Category: apprentice uk series 5

Despite being praised for being a good team leader, Paula was fired in The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 4.

The task is to create a new brand identity for Sir Alan’s new breakfast cereal. They will come up with a name, character, and marketing campaign.

Kimberly will be the project manager for Ignite. Kate will lead Empire.

Ad agency McCann-Erickson will be the creative home for the teams.

Yasmina and Debra are on market research, which means a trip to the store. They find a common theme with the other cereals. They all have cartoon characters on them. Running with the pirate theme he suggested earlier, James suggests they have a parrot who’s a pirate.

The other team has gone with Philip’s idea, Pantsman, a character who puts his underpants on the outside of his clothing. Perhaps it’ll make sense when they’re done.

Yasmina and James have gone to create a jingle for their cereal, Treasure Flakes.

Ignite’s cereal is Wake Up Call. Philip has already written their jingle. Lorraine’s still not onboard with their team’s campaign, and she’s not hiding it from the rest of the team. After that, they call the graphic designer and tell him they’re not going back to the agency, so it’s up to him to do everything for them. The next morning when they get their box, they’re not happy with it.

Ben will play the pirate parrot for the commercial, while Kate directs. Margaret is concerned their commercial is too complex.

Kate will direct for the other team, while Noorul dresses as Pantsman. He also believes he can participate in the directing.

Unlike Empire, which hired a professional singer, Philip will be singing for Ignite. Once project manager Kate hears the professional singer, she decides she would prefer a male singer, so she asks Ben to do a voiceover.

Nick notices that the kids don’t find the Pantsman concept at all funny, even though the team finds it hilarious.

Kimberly and Mona get into an argument about the presentation. Kimberly’s frustrated with Mona but doesn’t want to step up to the plate and do it herself, even if she’s more qualified.

Debra pitches for Treasure Flakes. One concern is that they’re trying to corner too many markets and don’t have one specific focus.

Mona does the pitch for Wake Up Call as planned. Unlike the other team, their box is blank except for the front. Their product name also doesn’t tie in well with the character.

Kimberly’s team supports her, except for Lorraine. Sir Alan shoots down Lorraine’s concept that she wouldn’t let go the whole time. He wanted one character, so her idea of multiple characters wouldn’t have worked for him.

The ad agency found the execution of their commercial to be very good.

Kate’s whole team supports her.

The ad agency did not enjoy their commercial. However, their overall campaign was considered to be clearly the best one. Empire is the obvious winner. As for Ignite, he considers their campaign to be garbage.

Sir Alan heard from Nick that Philip bulldozed his idea over the team. Kimberly says that she is not a creative person and just did the best she could with a bad idea.

Lorraine and Philip will be going back to the boardroom.

Philip would like Kimberly fired because she brought him back.

He gets his wish because Kimberly has been fired. Sir Alan’s well aware that he’s left two people who have argued all day together, and he’s looking forward to it.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 6.

Maj was fired in The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 3 for not having contributed much.

This week’s task is to produce two original and natural body care products.

Before getting into all that, the teams will be mixed up again. Yasmina, Debra, and Paula (who?) move over to Empire. Howard and Kimberly move to Ignite.

Noorul is appointed project manager for Ignite. Paula is appointed project manager for Empire.

Sir Alan tells us that profit margins are massive. They should be able to keep their costs down.

Empire is considering soap and shower gel.

Ignite is waiting for Noorul to form a thought. They decide on soap and bubble bath.

For their natural products, the teams are allowed to choose between honey, seaweed, berries, nettles, apples, and pears.

Empire goes with seaweed. Paula acknowledges that cost is her weakest area, so she’s got Yasmina and Ben with her to help keep an eye on that.

Ignite is just talking in circles and wasting time.

Half of Paula’s team will be going out on a boat to pick seaweed. Paula, Yasmina, and Ben begin mixing the basic formulas in the meantime. The ingredients are all individually priced at the laboratory.

Ignite has finally agreed on honey as its natural ingredient. Lorraine, Kim, and Phillip will be getting honey from bees. If only they know how much they’re supposed to be collecting. They beg Noorul to figure out what the heck he’s doing.

The other team’s determined they only need 300 grams of seaweed.

Yasmina and Paula have selected sandalwood, one of the most expensive oils there. The perfumer asks them if they’re sure, and they say they are. He thinks they got confused between cedarwood (£26 per kilo) and sandalwood (£1259 per kilo). To make matters worse, they’ve confused 3% with 3 grams. They cost it based on 3 grams, rather than 450 grams. Ben is in another area starting on the lab work. He can’t be bothered with all this girl stuff, such as the pricing task he was assigned to.

For Ignite, Kimberly is in charge of design. Phil thinks she’s dumb.

Paula will run the design for her team. When she’s reading off the ingredient list, Debra notices something. Sandalwood? Who bought sandalwood? Paula assures her it’s cheap.

Yasmina’s doing the mixing. It doesn’t dawn on her that she just poured 450 grams of sandalwood into that container.

The design team is growing increasingly frustrated with Noorul. Without a batch code, they can’t make their labels. Phillip starts yelling, although he doesn’t notice it. Lorraine and Kim want him to calm down.

Margaret thinks Noorul’s been very poor. They wouldn’t have done anything if it were left to him.

Nick asks how much they think they’ve spent on fragrances. Was it not 450 grams? Yasmina says that, for the fragrances, yes, one of them was 450 grams. Sandalwood? After they dance around this for a while, he asks the question: how much does 450 grams of sandalwood cost? Finally, they realize where they’ve gone terribly wrong. He tells them they’ve spent over £700. Paula’s already starting to point fingers. She knows they’ve lost before they’ve even started selling.

They’ve doubled their prices in hopes of not losing too much.

The other team’s honey soap is sticky. They realize the product is crap after it’s been used once.

Empire has a location right next to a German food stand that smells a lot less nice than their soap.

Noorul’s team will be dressed as beekeepers. They are offering their products as a bundle for £5.

The up market customers aren’t being turned off by the high prices from Empire. Nick thinks they’ve recovered from the debacle of the day before.

Noorul’s sales ability is as poor as his management skills. He hasn’t sold anything yet. His team thinks maybe they heard him wrong. He couldn’t have possibly not sold anything.

The underground team for Empire isn’t having much luck. Busy commuters aren’t interested in stopping. They’ll head elsewhere.

Noorul thinks he can do better elsewhere. He gets lost in the process but eventually finds Bond Street Station. The same place the other team just left due to poor sales.

James and Paula are discussing how pricing hasn’t been a problem. He suggests raising the price and seeing what happens.

With half their stock unsold, Phillip, Howard, and Kimberly are desperate to cut prices. Noorul doesn’t want to go too low. Phil emphasizes they need to dump the stuff fast. He still doesn’t get it.

Noorul’s stuck in traffic on his way to the other half of the team. They say it’s dead there, but they need to get rid of their product. He reluctantly agrees to let them cut the prices at their discretion. Those who are with him, likewise, are frustrated because they didn’t just stay where they were in the first place.

Empire has found a dealer to take their remaining stock. They get £400. Impressive finish after a horrible start.

Upon arrival at the other location, Noorul decides to start offering bargain basement prices as low as 3 for a quid.

Noorul’s team supports him. They don’t say he’s a good leader, but they enjoyed working with him.

James thinks Paula was good at motivating them, although her eye went off the ball a couple times. Ben found her not particularly great. Yasmina says there were positives and a few negatives.

Ignite sold £900.85. They spent £406.88 for a profit of £493.97.

Empire sold £1073.20 but spent £1141.24. That results in a loss of £68.04. If Paula and Yasmina had not gotten confused between sandalwood and cedarwood, and had instead opted for cedarwood, they would have made a profit of £504 and won the task.

Sir Alan doesn’t consider Noorul responsible for the win, but it’s a win nonetheless. They will get to eat and cook sushi and sake.

Ben denies any responsibility for costs, mostly because he refused to take any responsibility for it.

Sir Alan likes the product the losing team made, a lot better than the nonsense the winning team came up with. Kate credits Paula and Yasmina, two of the people who are also likely to take the heat for costing.

Ben plays dumb. Because he was about three meters away from the others, he decided their cost analysis was not his issue. Sir Alan doesn’t understand why he didn’t bother. Ben’s in charge of cost, whether he cares about it or not.

Paula takes full credit for the design. Ben tries to take credit for it as well, but Kate says that Paula is correct to take credit.

Unsurprisingly, Yasmina and Ben will be coming back to the boardroom.

Sir Alan considers Paula’s excuse about not being qualified to do costings to be a feeble one. She denies responsibility for costs.

Ben claims that Paula failed to force him to do the task he was assigned to do, making it her fault he did not participate.

Paula wants Ben fired.

Yasmina defends Ben’s sales skills, but she doesn’t consider him as good as it as he thinks he is. She wants Paula fired because of costs, which she did not delegate “properly.”

Sir Alan thinks Paula made a good product and was a good team leader, despite one fatal mistake.

As for Yasmina, she can stick around because she’s done well before, but she will have to be project manager again.

What Ben’s done I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Paula has been fired. Ben’s still running his mouth.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 5.

After the boys lost, Rocky was fired on The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 2 because he was too young. So why did they let him on the show in the first place?

The task is to invent a piece of portable home fitness equipment to be sold to retailers.

Since it’s been two whole weeks and the teams have only racked up one loss each, it’s time to mix the teams up. Kimberly and Kate go to Empire. Noorul and Phillip go to Ignite.

Debra volunteers to be the project manager for Ignite, which Lorraine doesn’t seem overly happy about. James volunteers to lead Empire.

Ben wants to do something kinky.

Debra fears that her whole team is uncreative.

Having dropped the concept of creating something that you can use during sex (then again, he may still have that in mind), Ben suggests that they need to get rid of the nation’s bingo wings, which I’m going to assume is an actual term. He wants to create a product that allows people to do assisted tricep dips.

Phillip wants to do a square Swiss and/or Swedish ball. Debra suggests an ankle exerciser. Both their ideas are shot down by a personal trainer. The problem with getting advice from a trainer is that they don’t necessarily need something that works. People will buy any sort of useless crap if it’s marketed correctly.

Mona doesn’t think Noorul should be on the ad because he’s not very good looking. Yasmina agrees and calls project manager Debra, who is offended. She believes the proposal is racist because she doesn’t live in bloody Vietnam (yeah, like that won’t offend someone).

One half of Empire visits a store to find out what sells, and they decide to just keep it simple. The other half of the team goes to the gym and wants to go the opposite direction.

Debra’s team arrives at the prototype maker, still undecided. Phillip suggests a bum ball. They agree to do that.

Ben has ignored advice to keep it simple and pushes a more complicated idea. The design team will be pulling an all nighter.

At 7 the next morning, they get a delivery. Ignite’s bum ball has been rebranded the body rocker. Empire’s bingo buster has been changed to a gym in a box, though James is not particularly enthusiastic about it.

Lorraine has requested to do the pitch. Debra doesn’t like the job she does but lets her pitch anyway.

Kate and Ben will be doing the modeling for Empire, a sensible choice.

Debra has selected Mona and Noorul to model, a less sensible choice. She also chooses Yasmina to take the pictures. Rather, she chooses Yasmina to aim a camera exactly as she instructs her and refuses to leave her be.

After Lorraine gets up to do the pitch, Debra offers an opinion that her pitching style is like it’s to someone either hard of hearing or slightly stupid. So why didn’t she say no and make someone else do it?

Kate does the pitch for her team. Their first stop is a retailer that targets a mid-to-high end customer. Why exactly did the show book them, then? Obviously, a portable product is going to be fairly cheap. Perhaps, though, this is more of a slam on their everything in a box idea, as this can be more comparable to a home gym, whereas the other team’s is only comparable to a Swiss ball.

When Debra’s team visits John Lewis, they ask about an exclusive. They have not considered that as an idea. Yasmina offers exclusivity for 6 months for 20,000 units. The response is that this is not a good deal.

Ben says that James was an okay team leader.

James liked the concept, but he didn’t like the end product.

Debra’s team likewise thinks she was okay.

Debra says that Lorraine tried her best with the pitch, which wasn’t very good. Phillip responds that Lorraine did a fantastic job and doesn’t appear to like that Debra’s being critical, which is something she seems to be good at.

Powerhouse did not place any orders for Empire. Ignite received an order for 80 units.

Totally Fitness did not place any orders for Empire either. Ignite received an order for 100 units.

John Lewis ordered 500 from Empire. Ignite was unable to get the 20,000 Yasmina asked for, but they did get an order for 10,000, resulting in a complete slaughter. Sir Alan thinks that they have Phillip and Lorraine to thank for this win, which probably is not what Debra was wanting to hear.

James says that he didn’t want to jeopardize the creativity of the concept by actually being involved in product development. Sir Alan suggests that Howard’s just sitting too much on the fence as well.

They totally missed their target audience, not that they appear to know what their target audience was anyway.

Kate blames the project team: Ben, Maj, or Kim.

Maj blames the project manager. James says that Maj just came along for the ride.

Ben says that James was delighted when they got the product the next morning. Was he watching the same James I was?

James will be bringing Ben and Maj back with him into the boardroom.

Margaret agrees Maj was just a passenger. Nick thinks that Ben’s the most fit, so he should have had the most knowledge. Sir Alan doesn’t like that Ben never has anything positive to say.

Maj blames his project manager for not giving him a big enough role.

Ben blames the retail research team. Yeah, the one that said to keep it simple, advice he ignored.

Margaret felt that James wasn’t a bad manager.

Sir Alan believes it would be unfair for Ben to be held responsible for the task’s failure.

Due to his lack of contribution, Maj has been fired. James has Margaret to thank.

Howard and Kate were hoping to see Ben go. They blame him for distracting everyone from thinking about proper ideas.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 4.

Anita was sent home in The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 1. Apparently, since she was the least catty of the lot, that made her less entertaining, so she had to go home. But the made up excuse was that she was the one with the calculator who should have said something about their spending (yet the project manager and the 6 others were excused for not saying anything).

The task it to set up a catering service, first for lunch for city slickers and then for dinner for a high end event.

Rocky owns a sandwich chain, so he will be the project manager for the boys.

Yasmina also has a background in restaurants, so she will be the project manager for the girls. She believes her employees will describe her as rude, brash, and blunt. Not only should she not be the project manager, but she shouldn’t even be on the show. There’s no room for an attitude like that from a manager.

Since they’ve got a sandwich guy as their manager, the men will be doing sandwiches, and they settle on London 2012 as their theme.

Since they’ve got a bitch as their project manager, the women will be doing whatever Yasmina tells them they’re going to do, which means a Mediterranean themed menu.

Rocky wants to dress up in togas, probably not the best theme for an upscale dinner that’s probably going to be black tie.

Yasmina wants the most dirt cheap product they can find to keep costs low.

The women are starting to get their lunch orders, but the men are failing to get anything going for the afternoon. They’re going to have to work it out in the morning.

It’s up to Kate to sell Yasmina’s menu to the client. Too bad nobody’s sold Kate on the menu. The client agrees to pay for the service, but he reserves the right to deduct money if he is not happy.

Rocky tells the men who are pitching for the evening client to go in at no lower than £60, at the high end of what they’d been quoted when they called a catering company. Phil will lead the negotiation, and his pitch is £65 per head. They’re not happy with that price. He drops it to £35. Not interested. How about £17.50? Nope. They finally agree to £15. What will they get for that price? The same thing they would have gotten if they’d paid the original amount.

The client wanted high quality, but Yasmina continues her cost cutting efforts. Last week, the girls overspent, but now Kate is concerned they’ve taken it too far the other way.

Phil pretty well hates everything his team is doing.

In addition to the cheap ingredients, Yasmina also wants to skimp on the portions.

The girls already have a client lined up, so they can go straight there. She doesn’t like the lack of food that’s been brought (one food and one sandwich per person), although it seems pretty fair to me. They agree to add more, though. The client also asks for less boring salad. Awful lot of lettuce.

The men are selling sandwiches on the street, and they’re seemingly doing a good job with it.

Either it’s an error or one of Yasmina’s cost cutting measures, but one of the chicken wraps lacks… chicken.

Margaret tries giving Yasmina feedback. She doesn’t want any.

Phil promises that his team will look like idiots, but Rocky’s not budging on the theme or the props.

Paula tells Yasmina that she’s worried that their food doesn’t look very appealing. Again, Yasmina is not listening.

The togas are getting mixed reviews. They don’t have the bodies to pull them off well.

As Margaret warned, the women’s canapes are too large. Yasmina’s response is the same as it’s been all day: if she gets them drunk, they’ll appreciate anything.

In addition to the people doubting the theme, the men are having trouble getting the food flowing and keeping it warm. Somehow, their cheese on a stick is the biggest success.

The boys think Rocky was a good team leader, although there were elements he could have done better.

The women also back up their team leader.

Ignite spent £354.77. Their evening event was agreed at £750, but the client was not happy due to the poor quality of the food, so they only agreed to pay £500. That brought their takings to £1006.20, making a profit of £651.43.

Empire spent £821.37, about 20% of which went toward props. Their evening event was agreed at £750, but the obviously picky client who didn’t even want to pay anything to begin with halved that to £375. That gave them sales of £660.61, resulting in a loss of £160.76.

Despite Phil’s attitude that what they were doing sucked, which obviously it did, he comes to Rocky’s defense, saying he was a genius in food preparation and managing the team.

Rocky blames the theme, and consequently Maj.

There’s a growing consensus that James talks too much.

Like what happened with the girls last week, it doesn’t appear anybody bothered to do the costing. Rocky says Howard was responsible for this. That said, once they realized how little they were getting for the evening event, they should have become concerned about what they were spending, if they weren’t concerned before.

James and Howard will be going back with Rocky.

James realizes that he’s got a bit of a foot in mouth problem.

Rocky wants James to be fired.

Howard wants Rocky fired solely because he picked him to come back to the boardroom.

Sir Alan thinks that Howard, as someone who runs 10 pubs, should have stepped up and helped out more than he did.

Because he was the project manager for the task and made some immature mistakes, Rocky has been fired. He’s just too young.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 5 Episode 3.

Sir Alan Sugar is back for another season as The Apprentice UK series 5 cast of 15 new contestants competes for a job.

When the show opened saying that there were 16 candidates, I was confused because the originally released cast list only contained 15 people. There’s a reason for that. Someone has already been fired and/or quit. That leaves the men one short.

The first task is about cleaning, whatever it is they can get their hands on. It will be broken down girls versus boys.

Noorul loves the sound of his own voice. I suspect he’s not the only one of these candidates who thinks that way.

Kate doesn’t want to be seen as a dumb blonde.

Sir Alan suggests that the simplest thing is to just grab a bucket and sponge and start washing cars. If they try to go too over the top, they’d better bring back a lot of money because they have to pay for all the cleaning supplies they use.

The men will call their team Empire. The women go for Ignite.

Pub owner Howard will be the project manager for the boys. He describes his management style as fair and gentle. The women talk in circles a bit before finally deciding to make Mona their project manager.

Half of the men will be doing a car wash; the other half will do shoe shining. The women will be cleaning cars, or at least they will if they can make a decision about how much equipment to take with them. They spend almost all of their £200 budget.

Philip, Rocky, James, and Ben have a meeting at a mini cab office to clean its cars. Despite their project manager’s warning about how much time cleaning the interior will take, their pitch includes an offer to clean the interior. They get a deal for 30 cars at £16 each, a discount over the company’s current rate of £17.50. They’re only going to pay for the ones they’re happy with.

Mona and her half of the team go to a limo company and are looking to wash three limos for £200, enough to bring them to break even. Their first pitch is £300, which is way too high. Their current supplier does everything inside and out including full wax for £60. No point in trying to meet that amount, but they keep pushing to see what they can get.

The other half of the team, led by Debra, wants to clean four classic cars. They make a deal to do the four cars outside for £80, and if the customer’s satisfied, he will let them do the other 10 cars inside the showroom for £10 each. He can tell pretty quickly they don’t know what they’re doing. They have to ask the customer how to use a power washer.

As for the team at the limo company, they offer £180. Then £135. Finally, they get the guys to agree to £120 for some reason.

Howard, Majid, and Noorul are polishing shoes. They’ll get £4 or £5 per shoe shine. Margaret is not sure whether this low value service will pay off.

At the cab company, the guys are having some trouble. They’ve got some wet seats, uncleaned areas, and poor Hoovering to contend with. Howard calls and doesn’t like that they’re doing the insides of the cars, so they’re going to shut down and go straight over to help out. The shoe shining has generated about £60-70 in an hour.

Mona’s team has finished with the limos, so it appears their negotiating has paid off. From there, they notice a car wash charging £10 per car, so they’re going to be washing some more cars.

Debra’s half of the team has been taking a long time to do their four cars, and the guy in the showroom isn’t happy. Since they’ve taken this long, he doesn’t believe they’ll have time to do the cars in the showroom, and the quality of their first four car washes wasn’t good anyway. Mona tells them to head to a supermarket or something to wash some more cars. Washing the individual people’s cars is turning out to be a much better idea than wasting their time on the showroom cars.

Howard can’t quite figure out how it took four people an hour and a half to wash one car earlier, but nonetheless, they are finally making some progress. They’ve managed to finish 18 cars by the end of the day.

Kate doesn’t think Mona took enough leadership

Ignite took £357 and spent £196.45, for total profit of £160.55. Empire took £347 but only spent £107.39, making a profit of £239, earning a win for the men. Howard didn’t think his team could do it. Ultimately, given how much money the women spent, they didn’t have a prayer.

Mona hasn’t quite gotten this simple business message, though, and doesn’t realize Sir Alan will harp on it. She wants to blame the other half of the team for taking in less money than her half of the team did. Debra blames Anita, one of the people she’d labeled as a puppet, for that.

When the girls get into the boardroom the next day, the very first question is about expenses and who was responsible for the business plan. Debra’s response is that there was no plan.

Aside from a lot of double talk, there’s not a great deal going on here that indicates where anybody’s head is or who’s to blame. Mona will be bringing back Debra and Anita. Debra because she was the leader of the other half of the team and Anita because of feedback from Debra. That said, Sir Alan hasn’t gotten any answers within half an hour indicating what went wrong.

According to Mona, Debra didn’t manage her team well. Pot, meet kettle.

Anita has been fired. I… didn’t see that coming. 7 other women were willing to overspend, but it’s Anita who gets blamed because she had the calculator.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 5.

Sir Alan Sugar will be returning with a new group of candidates when The Apprentice UK Series 5 premieres on BBC One Wednesday March 25. Nick and Margaret will be back as usual (he hasn’t offed them so his kids can be on TV) as well. The 15 job candidates are:

Anita Shah
35
Business Strategist
“My CV is strong. I am articulate. I can deal with questions and make impactful statements. Many lawyers can’t. People want to chat with me.”

Ben Clarke
22
Trainee Stockbroker
“To me making money is better than sex.”

Debra Barr
24
Senior Sales Consultant
“When I set my sights on something I have to make sure I get it. I am very cautious and only let the people that I can trust see the softer side of me.”

Howard Ebison
24
Retail Business Manager
“I am a credible businessman who wants to go far. I’m incredibly ambitious. If I don’t go far down this route I shall go far down another route.”

James McQuillan
32
Senior Commercial Manager
“I’m astute and shrewd and smart… maybe blunt at times.”

Kate Walsh
27
Licensing Development Manager
“My CV speaks for itself. I’ve always excelled academically and I have really achieved within a corporate environment across sales, marketing and a number of different aspects of business.”

Kimberly Davis
33
Marketing Consultant
“I bring honesty and integrity to the table, I don’t lie, cheat or backstab. I am not the stereotypical New Yorker and it’s a stereotype I’ve faced.”

Lorraine Tighe
36
National Accounts Manager
“I’ve fought against all the odds. I’m a single mum with no education and I’ve had a very hard time. It is tough, but to have the confidence I have I should be very proud of myself.”

Majid Nagra
28
Business Development Manager
“I think that business is the backbone to this world. Without companies buying and selling there wouldn’t be any economy.”

Mona Lewis
28
Senior Financial Manager
“I knew I would be selected, not to sound big-headed… I’ve succeeded in the companies I’ve worked for because I work hard and I’m honest.”

Noorul Choudhury
33
Science Teacher
“I have always been ambitious and driven and I’ve got the capabilities to deliver. I am not all talk… I can manage a team of people, total strangers even, because I am feisty and have attitude.”

Paula Jones
29
Human Resources Consultant
“I am the girl with a plan. I have great wit and strength of character, and I am resilient to the core.”

Phillip Taylor
29
Estate Agent
“Business is the new rock ‘n’ roll and I’m Elvis Presley”

Rocky Andrews
21
Sandwich Chain Owner
“For me business is about hard-work, attention to detail, being willing to make mistakes and learning from these mistakes.”

Yasmina Siadatan
27
Restauranteur
“Business is about a simple formula. Make more than you spend. That’s what I do, I keep business simple and it works. I’m good at it.”

Remember what Donald Trump’s show used to be like before he started making really dumb decisions and dragging it down (pre-Celebrity Apprentice anyway)? Fans of the first few seasons of the US version of The Apprentice are in for a treat.

The Apprentice UK will air on CNBC on Mondays starting August 25th through November 10th. The show airs at 9PM and 1AM, with the exception of Labor Day, September 1st, when it will air at 8PM and 11PM (pre-empting On The Money at 8PM and Mad Money at 11PM).

Each episode of Apprentice UK will repeat the following Saturday at 8PM and 11PM, starting on Saturday, August 30th.

After Lucinda decided she was kinda sorta maybe still interested in being the next apprentice, Sir Alan decided he was not kinda sorta maybe still interested in her any more and decided to fire her in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 11. That brought us down to the final four of Alex, Claire, Helene, and Lee, and that’s where Sir Alan wanted things to remain for the finale.

The final four are divided into two teams: Claire and Lee against Alex and Helene. Six of the castoffs return to work with them.

Claire selects Jenny C. Alex selects Raef. Lee selects Michael. Helene selects Kevin. Lee selects Simon. That leaves the other Jen on Helene and Alex’s team.

The teams are standing in a blank room, which is a canvas for their promotion of a new fragrance for the modern man, retailing at £29.95. Sir Alan informs them that whichever team loses, both will be fired, a twist I’m not particularly fond of.

Helene tells Alex she’s glad she’s working with him because Claire takes over and Lee is a nightmare.

Alex suggests he is the modern man. Lee is thinking metrosexual. Claire visits plumbers, which leads her to overthrow the metrosexual theme.

Helene is in charge of branding. After two hours brainstorming, she’s still stuck. Alex and Kevin have decided on the name Connect. Helene and her team hate it. Alex wants to know what she suggests. Silence. Kevin and Alex discuss how, despite it being a joint project management, Alex should be managing Helene. When they arrive to discuss bottle design, they still don’t have a brand name. Kevin makes a pitch to create a bottle made of a stress ball material. The designer says that’s a silly idea, but he runs with the concept of the regular large container and then a smaller one to go with it to carry with you. They’ve got a design ready, despite the lack of a brand.

Following 5 hours of brainstorming, Helene still has nothing. She’s also late for her focus group. Alex describes the bottle and once again brings up the name Connect. His other idea is Dual. She doesn’t want to hear it and has to go. Jen’s not any more impressed with her than Alex and Kevin are.

Lee’s concerned about the presentation, whereas his partner is the best presenter on the show.

Alex’s team finally has a brand name, Dual, which they’re using to promote the inner self that occasionally wants to come out. Nick is impressed by Alex, despite thinking Helene is useless.

Unlike Claire and Lee, who realize they’re competitors but also realize they need to work together or face being fired, Alex and Helene are approaching this task as competitors.

Helene hopes to have an unusual scent. She begins looking at things like chocolate and curry.

For their fragrance, Roulette, Lee wants to revive the old fashioned gambling gentleman. Their location is a night club that looks like a casino.

During a discussion of when they’re going to wake up, Raef, Jen, and Kevin walk out on Helene after getting tired of her. They leave Alex behind so she can yell at him.

Lee struggles to even practice the presentation and tells Claire he can’t do it.

Alex smells his fragrance. Probably not the wisest idea. Jen comments: it is quite… chocolatey.

Lucky for Lee, Alex and Helene’s team finds them boring, so it may not matter whether he can pull it together or not.

Lee tries to tell the audience that the metrosexual trends are dead and that there’s a new modern man. Granted, their actor in the commercial is apparently himself a metrosexual. Their fragrance is a spicy oriental blend. The audience has concerns about the gambling aspects of the campaign, but Claire does a good job of covering this. One comment they receive is that the product may not be particularly special, but it could sell reasonably well immediately without much work.

Alex and Helene receive a comment that they’ve done an extraordinary job considering the time frame they had to make the product. The concern raised about their product is the potential cost of the bottle, which they say will be slightly higher but should be manageable. The buyers suggest even the few percentage points higher is too much to leave room for advertising.

Claire and Lee’s team supports them fully. Nick’s not too thrilled with the gambling aspect. He says that Roulette = gambling = debt = misery. Harsh. The experts felt the fragrance was not distinctive. One said it was retro 1970s, which was what I thought the market they were going for was.

Kevin’s not quite so supportive of his project managers as the other team. Well, at least he’s not quite so supportive of one of them. He says the decisions were made by Alex. Their fragrance was definitely distinctive, although Sir Alan says it’s a copy of the perfume Helene wears. Sir Alan wants to know who came up with the idea of the dual bottle. Alex doesn’t really have an answer.

Sir Alan tells Lee his presentation was improved 100%, and Claire’s Q&A handling was brilliant. More importantly, though, is the cost of the dual bottle the other team had. While it may have been a great idea, it just doesn’t work at this price. Alex and Helene are fired.

So that brings us down to the final two: Lee and Claire.

Helene, who proved useless on the task, blames the loss on Alex because she didn’t design the bottle (or do anything else), which, therefore, must mean it’s not her fault. As skeptical as I was about whether Alex was more than just a pretty boy, Helene is someone who shouldn’t have been allowed in the final task to begin with.

Michael tells Sir Alan that Claire’s shown a lot of tenacity and has had the tougher route. Simon says he can’t choose between the two. Jenny is impressed by Lee’s chivalry, for whatever that’s worth.

Sir Alan calls Lee’s presentation improved but lacking, whereas Claire’s was superb.

Claire says that she’s learned throughout the process and has improved as time has gone by. She believes she’s the tougher person and won’t crumble.

Lee speaks to his record, which was the best of the final four.

Sir Alan is concerned about Lee being a one trick pony (sales), but he also raises concern about Claire’s general demeanor. Ultimately, he has decided that Lee is very, very convincing, and with that, he’s reached a decision. Lee is the winner of The Apprentice UK Series 4.

I’m less convinced than Sir Alan is. I’ve been a lot more impressed with Claire.

The Apprentice UK Series 5 will air next year, presumably around the end of March. In the US, The Celebrity Apprentice 2 starts in January. Stay tuned to dingoRUE for coverage of both.