Only two more The Apprentices to go! Which is both bad, obviously, and good, ‘cos my nerves couldn’t take much more! Before we get on with this week’s update, exciting news about the final in two week’s time: I’ll be LIVEBLOGGING it, in real time and everything. (I’ll remind you again – perhaps incessantly – nearer the time).

OK, now on with the show! The first five minutes in quotes…

“This is not a game. This is a job interview from hell.”
“Previously on the Apprentice, the teams had to choose foreign products to sell to buyers…Jadine became the tenth casualty of the boardroom.”
“Surallen wants to meet you in central London, the cars will be ready at 7.15. Please bring an overnight bag.”
“The first thing I’m going to do is shuffle the teams around a bit so Lohit move over to the ladies team and Naomi move over and join the gentlemen…You are going to be selling live on television. The team that sells the most amount of merchandise will win. BE CAREFUL about the products you sell and their pricing.”

Apparently the Ideal Shopping Channel is Britain’s second-largest home shopping channel, based in Peterborough (not the most exciting overnight stay perhaps… never mind). The teams would have to choose which products to sell from the warehouse and would all take turns both presenting and producing.

“I would never hope to be associated with anyone who’d bought anything from the TV but this is just fab and really good fun,” Said Katie, no doubt lying through her teeth.

Project Manager for her team Kristina suggested buying mid-priced products, while Katie had worked out a profile of their consumer – a lady named Mavis, who has a massive bust, knits a lot and watches TV for companionship. Poor Mavis.The other Project Manager Simon – “I like to think of myself as someone who takes risks” – decided to go for more expensive items (but there weren’t that many to choose from).

Two team members had to sell as a team, with one on their own. Both team leaders made the ego-driven decision to sell on their own, Kristina explaining to camera that she needs to get noticed by Surallen. Simon’s practice run as producer didn’t go well. “This bright agile mind was HOPELESS.” said Nick. Bright agile whoknow?

There were some weird products for the teams to choose from, but who doesn’t want a home bricklaying kit? And gorilla glue. (Eh?) Mini trampolines for almost seventy quid? They’re less than half that at Argos…

Kristina’s team went for a steam cleaning broom, chocolate fountain, plastic foot spa and slimming pants “for people who can’t be arsed to diet” as (who else?) Katie said. Simon picked a lightweight folding wheelchair, which his team was upset about and thought would be hard to sell. Tre and Naomi picked the mini trampoline which Simon didn’t like and some other stuff we didn’t get to look at. Simon’s team continued bickering about the wheelchair the next morning. Oh, it seems they have some decoupage stickers too. Why did Naomi choose those for Simon to sell?! Kristina was struggling to put together the chocolate fountain. Katie thought Mavis would be impressed with their selection. Poor Mavis.

Then it was time for the teams to go live on air and Surallen to watch them. Squee!

Kristina went first with the chocolate fountain. She started well but then stuttered a bit. Alan was impressed with the product but not Kristina’s constant use of the word OK. And then she sampled some chocolate and looked like she might throw up – OK? She then had to demonstrate a steam broom and it took her ages to set it up while Katie gaped at her and the shopping channel’s team despaired. Kristina grumbled “Jesus Christ!” and had to apologise and Surallen was apoplectic. Well, she got noticed all right… “You were brilliant,” Katie lied before going to sell the slimming pants. Katie grabbed the plastic model’s bum to show them off. Lohit tried to contribute. Kristina told them they were doing really really well, but they weren’t.

Naomi and Tre started off well but Simon wasn’t producing well at all and completely froze. Naomi demonstrated a new type of hair removal system for women on erm, Tre. They sold none, and moved on to the wheelchair. Surallen frowned. “What braindead chose that?” Naomi and Tre started to flounder and Simon was no help whatsoever. Naomi sat in the wheelchair and Tre turned her around. They talked about the pouch at the back, “handy for a mobile phone!” Big Al sighed: “More like an I.V.” Nick looked like he might explode or die of shame. Simon had to sell the decoupage but didn’t know what he was doing – and Naomi, who’d chosen it, didn’t feed him any information. (Remember Saira? She was great at this task. I miss her.) “The product is useless!” Alan shouted to himself. Simon’s turn to sell and he kept calling the trampoline “the bouncer” then on Naomi’s instructions jumped on it – with his shoes on. (Which is not something you should do at home, children.) THEN he showed us how to put it togther, screwing on the legs whilst resting the trampoline between his legs. He didn’t seem to realise how obscene this looked. It was car crash TV. Tre and Naomi didn’t avert disaster. In fact, didn’t do anything.
“We’re dying” said the executive producer.
“Is that really bad?” asked Tre.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant couldn’t have written anything more surreally awful…

Time for the narrator to intone: “Between them, the teams have lost the channel tens of thousands of pounds.” Back to the boardroom for them, then!

I’m not being funny, but has Katie got any clothes other than white suits? Who’s her idol, Martin Bell? (That seems unlikely).
Alan gave both teams a rollicking for losing money and generally being crap. It turns out three people bought Kristina’s disastrous mop, and Surallen wants to take them all to have their brains looked at. He criticised the choice of Lohit to sell big pants: “What banter can any woman have with a man about tight panty girdles?” – You’d be surprised, Sir… Simon tried to justify the wheelchair, of which he sold two. Alan was dismissive of Naomi and her decoupage idea and of the trampoline demonstration said “I nearly fell out of my chair”. They sold none of those, I can’t think why. The channel had emails complaining about the guest presenters and begging for the regular presenters to come back, and Al read out a couple before announcing the totals:

Eclipse made a pathetic £921.79 while Stealth made a marginally less pathetic £1339.10 giving Kristina’s team what Big Al called “a bad win”- for which they got sent to a Turkish bath. I wouldn’t find having a bath a big treat but they seemed happy about it, I guess winning will do that – they told each other they’d done really well! OK.

Simon’s team had to face up to their loss. SURELY Simon (who’s now gone from smarmy to goofy, bypassing charm altogether) had to go?

“Everybody did a shite job” said Tre. He always gets straight to the root of it.
Al said the main point of the task was to pick good products, and they didn’t. Surallen didn’t like Simon’s wheelchair or hair removers but they sold better than the trampoline and decoupage that Tre and Naomi chose. Hmm. “Where else has Naomi done well?” asked Nick. Hmm. (Answer came there none!) Alan was sticking up for Simon and Simon criticised his team for being negative. Bicker, bicker, bicker. “Although he made a dickhead of himself, you chose wrongly,” Al told Naomi. Bicker bicker. Al really defended Simon summore. Uh-oh, looks like he might stay…
Al suggested Tre wanted to win for the wrong reasons – just to prove he could. Tre defended himself.
Alan then told Naomi she had good presentation skills but isn’t good at sales. Told Simon he’s a bit of a kid but might not be shrewd enough. Told Tre he clearly doesn’t like criticism and made out like he was going to fire Tre but then got rid of Naomi before telling the boys not to make any more mistakes (like, ever).

Back at the house, Kristina’s team talked about how Simon would definitely go… then in he strolled.

We’re down to the last five now but next week three will go! It’s the “gruelling interview process”. No-one ever does well at this! (Which always makes me feel better about that shoe shop interview I made a right mess of when I was 15 – don’t ask…)

Don’t forget Surallen’s also busy over at The Googly, Shiny’s cricket blog, every week!

The Apprentice week 1 | The Apprentice week 2 | The Apprentice week 3 | The Apprentice week 4 | The Apprentice week 5 | The Apprentice week 6 | The Apprentice week 7 | The Apprentice week 8 | The Apprentice week 9.

TV Review: The Apprentice: You’re Fired!

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