Our tenacious hopefuls crowdfund a new cycling product. Who triumphed and who received Lord Sugar’s ‘On your bike!’?
10.00pm GMT
Not a vintage episode, but certainly a pleasant diversion from the fact that we could be watching the next episode under the rule of a former Apprentice boss. We could ALL be working for Sir Alan come next Thursday. Which is why I won’t be here again because I will be crying into a hamburger and bourbon smoothie.
No, but seriously, come back next week. Let’s stick together in these trying times and I’ll see you in two weeks.
9.58pm GMT
JD gives it the full back-0f-taxi, he doesn’t know what he’s missing speech but he holds it together while the others mutter about the heat being on and how they’ll smash it next time because they are not, in any way, real people.
I think you have to view this show as graphic novel or a cartoon. Makes it much easier to get through I find. That, and biscuits.
9.57pm GMT
Rebecca lives to fight another (probably one more) episode. Will she be made PM next time? And will any of the boys notice?
9.56pm GMT
He won’t cut Paul. He just won’t. Unless Paul’s business idea is dross which is always the problem with the re-jigged format.
And JD is fired! I will have to eat that biscuit. DAMN.
9.55pm GMT
“I’m not here to massage egos or modley-coddle,” says Paul when he’s accused of being a shouty mc shout face. Rebecca says she prefers a quieter approach and would like to prove it by being project manager. She’s so going.
9.54pm GMT
Are you frowing in the towel, asks Alan to JD. Is he frowing in the towel? And if he is, what does it mean? Sitting on the front row at a fashion show, wearing only a towel? Let’s all picture that.
9.54pm GMT
“I shouldn’t be here,” says Paul who goes onto admit he’s had “blow-ups”. You can get tablets for that over the counter. No prescription required.
9.53pm GMT
“If that’s what you call going viral, I think the virus must have been sleeping sickness.” And that’s Alan’s Zinger for this week. Who has 9.52pm? Collect you light up loose woman at the end of the episode.
9.52pm GMT
If he doesn’t cut Rebecca, I’ll eat a biscuit. Which admittedly I’d enjoy.
9.51pm GMT
The three marked for death are asked to return to the scaffold. Rebecca looks like she is already mentally in the taxi, Paul clasps his hands in prayer and JD starts talking. Fast.
9.51pm GMT
Alan, Karrren and Claud gather around their cauldron and discuss who to kill, I mean fire.
9.50pm GMT
JD decides to bring back Paul and Rebecca. Rebecca? Seriously? Are they going to cut her because she’s not made much of an impression? He won’t, in a million years, cut Paul. Paul’s a geezer. Alan loves a geezer.
9.49pm GMT
Anyway, yes so team JD argues and argues while Alan tuts and rolls his eyes. Plus ca change. I never like this bit. He said, she said, Karrrren and Claud said. They could clip this a bit more and leave in more lingering shots of the crushed evictee sitting in the back of the taxi, like that closing shot of Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday where he recounts the entire film, just with his eyes.
9.47pm GMT
“Where wuz you on that?” asks Alan of JD in a way I just don’t think is acceptable on the BBC. Yes, it’s very impressive that he’s made loads of money when he wuz dragged up in Clapton guvnor but learn English for heaven’s sakes.
9.47pm GMT
Everyone is back in the boardroom, probably needing a wee after all the disappointing polystyrene tea they’ve just drunk.
9.46pm GMT
Back in the sad cafe, Paul and Sofiane locks horns and start grunting. Jessica chucks in her tuppenyworth but it’s not even worth that now, after Brexit.
9.45pm GMT
The winning team get to cook food and drink champagne while Grainne softens towards Samuel because they won. Samuel gives her some constructive criticism which I would say was unwise when she’s holding a sharp knife.
9.44pm GMT
Samuel raised more than JD, all told. JD nods sadly as Alan tells him he wasted the best product on a woeful campaign.
9.43pm GMT
Frances, the one I think has potential to go on to be an actual human when this is all over, gets shut down by Karrren.
9.41pm GMT
Rebecca chews her lip as Alan watches the back-of-head footage from King’s Cross. It really is quite funny but not a patch on the physical assaults going on at Waterloo.
9.41pm GMT
Grainne has another go at Samuel, snapping that he was not a good team leader, getting in one final righteous kick before Alan switches to the other team.
9.40pm GMT
Samuel tries to explain why he crushed Trishna’s expertise to make room for his own gas-bagging.
9.39pm GMT
Grainne and Trishna are given the chance to unionise as wronged, ignored women and the Irish woman goes for it with a mouthful of pretty apt words.
9.38pm GMT
I’d have called the police.
9.38pm GMT
Karthik yatters on about his ideas as Alan surveys the Waterloo footage and it genuinely looks like the older man is just slapping that young woman to the ground for kicks. Absolutely appalling.
9.37pm GMT
Alan talks to Samuel’s team about the misspelling of gilet/gillet and says the latter is actually slang for a loose woman. How does he know, hmm? How do you know that, Alan?
9.36pm GMT
End of task. Tomorrow, they wake up, scratch their collective nuts and find out who generated the most cash. Can any of that have generated a single actual penny? Surely not.
9.36pm GMT
Francis opens her section of the pitch quite professionally but the 40% discount across all sizes of retailer is a stumbling block. Shame, because Francis was great. Yes, I just praised a candidate. She seems like a normal person. Why is she here?
9.34pm GMT
Samuel is really pleased at the end of his pitch, even though it was more painful than root canal. Now for JD’s team. He tries to plug straight into 2012 Olympic fever like it’s, well, 2012. It isn’t, JD. It’s 2016, the earth’s shittest ever year. Nice try though.
9.33pm GMT
Courtney! That’s who the baby-faced guy is. He’s a bit Sportacus crossed with a Thunderbird. His head bows when he’s finished speaking, just like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
9.32pm GMT
Samuel asks who will be pitching and then undermines the decision that’s already been made. And appoints himself head pitcher. Trishna has assumed she’d be pitching but she is, you’ll never guess, ignored by the boys. I hope all HR departments are taping this nonsense. Is it 1986?
9.31pm GMT
Karthik discusses who should pitch and, once again, completely ignores Alannnnna to the point where she actually says something to him. It’s OK, he makes it better by telling her he’d just forgotten her name. Jaw. On. Floor.
9.30pm GMT
Over at King’s Cross station, the gospel choir slightly underwhelm in their headphones stunt. “You can’t zoom on these cameras,” says one of the girls as they review the footage of the backs of some singers’ heads. Oh noe.
9.28pm GMT
Samuel’s team are genuinely performing their bike crash mime at Waterloo like the world’s shittest flash mob. They haven’t got any advertising boards. “It’s just people pretending they’re getting knocked down by an old man in an invisible car,” says Grainne in what has to be the line of the series. Might get that on a t-shirt. And an advertising hoarding.
9.27pm GMT
“Hi Bruce, this is Paul from team Nebula. Witness the fitness,” says Paul on the phone to Mr Headphones as he runs through the team’s progress and apologises for being a bit shit.
9.26pm GMT
Team Gillllllet are at Waterloo station to stage some kind of swoop/event/thing. Grainne points out to Samuel that he’s about to send out a sales team he hasn’t briefed at all in any way. He is belligerent and that’s another mark chalked-up for the male chauvinist plonkers who won’t listen to a girl.
9.24pm GMT
I’ve actually lost track of who is PM-ing the other team. The body language says Paul. But I think that just IS Paul’s body language. Witness the fitness, his eyes seem to be saying.
9.23pm GMT
The headphones campaig is dubbed “really professional” by the team who made it. But the gilet ad looks like one of those real adverts for a charity with moody lighting and a plain background and ..... they’ve spelt gilet wrong.
They are convinced the word has two Ls. It doesn’t have two Ls. This is going to end well. Or wel, depending on your grasp of English.
9.21pm GMT
“Paul is very controlling,” says Sofiane as he wipes Paul’s O negative off his dagger and walks away grinning.
9.21pm GMT
Rebecca and Frances have briefly appeared in the back of a people carrier but I’ve seen them do little else. The spotlight this episode belongs to Karthik and Paul and Jessica and Sofiane. Do the laws of editing dictate that one of them will go? I think it does.
9.20pm GMT
Karthik is marching up and down the studio at the gilet shoot, trying to appear authoritative while Lucy, the gilet inventor tells her story to camera and the rest of his team get really madly frustrated with him and his dithering.
9.18pm GMT
Jessica is trying to direct a short video for their social media campaign but Paul keeps interrupting her and I’m starting to see this week’s episode as a Sexism in the Workplace role play tutorial on how not to ignore the women in your team. Guys? GUYS???
9.18pm GMT
Did Claud just say he would “eat my shorts” if Samuel’s stupid idea got traction on social media? Did he? Lost all respect for the man in that moment. I don’t know how I’ll ever get it back now.
9.17pm GMT
Samuel is getting a bearded man to shout things across a church hall while he gets a bunch of women to mime cycling behind him. That is how you do The Apprentice. Candidates will be shown this VT in future in case they are trying to be effective business leaders instead of total light ents buffoons.
9.16pm GMT
I’ve give Alan(n)a an extra N much in the same way Karrren gains a new R almost every series.
9.15pm GMT
Alanna sits opposite Karthik and Dillon and it’s like they can’t see her. She says the others aren’t really taking her ideas on board and I’m inclined to agree. But her mistake is to leave it there as the others climb into their enormous man steam roller and chug right over her. Say something to THEM, Alanna.
9.14pm GMT
Karrren has fixed her “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die” laser on JD and says he has misunderstood the role of a PM. I don’t think he has. He’s actually completely understood the role of an Apprentice PM, which is to flap about and just say stuff in the hope of looking commanding.
9.13pm GMT
Samuel thinks the best way to promote illuminated gilets is with a mime artist. I’m totally lost. The choir sings Joyful Joyful and all I can think of is a mime artist in a cycling helmet, pretending to fall off his bike in slow motion for no obviously good reason.
9.12pm GMT
JD’s team have immediately hired a gospel choir to sing about their headphones. That’s cheating. Everyone loves a gospel choir. I ran the marathon once and just when I was about to give up, going round Canary Wharf (probably thinking about The Apprentice) I saw a gospel choir and they totally forced me to go on. Why doesn’t every team just start with a gospel choir and then take it from there.
9.10pm GMT
Jessica and Paul ask the headphone man (American) what rewards he thinks they could offer in exchange for crowdfunding of his headphones. No, actually they don’t. They completely forget to do that and Karrren is aghast. She is right to be aghast. Because I like typing aghast.
9.09pm GMT
It’s midday and the teams split having chosen their preferred product. They meet with Mrs Gilet to discuss what rewards they could offer the contributors to her crowdfunding page. This is a new business model that’s gaining ground on social media. You give me X pounds and I’ll give you a t-shirt and tattoo your name on my face. That sort of thing.
9.08pm GMT
The second incentor has made some ridiculous handlebar ornament for kids to strap onto their scooters. No deal.
The third is headphones for cyclists that enable them to hear both podcasts and the traffic around them. They could try not wearing headphones of course, but perhaps some of them would prefer not to live.
9.07pm GMT
Nebula v Titans does actually sound like a bad school netball match doesn’t it?
Lucy is inventor no.1. She has created a gilet. A gilet with Christmas lights all over it to make the cyclist easily seen.
9.06pm GMT
The 13 (like a bunch of unblinking, possessed children) gawp at Alan as he asks them to raise money for two new cycling products designed by someone cleverer than them.
He then mixes the teams up as though that makes him some kind of business wizard - the ability to pick a netball team.
9.04pm GMT
It always makes me uneasy that Apprentice candidates were, at some point, that close to my house.
9.04pm GMT
So comes the early morning call and the drones are summoned to the Lea Valley cycle thingy from the Olympics. You know, the tilty round and roundy track. Oh you know what I mean. The people carriers make their merry way to Stratford, full of laughter and good-natured banter.
9.03pm GMT
It’s still hard to watch Mukai and his bow tie be sent packing. I liked him but I can’t explain why. No, I can. It’s the bow tie. Bow ties are cool, as any Dr Who fan knows.
9.02pm GMT
“I’m just not enjoying this,” said Aleksandra last week, which is frankly a relief because I always had to type and re-type her name, every single time I mentioned her. I had to do it just then. Good bye, Aleksandra. (GOD)
9.01pm GMT
Oh I’ve missed this classical music that they use on The Apprentice to make what is essentially a bunch of headless chickens bumping into each other for eternity seem like a grave and worthwhile thing. *air cymbals*
8.58pm GMT
What did I tell you? Big finish, huge horns. Now you’re all greased and ready for some boardroom action. Am I right?
8.56pm GMT
I feel as though Buble (Michael) is teasing us with his Feeling Good. He may act all casual but this tenner says he’s building to a massive, warbling climax. As a warm-up act for Sugar, he’s nailing it. Michael Buble is Alan Sugar’s fluffer. There, I said it.
3.02pm GMT
Hello again and apologies for my two-week absence. I was in Brighton having my stomach pumped after eating some dodgy rock. If I ever find out who made that stuff...
Anyhoo, in the past fortnight, we’ve had an actual flounce (Aleksandra) and a couple of firings but I am gutted at missing the departure of Mukai last week. He will always be the one with the bow tie to me, because he was literally the only one in possession of a distinguishing feature. Without him, it’s just wall to wall grey suiting fabric scattered with eyeballs and cufflinks.
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