apparently, there's a cull in the board room, though the narrator doesn't specify that it's candidates being culled. Maybe Lord Siralan has a badger problem.

Week Six - Bored of Games

It's 6am and the candidates are dragged out of bed and told to assemble at HMS Belfast. James says "that's the Army." No James, it isn't. The clue is in the big boat. So what tenuous link will there be between the location and the task this week? Apparently Battleships, like HMS Belfast, inspired the board game Battleships and this week the teams have to design board games. Come on Lord Siral, you could have been more imaginative than that. What about meeting them in a giant shoe? Or while being clubbed over the head with a candlestick in a Library? Or halfway up a Ladder while fighting off snakes?

Army Boat

There will be no shuffling of the teams this week and Mark and Lauren seem extremely reluctant to be Team Tenacity Project Manager. Mark has no family and has never played a board game. I'm waiting for the Revelation that he was raised in the outback by Kangaroos or something. Pamela more or less gets bullied into the job. Meanwhile, Team Summit have somehow picked James?! For the second week in a row we get no hint as to how Summit picked the PM. Which has me wondering if it involves some elaborate and disturbing hazing ritual that can't be broadcast on TV for reasons of taste and decency.

The teams try to come up with board game ideas, most of which essentially boil down to charades. I'm not sure the teams have quite grasped the concept of a board game. Roisin comes up with something that sounds dull and complicated involving guessing countries. But to be fair, Roisin could make an orgy sound dull and complicated. Over at Tenacity Mark suggests a board game based on dating websites because this hasn't been done. Two points, there hasn't been a game based on the Holocaust, but it doesn't make it a good idea, and, secondly, given Mark claimed to know nothing about board games, how does he know this?

The teams are split up to visit focus groups. James and Bianca see a bunch of parents and children, but clearly they had nothing interesting or amusing to say as we don't hear any of it. Meanwhile, Mark, Lauren and Felipe speak to a group of board game enthusiasts in a pub. The latter have been lit in such a way as to make their skin looking pastier and more unsightly than it already is and they're all men. The program seems to be trying to send the message "these people are massive nerds". They are not impressed with the idea of a relationship game which they think could be sleazy. Though the way the program is presenting them, we're probably supposed to think they're just terrified of women.

Not a nerd

The sub-team report their findings back to Pamela. Mark concedes that they may not be the teams demographic. Given that these are serious board game fans used to playing games that have been developed and play tested over a period of months, they probably aren't the demographic for a game knocked up in two days by a group of people who aren't even sure what a board is. Pamela decides to ignore the focus group because sometimes you just do that. Plus she really like the idea. The sub-team nod sagely and agree and then got off the phone and discuss what a stupid mistake Pamela has just made.

Roisin is explaining her Geography game, GeoKnow, to a designer. But as this is incredibly boring we'll go back to Team Tenacity where Mark is trying to come up with questions for the newly christened "Relationship Guru". The game has now become a basic set of vaguely relationship themed trivia questions that are totally subjective and designed by a sexist lunatic. Example question: "Men think women should? a) Iron b) Smile more c) Always be happy"

The other halves of the teams have moved on to taking photos for the box covers. James and Bianca find it impossible to get on. James interrupts everything Bianca says and thinks any attempt to express an opinion is insubordination. On the other hand, Mark, Lauren and Felipe are working together brilliantly and the result is a photo of a man leaning on a giant pair of lips ineffectively trying to seduce a bored woman sitting on a throne while a disembodied arm either mimes "OK" or awards them 0 points. Pamela thinks this doesn't convey the games humorous theme. Maybe not, but certainly conveys the bat-shit insanity of most of the questions. Team Summit don't like their box cover much either. Solomon thinks it looks like a family about to be run over by a taxi.

James decides Bianca needs a good telling off to put her in her place as she is getting too big for her boots. This backfires a bit when she defends herself and refuses to let him speak until she has had her say. This is funny to watch, especially because Bianca is sitting on the kitchen counter while she's doing it, which makes it look a bit like a magic pixie has arrived to abuse James.

 Taking the moral counter top

The next day the games arrive and the teams try them out. Things do not go well for Tenacity as no-one likes the game, even Daniel and he wrote the questions. Summit have more success, except for James who struggles to understand the rules, shouting "I am an American" in what sounds like a terrible attempt at an Italian accent. Hopefully you don't have to understand the game in order to sell it.

Having tried the games themselves, the teams try them with their target audience. As it's too late to make any changes now, this is really just a way to torture the candidates. A group of Primary School children love Geoknow, though this may be because the alternative is double maths. They manage to figure out the rules, which puts them ahead of James. Meanwhile, a group of adults hate Relationship Guru. Daniel's defence has shifted. He is now claiming that he hated the questions when he wrote them, but Pamela liked them. To clarify, he is saying that he deliberately wrote questions he hated because he thought Pamela would like them.

Having and offensive and sexist time

With gaming sessions complete, the teams now have to try and sell the games to some shops. Roisin gives James some last minute pointers on the rules, which he is, amazingly, still struggling to grasp. They pitch the to Toys 'R Us, who seem to like the game, but want to pay less than the £14.50 James wants. Roisin tries to say something but James cuts her off. Maybe he's just figured out the rules and doesn't want to be distracted. He sells 30 copies for £10 each. Meanwhile, Sanjay manages to sell 15 copies for £17.50 each. James is delighted and claims "we" have made back the money lost at Toys 'R Us. There's no "we" James. What you mean is that Sanjay just saved your arse.

Meanwhile, Summit are having a more difficult time. Representative of Waterstones thinks the questions are offensive and sexist. Daniel agrees that it is a quirky game, so he's agreeing with something different from what they actually said. At least he doesn't claim he wouldn't play the game himself. Waterstones don't buy any.

At Toys 'R Us, Mark, amazingly, persuades them to take 60 copies for £8 each. Given that they also think the questions are awful and the target market is completely wrong, I'm not sure how he did this. He seems to just claim that the game is suitable for all ages in blatant defiance of the obvious facts. Perhaps they edited out the scene where he pulled out his hypno-watch or just straight up offered them a bribe?

James is pitching at another shop who agree to take a few copies on condition of exclusivity within the Hampstead post code. James gets on the phone to the other team to make sure they haven't sold any copies in Hampstead. They haven't, but, unfortunately, this gives Bianca an idea. At the next shop they go in, she offers exclusivity for the whole Westminster area in return for an order of six copies. James is furious, though mostly because he never gave her the authority to offer exclusivity. Because whether the team wins or loses is less important than Bianca having a clear understanding of the chain of command.

James is enthusiastic about Bianca's performance

Mark is selling well, but it seems to be going to his head and he is now claiming that Katie and Pamela are his Apprentices. He then goes into a pitch and claims that you don't have to be a "rocket surgeon" to play the game. It's a tricky business rocket surgery. One wrong move and you can cause serious brain damage and an explosion. Speaking of rockets, Daniel tries to flog a few copies to Forbidden Planet who pass, which is a surprise. A trivia game from a bizarre alternate universe seems like an excellent fit for their market.

 Possibly a bit far-fetched

Solomon tries to sell to Waterstone and is badly hamstrung by the exclusivity clause Bianca "negotiated" (or gave away like she was handing out free t-shirts). He manages to make a sale, but has to offer a big discount because Waterstones won't be able to sell the game in their largest store, the one they are currently sitting in.

With only a few minutes left there is time for a few last minutes sales. Sales "genius" Daniel manages to shift 10. Will James be able to match? He has found a shop that's interested, but finds the exclusivity rules bizarre. They would only be able to sell the game online. James refuses to budge on shifting the last 31 copies and, for once, it works. The frustrating thing about James stubborn and brash approach does work in some situations, but James has no idea how to tailor his approach to his audience.

We're back with Lord Siralan, so brace yourself for this weeks hilarious quip. "From board games to the board room." My sides! 

To business and James is so excited that he can't stop himself from interrupting everyone, including Lord Siralan which is incredibly stupid. Bianca says that James management style was dictatorial, but her criticism is slightly undermined by the colossal stupidity of her exclusivity deal for Westminster. She admit it was a mistake and apparently meant to say "post code" and not "borough". Because, having said the wrong word there was no way she could say "sorry I meant postcode" or anything like that. I said Bianca was a magic pixie once she has said something she is bound by it for all eternity.

Lord Siralan wants to know why Pamela ignored the market research that called the idea terrible. She claims she made a "decisive decision". That's a relief, I would hate to think she made an indecisive one. Lord Siralan finds the questions amusing, but not in a good way. He says "you couldn't make it up". Which is a bit of an odd comment given that Daniel quite obviously did.

Unsurprisingly, Summit win this one with total sales of £2080 to Tenacity's £1112. Lord Siralan seems actively pissed off that he can't fire James and tells him he still has a lot to learn. James nods seriously and then ignores this completely, claiming he's shown Lord Siralan he can do it and "he really believes in me now". I'd love to know what planet James is living on, because they clearly speak a completely different language there, and don't understand tone of voice, body language or facial expressions. 

Back with team Tenacity, Pamela is still blaming Daniel for the terrible questions and he is still blaming her for making him write the questions.

In the boardroom, Lord Siralan criticises Mark and Lauren for not putting themselves forward as project manager. Given that Mark volunteered last week, this feels like reaching for criticism of the one member of the team who acquitted himself well. In fact Lord Siralan is bizarrely hostile to Mark overall and makes a borderline offensive crack about "waltzing Matlida". I'm not sure what Mark has done to piss him off, not laugh at his "board room" pun? Mark's previous confidence is short and he even lets Daniel get in a crack about a great number two not necessarily making a great number one. Is Daniel calling him shit? It's a bit hard to tell.

 Mark is feeling less confident all of a sudden

Pamela claims that Daniel and Lauren both "sat on the fence" and we're difficult to work with. Daniel, in a bullish mood now because Lord Siralan is criticising Mark, points out that it's difficult to be both. Not that Lord Sirlan thinks much of Daniel, he thinks he is delusional and a fantasist. Daniel at least remembers not to agree.

Pamela brings Daniel and Lauren back into the board room, an idea she definitely didn't get from Mark. She claims Daniel hasn't pulled his weight and is disruptive. It's hard to argue with the second point, but it can't be easy to write out all of those completely insane questions. She also says Lauren criticises but doesn't put forward any ideas of her own and that rambles and never gets to the point. Lauren tries to say something but is interrupted by Pamela rambling and never getting to the point. Daniel says he isn't interested in listening to them argue, which is unfortunate because Lord Siralan apparently is. Daniel still doesn't quite understand the power dynamic in the board room.

Daniel insists he learns from every mistake, which is really just a feeder line for Lord Siralan to quip that based on the number of mistakes he's made he must be a genius. You could at least make it difficult for him Daniel. Lord Siralan thinks Lauren may be "playing a clever game" which he can't substantiate with any evidence or insight but sounds like the sort of thing you get criticised for. Lord Siralan seems to be reaching for a reason not to fire Daniel, but has slightly lost his thread. He points out that Pamela has only been in full time work for a year, but then decides that doesn't matter. He says Daniel can't substantiate the claims he makes, which is another word for lying, but he like his enthusiasm. So he's an enthusiastic liar then, exactly the sort of person you want to work with. He says he's deeply disappointed in Lauren, but it's not exactly clear why, and then fires Pamela because she was responsible for the product and we can't fire Daniel as he's too interesting.

A liar or a fantasist?

Lord Siralan threatens Lauren by reminding her that he has "total flexibility" to get rid of dead wood. Well not total flexibility Lord Siralan, we still have six episodes to make. But he's only toying with her, he doesn't think she's dead wood, but she has to stop playing a game. Which is quite difficult when you consider that she's competing with a group of people on national television in order to win a prize.

Back at the house Mark claims he was close to offering Lord Siralan an ultimatum, him or Daniel. He probably just forgot to say anything, it's not that he thought Lord Siralan would probably have kept Daniel instead of him for anything. He's pretty annoyed when Daniel comes back. Though Katie pretty much sums up everyone's feelings when she says she's surprised he's still here.

Next Time: It's the week when Lord Siralan appears as a disembodied head on a view screen and the teams are split between London and New York though, sadly, not down the middle with an axe. According to James, the world is as big as their oyster. So either a small world or a very big oyster.

Week 5 - Coach Torture

Lauren is woken up at 5.30 and told that the candidates will be sent to "South Mims". She announces this with great confidence, despite not having a clue where that is. As it happens, no-one knows where that is, except Daniel, but as Mark says no-one listens to Daniel. If they did they would all own t-shirts with built in cameras that they couldn't wear in public.

Welcome to Sunny South Mims

But for the first time this series Daniel is right, South Mims is a service station. This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for locations. Next week round the back of Poundland. Still when they get sent to exotic locations, they invariable get given shitty tasks, so maybe this week they'll be setting up a mission to Mars or organising Champagne receptions on a luxury yacht. Sadly not, they're are just running coach tours. They have to find customers in London, drive them out to the country take them to attractions at a discount rate and give them lunch.

After Tenacity's evisceration last week, the teams are looking a bit unbalanced. So Mark is moved to Tenacity, joining Daniel, Pamela, Lauren, Felipe and Katie, while Summit now consists of Sanjay, Bianca, Jemma, James, Solomon and Roisin.

Sanjay ends up as Project Manager of team Summit. How this happened is not explained so I like to think he was anointed by Angels or drew a sword from a stone. At team Tenacity there is more debate. Daniel thinks he should be Project Manager because he runs an entertainment company (it organises Pub Quizzes), but Mark has experience as a tour guide from when he first moved to Britain. Daniel sounds actively offended that anyone should question his rightness to lead the team. Especially given his service station identification skills. Daniel gets the job. He tells us that, like great chess players, he thinks two moves ahead. Wait, two moves ahead? How does that work? My mind is boggled.

Coach Conference

The teams hold meetings on their coaches and try to sort out the destination of their tours and prices. Tenacity picks Oxfordshire and Summit, Kent. Sanjay thinks they can put together a good historical tour based around Henry VIII and the Cantebury tales. You know, the historic links there, because it's all history yeah? Why stop there? Why not throw in the Romans, Charles Dickens and the Battle of Britain, it's all history right? Daniel wants to set a price point of about £80, but, as this task is entirely about profit margins, the team argue him up. He's still obsessed with keeping the price below three figures, so they end up with £99.50. Sanjay, on the other hand, decides on £60. At no point are we given any indication that either team did any research, worked out any costs or did anything other than pull a number out of their collective arses.

The teams are sub-divided with half going to negotiate discounts at locations and the other half to flog coach tours to unsuspecting tourists in London. Mark, Pamela and Lauren head to Blenheim palace. The standard entry fee is £25, with a group rate of £12, but Mark is able to negotiate a rate of £9.50 as long as he brings at least twenty people. As the maximum capacity of the coach is only 25, this puts a lot of pressure on the sales team.

Sanjay, James and Jemma head for Heaver Castle. James wants to push for an 80% discount. Jemma thinks this is embarrassingly low, but James doesn't see how getting a good discount would be embarrassing. Jemma clarifies that it's embarrassing because she knows he won't get it. At Heaver castle, the team are told that standard entry is £15 and the group rate is £12. James' negotiation strategy is to call their discount rubbish and ask for £3. When it becomes obvious that he won't get it he decides to keep asking anyway, while Jemma tries to disappear into her own hair. The problem the teams have, is that with no promises or repeat business and no large numbers of visitors to back them up, the only leverage they have is a camera crew and their personal charm. Sadly, James has all the charm of a fossilised turd thrown through the castle window which knocks over a candle and starts a masivefire. The team have to settle for £12 and then run off quickly in case the prices goes up, or actually because the Canterbury tails attraction closes in an hour and it takes and hour to get there.

 The James effect

In London, Daniel's team are struggling to make sales at the high price point. Daniel tries advertising Blenheim palace as the birth place of "the Winston Churchill." This looks fine written down because you naturally put the emphasis on the. But Daniel says "the" like "the rain outside", "the bins over there" or "the outrageous price of these tickets", which makes him sound like an automated voice running out of batteries. The team manage to sell five tickets, but, as Nick Hewer gleefully points out "master salesman" Daniel is responsible for none of them.

 Another great sales moment from Daniel

In the end, they gather together a big group and offer them a job lot of tickets at £60 each. Despite their opposition to his earlier high prices, Felipe and Katie think Daniel has now gone too low. That's the problem with thinking two moves ahead, he's skipped the move where he asked for £80.

Not that team Summit are doing spectacularly better, despite the lower ticket price. Solomon has managed to shift a few, mostly to young women for some reason. But in the end the team is also reduced to selling to big groups. Bianca presents to a big group manages to gather a group together, but ends up admitting that they're not talking to anyone else. One bright spark asks if they are the teams "last hope". After this Bianca is pretty forced to bend over and take whatever price the group feels like paying. That, James, is how you negotiate a discount.

 Bianca realises she has screwed herself

Speaking of which, James, Sanjay and Jemma have arrived at the Cantebury tales museum. Jemma was embarrassed by James request for a massive discount, unfortunately she seems to be embarrassed at having to ask for any kind of discounts or even having to mention prices or money at all. She stammers for a minute or two before James bludgeons his way in and gets a price of £6.25, probably because the representative just wanted to get home rather than because of any great negotiating skill.

Back at HQ, Mark Pamela and Lauren are brushing up on their history and making merchandise. Pamela is pissed off that she is "ironing a picture on a fecking t-shirt" instead of Daniel. And, when he calls, she is pretty short with him. Daniel is shocked by her negativity as they have sold 15 more tickets. Well Daniel, maybe her negativity has something to do with the phone call earlier where you admitted that you had only sold five tickets  and that you, personally, hadn't sold any? But Daniel seems to have a very selective memory when it comes to his own failure. Maybe he told his customers that he wouldn't get on a coach in public?

The next day dawns and the teams set off in their coaches, with Summit in hideous red jackets and Tenacity in hideous yellow ones. The teams have been divided again, with half getting lunch and the other half looking after the customers. Mark, Lauren and Felipe are on coach duty for Team Tenacity. Mark gets off to a good start, putting his tour guide experience to good use, and giving the group a bit of historical background. When they arrive at Blenheim Palace, Lauren has done her homework and is able to give a comprehensive tour without notes. Even Nick Hewer is impressed.

Meanwhile, Team Summit arrive 45 minutes late and Sanjay puts James in charge of the first leg of the tour. This should really be all you need to know to get an idea of what it's like, but the customers had to put up with it so I'm going to go into more detail. Rather than giving any information, James tries to get the coach to join in a song. None of them are interested, but this doesn't stop James who launches into a bellowed rendition of 'One man went to mow'. When passengers started complaining that this is torture, he takes it as a challenged. Sanjay, amazingly, goes along with this. But then he was the one who was most enthusiastic about Jame's turn as the semi-naked chef last week, so maybe he's suffering from serious sense of humour damage.

One man went to tell you to shut the fuck up!

At Heaver Castle James dons a robe and a crown and insists the group refer to him as 'King James'. Sadly he doesn't suffer the same fate as the last British King James, and is not packed off to exile in Italy. He starts out with a tour as given by a four year old, which essentially consists of "look at that funny bush, it looks like a crab". Fortunately, once inside Jemma takes over. Less fortunately, she knows nothing about the place, is left reading from the guide book, refers to a "photo" of Henry VIII, presumably taken by a time traveller, and when asked why Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's marriage failed she suggests they just grew apart. Or, alternatively, Anne's head grew apart from her body.

 King James guides his people

Lunch time arrives and things are going slightly less well for Team Tenacity. In a bid to keep down costs, Daniel's lunch provision consists of one and a half sandwiches, a small apple pie and an extra charge for water. It's hard to disagree with Mark's view that everything was great until Daniel turned up. The tour then goes on a boat trip in Oxford. Felipe, looking like a hobbit who has been stood up by the other members of his barber-shop quartet, delivers fifteen interesting facts about Oxfordshire. The first being that there are more pigs than people and it gets less interesting from there. By the time he starts explaining the intricacies of Oxford degree abbreviations you realise that his thresh hold for 'interesting' is set a lot lower than most peoples.

Maybe Team Tenacity should show some videos of Team Summit's tour, just to put Felipe into some context? After a lunch that consists mostly of James hard selling merchandise, the team arrive late in Cantebury and then Sanjay gets lost in a town that largely consists of a single long street. They finally arrive after Sanjay phones for directions, but have to interrupt the Cantebury tales attraction half way through so they don't miss their coach slot. Sanjay thinks they need to do some work to recover some good will, so James suggests more singing before auctioning off everything left on the coach that isn't tied down, claiming they worked their balls off and having the audacity to hold out a hat for a tip.

And so James just about defeats Daniel in the "least self-aware" Apprenti competition.

Back in the boardroom we have to endure one of Lord Siralan's terrible puns in which he claims he was looking for the "complete package". On the plus side, he doesn't try to sing.

Team Tenacity collectively through Daniel under the coach, blaming him for pricing that started too high and then went too low when he panicked and saying that the tour was a success in spite, rather than because of him. Daniel says he won't be sucked into an argument, at which point Lord Siralan reminds him of the rules of the game, but he clarifies by saying that it's easy to get sucked into an argument that makes him look bad. Yes Daniel, it certainly is.

Despite the fact that Tenacity's tour was quite well done and Summit's was pure crap with an extra helping of James, no-one asked for their money back so this makes not the blindest bit of difference to the outcome. It all comes down to sales and pricing. Amazingly, James could end up on the winning team. Fortunately, karma does its job and Summit lose with a profit of £813.70 versus Tenacity's £1037.99.

Tenacity offer Daniel know congratulations, he is excluded from the team hug, and then they are sent off to abseil down the side of the Orbit, a treat that for Daniel is more of a punishment. This would look like bullying if Daniel wasn't still trying to spin it in his favour. Apparently, he'd rather win and be unpopular. Yes Daniel, but I don't think your unpopularity was key to the win.

 Mr Popular

Back in the boardroom, James is in the firing line, taking the blame for the bad negotiations at Heaver Castle and the Singing. He defends himself by demanding to know how much merchandise the rest of the team sold, before bellowing over the top of them so they can't answer. But, in spite of the valid criticism, it's questionable whether James lost them the task. He may be the most annoying person on Earth, but as no-one actually asked for the money back (amazingly!) his terrible performance on day two made no difference to the outcome.

So it's Sanjay in the firing line for setting the terrible pricing policy and Bianca for admitting to a group of potential customers that they were the team's last hope. Then Lord Siralan reveals that on Jemma's CV she claimed that she always nearly wins, which sounds like the Apprentice equivalent of "nothing can possibly go wrong".

Sanjay lets James go, probably because he can claim to have sold some merchandise and it's hard to pin failure on him. Instead he brings back Bianca and Jemma. But Lord Siral seems peeved that he doesn't get to yell at James some more and gives him a bollocking before he goes. James has the face of a teenager called before the headmaster just ignoring the noise before he's allowed to go home.

Back in the boardroom Sanjay gets the blame for the pricing policy, but he demonstrates that he does at least know how prices should be set and has the good sense to say he'll do better if he's allowed to stay in the process. There's nothing Lord Siralan love as much as being reminded that he can fire them at any time. Bianca is told that her heavy discounting was a fireable offence, but it's Jemma who gets fired, the temptation of her CV and the fact that this is the first week we have really seen her do anything is clearly too much

But there's still drama to be had back at the house. Sanjay claims that his team worked well together despite losing and Tenacity were the other way round. When Daniel sticks in his oar, Mark says he's had enough of his lying. The confrontation doesn't lead to actual physical violence, but by the next day Daniel will probably believe that kicked Mark's arse.

Next Time: The Apprentii design board games, one of which would cause people to leave a party rather than play it. Bianca refuses to let James talk, which is probably a good thing for all of us and Lord Siralan claims someone is deluded.

Week Four - Fat Daddy

We kick off this episode with some violin music, because Lord Siral is dragging his Apprenti to Wilton's Music hall, London's oldest Victorian music hall. The Apprentice has always liked to introduce a task by talking about an old thing and establishing a tenuous link to a new thing, and the modern equivalent of a Victorian music hall is apparently YouTube. We now get to watch Lord Siral, a man who didn't full understand computers when he ran a computer company and who is responsible for the Amstrad Emailer, explain YouTube to a group of mostly twenty-somethings. Karen Brady seems unusually irritated by his performance for some reason.

Happy to be here

The teams job is to set up YouTube channels and the winner will be the team that gets the most hits in 48 hours. Jemma is moved to team Summit, because she hasn't done anything for four weeks except put on her lipstick. Lord Siral has realised that when he makes suggestions people don't realise they're actually orders and so he decides that the Project Managers will be Solomon for Team Summit, because he knows about the Internet and stuff and Ella-Jade for Team Tenacity because she wants to be a documentary film maker.

At the Team Tenacity brainstorming session, Pamela says she did a great video at work involving rugby players and hand cream, which is already starting to sound suspiciously euphemistic so Ella-Jade rapidly moves rapidly on. Pamela is less than happy and this dismissal will colour her and Ella-Jade's interaction for the rest of the task. This is a bit of a problem because apart from the fact that Pamela has slightly wavy hair, she and Ella-Jade can only be distinguished from one another by the accents. So we're now stuck watching two basically identical women argue, like a pair of identical twins at a family reunion. Ella-Jade says her strategy is to be herself. Maybe she was worried that she might accidentally be Pamela.

Katie, apparently, already has a YouTube channel showing fitness videos. Is there any aspect of life she doesn't have experience with already? Last week it was home smells, this week it's YouTube. Felipe suggests that as the least un-fat and oldest member of the team he could play "Fat Daddy", attempt to get fit and bring some comedy. Lauren and Daniel are worried that this may be offensive to fat people. Though if we remove all the potentially offensive videos from YouTube we're pretty much left with a logo, and that'll probably be taken down soon.

Ella-Jade doles out tasks. Felipe and Katie will be on camera, she will direct with Pamela acting a first AD, or something. Lauren will take charge of the sub-team who will be responsible for editing and other miscellaneous tasks that we will get to later. Sarah is put in charge of timing, because she's "very organised". Which sounds a bit like giving the special needs kid the stop watch on sports day because you can't trust them to run in the right direction.

Over at Team Summit, the team wants to do something funny involving food. Solomon is thinking of reaction videos to people eating odd-looking things and has come up with the name "Gut Reaction." Someone is worried that word 'gut' may be offensive. Between this and Team Tenacity worrying that they may offend fat people, I think this year's Apprenti may be too timid for the Internet.

 James' magnificent physique

In the end, Solomon puts Roisin and James, wearing an apron, a chef's hat, a funny accent and very little else, in front of the camera. Roisin's job is essentially to present a fairly dry life style video about cookery while James jumps up behind her with plastic fangs and generally gets in the way. The team think this is hilarious, but their sense of humour may have been stunted from too much exposure to Lord Siral's boardroom jokes.

 There really isn't much I can add to this

Meanwhile, at Team Tenacity, Ella-Jade is trying to direct. Pamela thinks she is doing a terrible job and that she assumed that someone who wants to be a documentary film-maker would know how to make films. Though, to be fair, it's probably quite hard to make a film while you pissed-off doppelganger yells across you. Karen Brady, who started the episode in a bad mood, now looks solidly fed up to be there.

There may be something in Pamela's complaints, though. For their second video the team put Felipe and Katie along side a personal trainer who, due to lack of clear direction, seems to think his job is to abuse Felipe to his face. It's one thing to refer to yourself as 'fat daddy' in a self-deprecating way, and quite another when an obviously fitter, younger man calls you that as you lie on the floor exhausted and gasping for air. Karen reckons that the whole thing is "quite cruel", which coming from someone who works closely with Lord Siralan is really saying something.

For the following day, the teams will be making a video with an established YouTube partner and so the sub-teams are having video conferences with potential collaborators. On other tasks, the teams usually meet their potential partners face to face, but as this is a YouTube task everything has to be done by laptop and the end result is, like most virtual meetings, a bit like shouting at a hobbit through a faulty magic mirror.

Team Tenacity quickly choose a couple of fitness themed comedians, but Team Summit face a dilemma. The team have to choose between Barry, who makes food themed videos and Ollie, a 19 year old the purpose of whose videos is not established, but has twelve and a half million teenage girls watching. Mark favours Barry because of thematic consistency, but Solomon overrules him and goes with the numbers. Mark responds to this by deferring to Solomon's judgement as project manager and resident Internet expert in a calm and professional way. This is the sort of sensible, normal behaviour that usually indicates a megalomaniac who, when he gets to be project manager, will spend the episode bellowing insane orders and demanding respect.

 Twelve and a half million teenage girls can't be wrong

The Tenacity sub-team are trying to edit their video, but are struggling because what was supposed to be a comedy fitness video has ended up like something leaked by the US military. Sarah tries to keep the time and when they ignore her, tells them not to blame her when they run over, The team spend so long on the editing that they forget to give their video either a heading or a name. When Ella-Jade calls, Lauren is left apologising, but, naturally, the team decides to blame Sarah, whose role has been expanded to scape-goat.

For the last day the teams will be divided again, with half making a final video with their collaborators while the other half pitches their channel to representative of Buzz Feed in attempt to persuade them to give the channel a mention. Which is not so much begging for scraps as begging for someone to put in a good word for them with the scrap merchant. Ella-Jade doles out individual tasks, but forgets about Sarah. Sarah thinks she is being left out and she's taking it personally. Probably because everyone on the team thinking you're useless is fairly personal.

Tenacity seem to be having a better time filming having gotten rid of Ella-Jade, they're certainly enjoying themselves more. Summit's collaborator, Ollie, is having a competition with James to see who can eat a cream covered banana the fastest. Fortunately, that is in no way a euphemism for anything. Jemma, who we haven't seen much this week or any week, says her job is to manage Ollie. So nothing again. Ollie, seems happy with the final result and promises to mention it on Twitter and his Channel. This could potentially expose a million teenage girls to James in an apron and nothing else. In the current political climate that may be enough to put you on the sex offenders register.

To the surprise of team Summit, Buzz Feed don't find their video funny. One of them thinks it might be better aimed at 8-10 year-olds. Another has written "kill James" on their pad. A few more weeks with Lord Siral and he may be willing to take them up on the offer.

Steven is rehearsing his pitch in the back of a taxi. He's a bit too fond of the phrase "the hardest part of a journey is the first step" and repeats it so often that it looks like the rest of the team are going to strangle him with a seat belt. Steven's over earnest pitching style doesn't go down well with Buzz Feed, especially as he's rapidly using up the Earth's supply of oxygen and still hasn't actually communicated anything.

Buzz Feed do laugh when Felipe introduces himself as "fat daddy" but the laughter dies away as they discover they are essentially watching someone being bullied. Sarah tries to salvage the pitch by claiming it's self-deprecating, which is a defence that more bullies should try. "We weren't bullying him when we flushed his head down the toilet miss, we were self-deprecating him." Sarah suggests a whole fat franchise, 'Fat Mum', 'Fat Sister', 'Fat Dog'. I think when your videos look like torture, the solution isn't to offer to torture many more people.

In the end neither team gets a mention on Buzz Feed. James find this surprising because they built the channel based on what Buzz Feed would like. Which Buzz Feed should probably take as an insult. Solomon feels he let his team down, but did everything he could, which is weirdly self-contradictory.

Back at the boardroom the team's watch both videos. Lord Siral is less than impressed saying that James comes across as a "grade A pillock". Which, to be fair, is true and very much the point. But he does think Solomon made the right choice of collaborators given Ollie's hit rate and the team think Solomon did a good job as project manager.

Lord Siralan doesn't like Fat Daddy at all, thinking Felipe is as fat as James is funny. But he does like the idea of torturing a lawyer, which is pretty much the entire video. If the team had re-named their channel "Lawyer Torture"  it would have been a hit. Pamela thinks there was a lack of leadership from Ella-Jade. The team also think that Steven's pitch was terrible. He responds by repeating the first line of it, as though we haven't heard it enough times.

In the end Summit got 3532 views and Tenacity 3314. So Summit wins for the first time and the team are flown off to the Blue Lagoon in Iceland. That's a bit odd. If they're flying them out of the country you would think it would be for a task. I'm not convinced it's real. The BBC probably stuck on them on a set they use for Doctor Who. Still, it does allow for gratuitous swim suit shots of the other half of the candidates.

 Unconvincing

Back at the cafe Katie thinks that 3,000 views proves their videos weren't offensive. Because the collective response of the online community to offensive material is not to watch it. Ella-Jade is already gunning for Sarah and Steven claiming they didn't contribute. Fair enough for Sarah, but Steven definitely contributed, albeit doing more harm than good. Steven says if he'll highlight all of Ella-Jade's faults and "she'll look like a fool, not me". Steven, I'm sure you can both manage to look like fools.

Back in the boardroom, the team, and Pamela in particular, put the blame on Ella-Jade for a lack of leadership which left them not knowing whether they were making a comedy or serious video. Lord Siralan is less than impressed because in Sugar World, making documentaries is exactly the same as YouTube videos so this task should  have been perfect for Ella-Jade.


However, he also wants to know why the video went out without a name or a description and the team blame Sarah. Sarah objects that Lauren was the sub-team leader and all she did was timing, but this just emphasises how little she had to do. Sarah questions why the team don't take her seriously and Katie points out that it's because her week one sales strategy consisted of wearing short skirts and makeup. Honestly, all you do is claim that women are better at sales than men because they look nicer and suddenly no-one takes you seriously as a business woman.

Ella Jade brings back Steven and Sarah because anyone else would eviscerate her in the boardroom. Lord Siralan thinks Ella-Jade is educated but has no experience. Karen, who seems to be in a particularly bad mood this week, says that no-one can be bothered waiting for Steven to get to the point and that although everyone ignores Sarah, it may be because she has nothing to say worth hearing.

Lord Siralan hits Ella-Jade with the claim that she has never had a proper job and isn't impressed by the number of University societies she apparently ran. Unfortunately, in Sugar World, if you weren't paid to do it then it doesn't count. He also wonders if the team are patronising Sarah because she used to be PA. It turns out she also used to be a Hypnotherapist, though that revelation doesn't do wonders for her credibility. She does have a great plan to set up a dating website, but Ella-Jade points out that her experience of the industry consists of going to dating websites.

Lord Siralan turns to Steven, but his pain thresh hold must be very low this week because he's barely offered to be Project Manager next week before Lord Siral boots him out of the door. Steven looks like he's restraining himself from saying something rude. The one time he doesn't have to restrain himself is the one time he does. I'd really like to hear Steven say "well Fuck You Lord Sugar".

But with all these extra candidates no-one is safe. Sarah is booted next because no-one has confidence in her. Sarah thinks Lord Siralan wouldn't have made a good business partner for her. Too late Sarah, Lindsay already pulled off the "you can't fire me I quit" last week. With only Ella-Jade left will Lord Siralan make it a hat-trick for the first time in Apprentice history? Ella-Jade begs him not to, but to no avail, the record is to tempting and she is fired. But with only her dignity left to lose, Ella-Jade pushes out a plane in the amazon jungle without a map, begging for another chance. She's half out the door when she has another go. Lord Siral has to deploy the finger for a second time to get her to leave, making her the first candidate to be fired twice and taking the total firings to four.

Back in the house, the surviving candidates are waiting for three people who will never return. Lord Siralan phones them up to put them out of their misery. I was hoping he might send Francis from reception to let them know. It would be nice to see her out of the office for a change.

Next time: the Apprenti are orded to set up coach tours. Are the program-makers insane? They've done bus tours before, but this relies on finding a group of people willing to spend an extended period of time with the candidates. No wonder they got rid of Steven, if he'd been on board it would have led to a homicide.