Week 7 of The Apprentice, and we’re left with nine wannabe business-botherers. Last week, they somehow all navigated the minefield of selling cleaning products, with the exception of blubbery-faced Alex, who was Germ-o-nated. And then fired.

IT’S TIME! TO FACE! THE MONEY!

It’s a 6.30am start at Pinewood Studios, where Sandeesh thinks they’ll be making furniture. Or, er, films. A giant blue screen has been set up in the carpark, waiting for the shivering candidates and Lord Sugar. It’s not just giant, it’s the biggest in Europe. They should feel honoured to stand in front of a thing of such magnificence. And we’re not just talking about Karren Brady’s arse.

The candidates are off to the Westfield shopping centre, where they’ll film people in front of a much smaller blue screen and flog cheap-looking DVDs of the experience. The experience of sitting in a shopping centre in front of a screen.

Sandeesh and Chris, and Stella and Jo swap between Apollergy and Synno. Look, we’ve no idea which team is which, okay?

Sandeesh and Stuart Baggs, The Brand, are leading the teams. Stuart Baggs, The Brand looks petrified, like he’s just realised that he can’t just brag about his MAD SKILLS, he has to actually do something about it.

The teams browse a selection of “exciting” backdrops to pop on the screen. Stuart Baggs, The Brand doesn’t bother watching the pre-supplied videos, and bullies everyone into picking the one he assumes will be fine. What difference does it make anyway? They’re shoddy videos that’ll look rubbish. They might as well give them a Betamax, since the whole thing looks like 1982 anyway.

Unlike family-bothering Sandeesh, Stuart Baggs, The Brand wants to make the videos aspirational, and decides to target adults. His entire schtick is to say “I THINK THIS IS RIGHT” and make everything black or white – you’re with him, or you’re against him. “Who does he think he is?” sneers the Hewer.

They have to record a brand new video to go alongside the stock footage. Baggsy and Laura go to Brands Hatch, where he winds up the staff by bragging about his own car being better than their race car. “I’m having to rein in my masculinity”, he camply lisps.

Jo and Stella go out marketing, which means badly ripping off the Peugeot slogan “The Drive of Your Life”, but they have no idea what they’re supposed to be doing. Because marketing is made-up bullshit.

Stuart Baggs, The Brand is too busy driving the rubbish BMW to manage the team, but it’s okay – he’s having fun! He changes his mind after the drive, and now wants to focus on kids. Nothing can go wrong from changing your mind so late in the day.

The other team go skiing in Milton Keynes for their video, which is mildly depressing. To change it from the shittest thing ever to absolutely amazing, Jamie dresses as a penguin. Good work, team.

Liz uses maths to decide how many blank DVDs to buy (100 plus a bit), while Stuart Baggs, The Brand does it the good old-fashioned way, by guessing at 30. We really can’t get across how much Stuart Baggs, The Brand truly believes that he’s the star of his own feature film, that the entire spotlight is on him, him, HIM. Everyone else is, of course, just there to get in his way while he dreams a dream.

Stuart Baggs, The Brand’s racing DVD is rubbish – the camera angle changes, so the poor adult kid will appear to be flying through half of it. I’Anson calls him on it, and he kindly gives her a lecture on how good his instincts are, and how they’ve made him successful. He’s a cock and balls hanging off the side of an ego.

When allocating the job roles, Stuart Baggs, The Brand puts Laura and I’Anson in charge of sales, ominously and repeatedly banging on about how it’ll be their fault if they lose the task through lack of sales. They make their first two sales very quickly. Stuart is in charge of “Quality Control”, which means watching the videos. He not-too-subtly bollocks Stella for writing notes, Brentishly pointing at his head and saying “it’s all in there”.

I’Anson is really good with the kids, and makes them all feel like they’re the next Lewis Schumacher, presenting them with medals if they manage to win the race. Hewer lets us in on a secret: They ALL win the race! It’s a tape! Oh, Nick. Simple pleasures.

Sandeesh’s team starts an hour late (there’s ALWAYS one team that starts late on these bloody things), and they stand around not selling. And awkwardly showing how the screen looks. And arguing. And watching people walk past. And arguing.

Stuart Baggs, The Brand raises prices from a tenner to fifteen quid, which Laura takes to mean DO THIS NOW, and tries to overcharge a guy who’d previously ordered two. Their DVD manufacturing goes to pot, with technical errors meaning that another child pops up at the end. Baggsy, in charge of Quality Control, should have spotted them. Not good, Stuart Baggs, The Brand. Because the customers don’t have to leave a deposit, and just pay when they pick the MOVIE ADVENTURES up, loads of them just sod off home without paying.

Liz, realising how poor Synergpollo is, spies on Stuart Baggs, The Brand’s team and steals their car idea, popping out to a toy shop to buy one. Jamie’s amazing penguin skiing video is hastily thrown out, and replaced with a motorbike tape. The bike leans as it goes round corners, giving the car a weird sense of failing gravity.

THE BOARDROOM

Stuart Baggs, The Brand tries defending the price increase, but very unconvincingly. Lord Sugar deflects Stuart Baggs, The Brand’s “keepin’ it in his head” boast, by bringing out a number 6 bus to run him down. Not literally, of course, that would be murder. Or, as they call it, “justifiable homicide”.

Apollo and Baggsy: Sold £347.50, and spent £85. Their overall profit: £262.50
Synergy and Sandeesh: Sold £372.97, but spent £150. They only made £222.97

Stuart Baggs, The Brand won. Stuart Baggs, The Brand fucking won. Fucking Stuart Baggs, The Brand fucking won the fucking task, for fuck’s fucking fucked up fucking sake. He goes wine tasting, but it’s not anti-freeze, so we don’t care.

Jamie points out that back-of-house was fine: All the DVDs were made correctly and on time. The blame is with Sandeesh, Liz and Chris, who were on sales. Alan isn’t pleased with the sales team going on the DVD burning course, then changing her mind so that Christopher wouldn’t be customer facing. Why would she put him anywhere near a customer? He resembles a Terminator.

Big Al moans at Jamie, because his “feedback” was actually more in the vein of a supermarket checkout woman wittering miserably about the weather. Chris sticks the boot in, but gets picked to go back in, along with PM Sandeesh and lovely, lovely Liz.

This is Sandeesh’s fourth Bottom Three in seven weeks, and fifth loss in that time. It’s not looking good for her. Chris is quietly quite good, despite also losing five times. Liz deserves to be given Amstrad or a better brand to run, instead of having to go through this process. It’s not a “process”, ALAN. It’s a gameshow. Just like The Generation Game. And you’re Jim Davidson.

Chris argues that yes, mistakes were made, but that’s because him and Liz were forced to take on so much of the workload. They argue over the number of DVDs they bought, which is really not that important. They were selling their DVDs for as low as £7 a pop, while Baggsy’s team were selling for twice the price round the corner. Sandeesh should have brought Jamie back, since he was getting his whinge on. Liz was never going to go after her other great performances.

Despite everyone else’s cock-ups, Sandeesh didn’t plan things through and so she’s FIRED. She’ll be over on BBC2 any minute, where we can all decide once and for all whether she’s actually hot.

Comments

1. Tim says:

   November 18, 2010 at 9:49 am

   This was definitely a case of Stuart not losing rather than winning.

   Both Chris and Liz made mistakes on this task, but Sandeesh deserved to go for having shown nothing positive at all during the entire series. Other than being there – and even that was arguable on occasions.

   As a team, Apollo over-bought on DVDs, started 50 minuteslate, got their pricing strategy wrong and then Liz panicked and bought the car late in the day without ever considering whether they would recoup that investment. Other than that, they were excellent(!)

   Having said that, it says a lot about how badly Stuart managed that Synergy won by such a small margin. Definitely a case of winning in spite of him rather than because of him – although, to be fair, the one decision he did get right was the big one: putting the price up rather than down.

   Still, it’s only a matter of time before he self-destructs in a blaze of ego.

   http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2010/11/18/apprentice-candidates-make-blue-screen-movies-sandeesh-fired-after-x-rated-performance/
2. Tim says:

   November 23, 2010 at 11:06 am

   Anyone have any thoughts as to who might now win? I find it hard to look beyond the top three girls – Stella, Liz and Joanna. I’ve had a bash at assessing the employability of each of the final 8 – anyone care to agree/disagree?

   http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2010/11/23/the-apprentice-season-6-would-you-employ-any-of-the-final-8/

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