The Apprentice Episode 7 - New York, We Here Baybee

Product placement galore on this week's Apprentice

Judging from the last 6 weeks of this series, you would have thought this task of pitching soft drinks to America would be a great chance to exile certain candidates from Britain, Piers Morgan style. Pretty sure Dan would have been high up on this list given the contempt he holds for his rivals and his general arsehole attitude, but sadly this was purely just a task to flog some drinks to ad lovin' USA. Some had to stay in boring dull England to do the designing, drink production while the others had to fly off to  the flashy US of A to pitch and create ads for their new drink.

Team Summit was fronted by Bianca who's team created an energy drink called Big Dawg, an energy drink looking like watered down blood which explained the sour taste. She dragged James and Soloman with her to New York probably because they both have the two biggest egos in the group. Team Tenacity meanwhile, led by Mark produced Aqua Fusion, a pineapple drink that wasn't particularly pretty but tasted alright I guess. Naturally everyone in the group wanted to go to New York, namely Lauren who clearly was begging to do Stateside to get a tan, so Mark begrudgingly took her and Felipe abroad. 

 

Felipe showed he was more Uwe Boll rather than Steven Spielberg.

For someone so eager to go to America, I can't recall her actually being useful barring the time she showcased her generic American accent in the ad. I think what summed up her time on the task (and why she got sacked) was when her team was editing the ad and the billboard and she was frequently told to help someone else purely so it looked like she was doing something. If anything, she could have at least made the team cups of tea and coffee. Felipe was putting a load of effort in to make a paint by colours drinks ad that proved to be an absolute nightmare with the son actor failing to be able to catch a bottle despite playing as a basketball player. Mark keenly pressured him into actually filming something but this was pointless because the ad was still cringe worthy. Suppose what didn't help was Dan and Katie's cheap logo and dull bottle design but the first rule of The Apprentice is that you got to smile and grin while pitching shite.

However Sanjay and Roison's bottle and logo design was much better and stood out more. Bianca didn't fare too well as a leader due to her poor communication skills and her awful uninspiring advert of three people saying "I like Big Dawg".  No wonder James told her she should have stayed in London. Maybe he's still holding a grudge against her for being a cockblock against him and Soloman when they were blatantly using the casting call to hit on young attractive women.

 

Pitching to industry experts was interesting - Big Dawg managed to impress with a solid presentation even if the product is a bit naff and laughing off any suggestions that the bone in the logo isn't actually a penis. "No it's a bone!" said Soloman, even if it still looks a bit like a penis. Aqua Fusion's pitch on the other hand was more like a lecture on bathroom hand dryers given how lively and fluid it was, completely ruining their own chances in the process. Maybe it wasn't a good idea having a presentation team that isn't 2/3 full of lawyers, after all. 

"Well, at least I've got a future in US soap operas"

Into the boardroom and despite mixed results by both teams, Lord Sugar declared that Team Summit made the less mistakes and won the task. Or perhaps the fact the drink was so American, if it was a person it would be an American waving an American flag in one hand and an eagle on the other. Tenacity argued some more about how everyone else to blame, bar Felipe who stood in silence not blaming anyone or arguing. You have to give it to Felipe, he knows the best way of not looking like a twat on national TV - just don't say anything. No surprises that Lauren was fired given she didn't do much for reasons discussed earlier in this recap but Daniel managed to yet again limp away like a triple amputate cat judging how many lives he's got left.

The Apprentice Episode 6 - Mind Games

The ever enthusiastic Dan

This week's task was board games, a task that was purely set up for the puns from the word Go after Lord Sugar greeted his peasants on a Battleship. GEDDIT? CUS BATTLESHIP IS A BOA- oh fucks sake. Embarrassing joke by The Apprentice writers but it did allow us to see how the candidates could handle making an entirely new and fresh board game after seeing how bad of ideas the perv camera top and an unfunny fitness video were, so on this basis it was inevitable we were going to see at least one awful board game.

I'm starting to see a recurring theme in The Apprentice this series - everytime we cut to a project manager discussion and two people back out for someone else to step in, that person turns out to be the enthusiastic loser who 10 minutes into the job realises she shouldn't have stepped in. Pamela was inevitably doomed to fail from the moment she agreed to develop the relationship game and it's no surprise she got sacked, really. James in a bid to get a chance to tug off Lord Sugar, led Team Summit and decided to go with Rosion's idea of pitching a geography game that was practically Pictionary. As we all know, there's nothing wrong with Pictionary. It's a safe bet to run with and it would have taken a cock up the size of Mars to ruin this pitch. 

Human wrecking ball Bianca came close with offering product exclusively to a single store in Westminster, making the whole team wonder whether or not they should control her like a puppet and dub her voice to prevent her cocking up some more. Despite this, Soloman picked up the pieces to rescue his team's performance and James managed to lead his team quite successfully with minimal fuck ups. Although if you ignore his shutting down of Bianca or deflecting any criticism, but he was otherwise decent, the charming bastard. 

If Soloman wants to be Lord Sugar's apprentice, he really needs to curb his coke addiction

Team Tenacity on the other hand drove with an idea that everyone knew was bad but hey, it's better than nothing. Potential series winner Mark managed to polish a turd so much that he managed to sell a load of games and became the team's best seller. I suppose competition wasn't that tight considering Dan moped around putting in a half arsed shift, making stereotyping question cards and only really putting an effort in to make himself look good and still insist he's a selling machine. We don't think you are mate but we're all certain you're just a massive prick. Pamela wasn't able to be an effective project manager, making me wonder if Team Summit had been watching too much Homeland and brain washed her into being shit in order to let Summit win. Given how desperate some candidates are to win, I wouldn't be surprised.

"After failing a task, how many people should I fire?"
A - 1
B - 2
C - EVERYONE

With no real surprise, Summit steamrolled Tenacity by a margin of over £1000. While Tenacity realised why a relationship board game was a good idea, Summit got the chance to take penalties against David Seaman. For a reward, that's on par with rewarding your son who got 12 GCSE A grades with Ham and Pineapple pizza. Out of Tenacity, Pamela, Dan and Lauren were all brought back for their various cock ups, whether it be Dan's sexist game questions and general unenthusiastic behaviour or Pamela's consistent moaning. Even though Lauren got completely rinsed by Lord Sugar, Pamela got fired. Not surprising considering she chose to lead with the idea and made the car crash of an idea even worse by adding more cars into the mess.

Next week - Battle of the big egos in the Big Apple.

The Apprentice Episode 5 - Carry On Coach Trippin'

Toot toot, all abroad James' banter bus

After Lord Sugar's firing spree and having to be calmed down after threatening to sack his faceless PA and Karen, he woke up at a service station smelling of booze and with a mighty hangover. Oh and to tell the teams that he wanted them to arrange coach trips and tours to try and get a load of money. Woopie, another task to see which team is less socially inept while not really trying to teach their business sense or skills.

Team Tenacity chose Oxford to tour and project manager Dan set the ticket prices at £99.50 (great value knocking off 50p clearly). Unfortunately for him he wasn't really able to sell any tickets until late on, leading to everyone wondering if anyone would mind if he was dumped in Kent and forgotten about. Sanjay meanwhile, lead Team Summit and thought Kent would be a great destination for a tour and set the relatively low price of £60 per ticket. Before James could hold another trademark fire sale, Bianca managed to sell a load of tickets on the cheap while also admitting she did it because she was desperate to sell them. Oh. Dear.

In respect of Sarah's firing, Team Tenacity came out in lemon jackets

James was definitely the face of Summit despite Sanjay's leadership, calling himself "King James" while walking around castle pointing at birds, singing nursery rhymes on the bus, telling people the tour's over before it's done and having his own special fire sale of crisps. Jemma when not hyping up her own team's efforts was giving a tour of Hever Castle in the style of Alan Partridge's tour of Bono's house; failing to think of basic facts of Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn and pointing at a real photograph of Henry VIII despite the fact you could only take photos 300 years ago if you had a time machine and a camera. Team Summit? More like Team Bus Crash on the M25. (I'm so sorry)

On the other side, Team Tenacity weren't perfect but still were good if you ignore the poor sandwiches, selling water at a high price and Felipe's coma inducing river cruise talk. Lauren was able to show off Blenheim really well with her great research and enthusiasm, Mark stepped up to the plate and lead his sub team well, making it a relevantly solid performance. Dan was ineffectual as the project manager, making me wonder whether or not he's better off making sandwiches while the big boys do a decent job.

Solomon's tactic on the task was to hit on young girls

Back to the boardroom and after both teams argued about their own failures even before it was revealed who had won, Team Summit lost by over £500. Had to laugh at the disappointment of Team Summit members then cutting to Tenacity candidates' faces going from pissed off to over the moon while Dan still looked majorly pissed off. Out of Sanjay, Bianca and Jemma, Lord Sugar decided that it was pointless to keep asking what Jemma does every week and fired her. Bet she was still kicking herself when she forgot to edit out "I'm always the one that never wins" bit out of her CV because that was inevitably going to come back to haunt her. Meanwhile back at the house, DanGate continued with everyone and 5 million viewers back home telling stop him being an egoistic lying bastard (could tell that to James too to be fair), making him look like a slopping 7 year old on the naughty step. Can't wait for the Apprentice finale where Mark has had enough of Dan's bullshit, lifts him up over his head and throws him onto his thigh, Bane style.   

Next week - Board games. I wonder who will be fired next in Lord Sugar's own version of Cluedo.