The Apprentice 2011: Episode 2 by shoutingatco.ws
Previously on the Apprentice, Edward’s accounting skills didn’t… count for much. The teams sold lunch to pedestrians, but Edward’s unwillingness to bother with a plan left his team short, and he was fired.
A courier arrives at 5am, catching Tom in his casual nightwear: A suit without a tie. A video from Lord Al informs them they’ll be selling mobile phone applications, “better known as apps”. Alan manages to say that with all the conviction of a man that doesn’t know which end of a phone to talk into.
Leon takes on PM duties for Logic, but before he can be sworn in, everyone else puts their name forward, and then vote for him anyway. Perpetually terrifying Edna steps up for Venture.
The boys’ suggestions include “bubble paper”, “what the weather was 12 months ago”, “traffic lights… er, I didn’t think that one through”. They eventually decide on a regional accent insult generator, called the “Slang a tang”. Bunch o’ bams.
Venture’s market research consists of Susan confusing a man, Susan arguing with Edna and Susan having a sulk. Their last minute choice is an app that generates irritating noises. The codename should be “Project Sugar”.
Leon decides that, rather than using a different face for each region, he’ll just use the same guy with different hats to represent the areas. Y’know, those famous Scouse hats. As they piss themselves laughing at the insults. Hewer is REALLY unamused, particularly with the sheep shagging jokes.
“This is why you’re in town”
The poor, under-appreciated code monkeys work through the night to build the apps. Next morning, they’ve duly delivered, and the teams are thrilled. Well, Logic are. Venture are split. The annoyingnoiseometer (called the Ampi App) is hardly original, and hearing Melody imitating a cat is bloody terrifying.
The teams visit the offices of some of those websites that they have now, with a view to getting their apps featured on their so-called “homepage”. Melody parrots off a bunch of their webstats, which she gets wrong. Vincent Dinosaur pitches for a bit, then trips over his words and forgets how to talk. Their app is decried as racist, and they’re awkwardly forced to back down with an “it was just a bit of fun.”
Two of the three sites have chosen to promote the Slang a Tang, with only one – crucially, the biggest – going for Ampi App. Or Ampi Apps, depending on who’s saying it.
The “funniest” free app download of hilarious slang.
At a gaming expo, the other halves of the teams grab passing nerds, and railroad them into downloading. One guy pissed himself laughing at a local catchphrase, immediately booking himself into the final edit.
Edna goes on stage to pitch / evangelise at the disinterested dorks. At the back of the room, the boys hear Ampi App for the first time, and can scarcely believe how crap it is. Their pitch is much more successful, with the crowd getting right behind it, and enjoying the hilarious stereotypes.
Melody tells Venture that they’re going to get thrashed. Edna’s plastered on smile doesn’t move for what feels like hours as she digests the news.
Back in the boardroom, Leon’s abilities as PM are praised, and he boasts of his e-commerce experience. He bats away Alan’s questions about business plans, and even gets in a swipe at Ampi App.
Five eighths of Venture didn’t like the app. Zoe apparently did one of the pitches, but she lives almost entirely out of shot of the camera, so we’re still none the wiser as to who she actually is.
The final downloads:
Venture: 10,667
Logic: 3,951
The girls have inexplicably thrashed the boys, purely through winning the pitch at the Large Website. It seems to make everything else irrelevant: no matter how good the pitches were at the expo, they could never beat the reach of Large Website.
“The next application you’ll be making is a job application”
The girls get a fancy French dinner, the boys grab a coffee at the Café of Doom. They lost the Large Website pitch because the app was “offensive”, and lost the task because of Large Website.
Alan disagrees, believing that the cause of the loss was people’s indifference. He refuses to listen to Amazing Tom, who tries to make the point that if more people knew about the app, then more people would download it. Shut up Tom, with your intelligence. Alan fully blames the app’s descriptive text.
Leon brings back Alex and Jim, who immediately names two other people more suitable for leaving. Leon bottles it, and swaps Jim out for Glenn. Glenn thinks it should be Tom, but Alan’s had enough, and the bottom three are Leon, Alex and Glenn.
Alex gives it the old “make me Project Manager next week…”, to avoid a firing. Leon is blamed for delegating the app choice to Glenn, who is too technical to be a businessman. The sort of thing that would have been flagged on his CV from day one of the process.
Greasy Alex, a vague lovechild of the increasingly obscure Derek Hatton and Jamie Carragher, has been too quiet, and is… FIRED.
Next week: Horrors haggling for hats.
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It was a bit silly the way everything hinged on winning the Wired pitch, but that has often been the way with this type of task. Edna was incredibly lucky, having done a pretty poor job managing the team and delivering a presentation which was better suited to a funeral than a gaming expo. She reminds me of Melissa Cohen from last year – the team won despite her rather than because of her, and she looks likely to go at first opportunity.
Mind you, I’d quite happily fire Susan now. Talk about glass half-empty!
http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2011/05/12/the-apprentice-no-app-y-ending-for-app-alling-alex/
God I hate this show. Do you think the same prat responsible for Anne Robinsons, ahem, ‘withering’ put-downs also writes the dribble that Lord Sugar spouts. “Actress pretending to be receptionst, you can send them in now”
I am amazed the girls won with their ‘hilarious’ noise app. Creating Apps must be like printing money. I expect we will see AmApp launched just before the bubble pops. Running it will be the prize for winner of series 2013.
Any chance SAC could do a ‘where are they now?’ round up of what happened to previous contestants?