Category: reality tv

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.

After miraculously surviving firing after firing for weeks, Michael finally got the axe in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 10. Despite her survival in the boardroom, Helene proved to be the newest person on borrowed time. Their teammate Claire showed once again she’s one of the top people. The other team, meanwhile, won in spite of themselves, rather than because of any overwhelming amount of talent.

It’s interview week. The final five will be interviewing with four of Sir Alan’s business colleagues: property tycoon Paul Kemsley, ex-Sir Alan employee Claude Littner, Viglen Computers CEO Bordan Tkachuk, and Birmingham City Football Club managing director Karren Brady (I believe she’s still in that position despite her arrest in April).

Paul asks Lee to do his reverse pterodactyl impression. Lee complies with this request. Paul is unimpressed and tells Lee he should have told him no. Either way he was screwed. This guy’s just being an asshat because he can be. Lee is basically told he’s too nice and that’s about all there is to him.

Claude doesn’t believe Lucinda is employable. She essentially agrees by saying she’s a contractor, which he takes to mean she’s just an outsider. She acknowledges her stay on this show has been a struggle on both sides. He finds it really hard to deal with her. This line of questioning leads her to ask what she’s doing here, as she questions whether she actually wants to be a permanent employee.

Paul wants to know why Claire increased profit by £8 million but only earned a bonus of £27k. He calls her a poor negotiator and would like to hire her because she’s cheap.

Paul tells Alex his CV is one of the most boring he’s ever read. Alex says thank you. He responds that he’s younger and that’s why there’s not much on his CV, but Paul brags that he was running his own business at 22. Karren, likewise, isn’t taken in by the age story, since she was 23 when she was running Birmingham City Football Club. Not having any more luck with Claude, Alex tells him that it doesn’t matter what he says because he’s just going to knock it down anyway.

Helene tells Karren the story of how she overcame a bad childhood to get where she is today.

Paul questions whether Lucinda’s really a serious businesswoman who will actually stick around for more than three months. He suggests she should question why she’s here. While she’s interviewing, the other candidates are discussing this very thing. She tells him he’s asking questions but not actually listening to the answers, which is a valid point.

Claude wants to know whether Lee was ever taught spelling then proceeds to go over the highlighted grammatical and spelling mistakes on one of his questions. During his discussion with Bordan, he claims he was with a university for two years, but Bordan’s gotten confirmation that it was just four months.

Lucinda has come to the decision that she really wants this job and will fight for it, though the damage on that front is already done because not everybody is convinced of that.

Now that the interviews are over, the interviewers can discuss their findings with Sir Alan.

Bordan was impressed by the fact that Alex worked a commission only job. Paul thought the interview was terrible but that he does have potential. Karren questions whether Alex would be able to achieve anything without his charm and good looks, but she thinks he should just recognize those traits as assets. Claude is the least impressed of the bunch and believes Alex is bland and shallow.

Claude has great things to say about Lucinda… but thinks she would be a disaster for Sir Alan. Paul calls her a nutcase. Unlike prior seasons, Sir Alan has finally realized that the salary for this job is largely moot.

Despite the pterodactyl impression, Paul was impressed with Lee… until the end of the interview when he winked at him like a door-to-door salesman. Karen believes he’s a good salesman but that this is the last big chance he’ll get. Bordan brings up the lie about the university, which mostly disappoints him because it was unnecessary if he’s done as well as he’s done otherwise, although Paul says that a lot of people lie about their qualifications. Claude says that he’s a tryer.

Karren thought Claire was fantastic and a doer and tells Sir Alan she’ll give her a job if he doesn’t. Claude has doubts whether she can do anything but retail. Bordan says she doesn’t listen, but that’s not news to Sir Alan.

Claude was impressed that Helene overcame her background, but Sir Alan doesn’t want to hear the sob story any more. Karren echoes Claude’s comments. Paul didn’t see any real fire in her.

As he’s leaving the room, Paul gives Sir Alan the wink and the gun.

During the final boardroom with the candidates, Alex is the one to bring up that Lucinda said during the interview process that she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be there. In explaining herself, she says she doesn’t need the job (even if everybody else does), just that she wants it.

Lucinda is a little bit too zany for Sir Alan and is fired.

Sir Alan gives Claire a hard time about the fact that she doesn’t listen, but he’s decided he will let her stay. Not only that, but he’s going to let everybody else stay and have a four person final.

They final four will be split into two teams. The team that loses will be fired. From the winning team, one person will be the winner. I like the final four twist. Not thrilled that the losing team will just outright be fired without consideration to any previous tasks or anything else, though.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 12, where we will find out who the winner is.