When commenting on everyone's favourite "un-reality" show, what
better way to talk through missed opportunities and chronic
mismanagement than through the medium of video? Here is Lee
McQueen, Raw Talent Academy founder and Apprentice old
guard, reveiwing last night's episode of The
Apprentice.
There is some justice on The Apprentice. Three of
candidates I hate the most ended up in the boardroom last nght.
Ellie: whingey, moody, unenthusiastic, definitely not my sort of
person. Then there was shouty stone-face Natasha. A whole roomful
of candidates that have yet to prove that they deserve to be in the
programme.
From Lord Sugar's point of view, he had to fire Felicity. She
project-managed the team and made a loss. She had to take
responsibility for that; but he could have fired all three of them,
to be honest.
I'm struggling with the candidates this year. I've got my eye on
Jim to be in the final three, but I'm finding it really difficult
to pick a woman I think is good enough to get through to the last
few.
Ellie! How can you justify sitting in a room for four hours
doing nothing? The 'I'll just sit tight and see what happens'
strategy does not work with Lord Sugar, I can tell you that for
nothing.
That said, the boys didn't make much of a showing either. That
Vincent, I don't get him at all. Don't make statement like 'My team
was a complete shambles' if you can't back it up in the boardroom,
mate! Especially not when you've been on the losing team three
times already.
As for the winning team, I criticised Zoe last week, and even
though she did alright this week and won the task, I'm still not
impressed. While I thought she was very good in the back room doing
the feet and all that, led well, and was decisive in her
decision-making, she just doesn't seem to have much of a
personality.
As for Susan. What a classic Apprentice moment. She
made the same mistakes as countless candidates before her: she set
herself up for a fall. "I could do this standing on my head," she
goes. We must have heard that she sells skincare products for a
living about seven million times. But when Zoe said fine, I'll take
your advice, you're the expert, she came a cropper. It was lucky
that Zoe used her better judgement and didn't go for the whole 700
tanning lotions that Susan was pushing for.
Nope, Susan didn't cover herself with glory, this week. And
she's definitely got the wrong attitude, sulking about being pulled
up on her mistake. I hope she doesn't go down the back-stabbing
route now, or it'll all be over for her. It was the enthusiasm,
team-working skills and passion for business that saw her through
the first three weeks.
Jim didn't have a stong week, either. It must be said. But you
can't have a stong week every week. There are peaks and troughs for
everyone. For example, I think Leon did really well on this task.
He showed off some cheeky selling skills. It's nice that we're
getting to that point in the show where different personalities
start coming up.
One last point: I'm loving advisor Karren Brady this series. I
had Nick and Margaret in my year and I thought they were both
brilliant, but it's also good to see Karren bringing something new
to the show.
It's difficult to build relationships with Lord Sugar's advisors
when you're on a task. Yesterday, it was interesting to see Nick
actually come out and almost give advice - he told Felicity to "Get
on with it". That is really rare. They don't normally give their
opinions. It's usually the old raised eyebrows or rolled eyes. When
I used to see Margaret doing her little eyebrow thing, I always
knew I had to pull my socks up!
Check out Lee McQueen's review of The Apprentice,
epsiode three
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