My Apprentice awards

My Apprentice awards

You're Fired!!!

Over the past 11 series the Apprentice has been one of my favourite shows. From the loudest woman in Britain (Saria Khan) in series 1 to Trickie Dickie (Richard Woods) in series 11, I have loved the show. And so in honour of it I have done the apprentice awards!!! These are totally biased and my own point of view so thats life.

Best/worst villains

Every series has one. THAT candidate who the public sees as so EVIL that they have to go every week. And yet they don't which actually makes the show watchable because you get obsessed with watching them!! Here are my top 5.

                         5- Selina Waterman-Smith (Series 11)

Just that curl of her mouth alone...

Selina got a bit of a bad reputation on the show. She actually was quite good as Project Manager (twice) but when she wasn't PM she could be a pain. At times she seemed negative and unwilling to go the extra mile. Her feud with Charlene (One of my favs from series 11) didn't do much to help the image when she made comments like (I don't know how she has a business at all). Also her comments on twitter about Claude being  jealous of her hair were ridiculous and quite frankly I think Lord Sugar was glad to see her gone. Incidentally she was the first candidate to openly refuse to go on your fired (Ella Jade from series 10 also didn't appear on the show but that was due to a family Bereavement.

                                  4- Syed Ahmed (Series 2)

(Best Wham Voice- Bad boys stick together)

I was never sure what to make of Syed. Yes the way he acted in tasks made him a villain (100 chickens, the car task, the way he spoke to Sharon, nearly ruining the final for Michelle etc). But god help me he happened to have talent as well. His top PMship in week 3 with negotiating and buying was very good and even selling to the trade in week 8 with those oil cans was a truly impressive feat. But the bad outweighs the good and when he was fired in week 10 his time had come.

                            3- Michael Sophocles (Series 4)

The Smug look on his face says it all...

Series 4 is not a vintage year of the apprentice. In fact many fans consider it to be the lowpoint of the shows history. And this man had quite a lot to do with it. He shouted when he lucked in a win as PM (nothing to do with him quite frankly). He lied about the idiotic advertisement he was at least 50% responsible for (casting Sian Lloyd as a mother????) he hard sold cakes at a wedding fair (where the soft sell was the right approach) and then in the boardroom he did nothing but beg Lord Sugar for another chance. AND GOT IT! Innocent candidates like Raef, Sara and to a lesser extent Jennifer Maguire fell before him before Lord Sugar in week 10 finally saw the light.

2- Katie Hopkins (Series 3)

Aka The DEVIL!!

Now before everyone jumps down my throat I would like to say that I am basing this SOLELY on the apprentice and nothing about afterwards. If was about being in the media then she would win by miles. But on the show she was only mild (compared to now) She spoke terribly about her fellow candidates (Adam, Kristina- at one point she wanted her to die basically) about her products that she was selling (Rug in boxes) and even the public (people who watch the shopping channel). But she did add value to the team and was a very good pm and could act professional on the team so I will give her second on the list. I still hate her though. 

Honorable mentions

Series 1- Paul Torrisi

Series 5- Debra Barr, Ben Clarke, Philip Taylor, Lorraine Tighe

Series 6- Stuart Baggs, Melissa Cohen

Series 7 Zoe Beresford, Jim Eastwood. Melody Hossaini

Series 8 Stephen Brady

Series 9 Luisa Zissman

Series 10- James Hill

1- Jenny Celerier (Series 4)

I HATED YOU!!

You know when I was talking about series 4 being a lowpoint in the show. Well she also was a main reason why. She was incompetent in tasks, a bully to other contestants (Lucinda and Sara), came up with the worst greeting card idea ever (seriously a save our planet greeting card), did not know what Kosher is and tried to bribe a shop owner not to sell the other team some tennis racquets so her team could win. She was humorless and told lie after lie after lie in the boardroom and Lord Sugar was glad to see her gone. As was I.

Harsh Firings

We all know the ones I mean. That on paper were least deserving to go and yet they were fired??? Sometimes the show can stump people. And me.

                         5- Naomi Lay (Series 3 Episode 10)

She wasn't Anna Ford but still....

There are some candidates who can get through to the last few episodes by luck rather than skill (Laura from series 6 sticks in the mind) others sail through without much of a blip (Helen from series 7). Naomi was a middle of the road character. Yes she was awful as PM in week 3 but had pulled herself together by week 9 that she was a contender (well a bigger one than Lohit). Then the shopping on tv task happened and it was totally her fault apparently. I thought the art and crafts set she had picked for Simon to do was quite nice and it wasn't her fault if Simon had been a complete prat with the other item the Trampoline. Her past record in the final 2 weeks had been stronger than both Simon and Tre (hell Tre had used his get out of free jail card in the previous week). So personally I would have fired Tre instead of Naomi.

                         4- Glenn Ward (Series 7 Episode 7)

Don't tell him you're an engineer.

That wasn't really fair was it. In the design a magazine task Jedi Jim had done everything 100% WRONG from the pitches to changing the magazine font and picking the worst image than Glenn and Susan spent half a day getting of old folk (a couple hugging?? There was boxing and handstands etc). Yes Glenn was patronizing about the how to use a phone concept but I think there was bigger issues. And apparently Jim did 60% of the work. All of which was rubbish. And yet Glenn was fired simply because he was an engineer. (there is an argument that he wasn't the best candidate either but he was the only male to win as PM). Jim incidentally got off the hook. 

                    3- Miriam Staley (Series 1 Episode 10)

She was fired despite doing a good job??

The women of the first series of the apprentice were pretty rubbish weren't they. After week 6 out of seven women who started the series, two remained. Yes one did resign but lets be frank Adele was about to be fired anyway so that does count as being rubbish. Miriam like Glenn above her was the only member of her sex to win as PM (and did a really good job). However at her second go as PM she had the unfortunate experience of having Paul Torrisi on her team who did nothing but talk over Tim when she was trying to present and then proved to be rubbish himself. Miriam was even praised by the shopping channel (yes it was the very first of those tasks) for doing such a good job. And yet she was fired for not controlling Paul. Even Lord Sugar admits that he really should not have fired her.

                     2- Shazia Wahab (Series 4 Episode 2)

Apparently could not play the game???

Poor Shazia is one of the main reasons I HATED Jenny C in series 4. In the second episode of the series Jenny was the PM when they had to start there own laundry business. Jenny made so many mistakes- Giving the team a long sales talk which meant they left the house late, allowing her stupid financial team to pitch a £5000 deal to a hotel when they usually pay £200 for the service and then later pitch £15 for a service which was worth £60. Shouting at Lucinda for really no good reason apart from folding hankies and then when Sara spoke turning on her and then sending Shazia back to the house to get the irons even though she was the only one who knew the system of whose clothes were who in the washing machine. And then of course losing the clothes. Oh and holding a 7am meeting about how to give back clothes. 

Jenny then in the boardroom (unsurprisingly the girls lost) decided to blame Shazia for the lost clothes (even though the £50 was not the main difference between winning and losing) even though SHE sent Shazia back. Maybe Shazia should have spoken up more but still it was shocking when Shazia went instead of Jenny (incidentally Jenny also brought back Lucinda for no good reason either instead of Lindi and Jenny M who were the financial idiots). To this day I struggle to find a single person who agreed with this decision (apart from Lord Sugar).

Honorable mentions
Series 4- Sara Dhada, Raef Bjayou (both fired at the expense of Michael Sophocles)
Series 6- Joy Stefanicki (instead of Laura the useless PM?) Liz Locke (for not having a field of ponies compared to Stuart Baggs)
Series 9- Jenna Whittingham (instead of Stepehn Brady for a misjudged advert)
Series 10- Jemma Bird (instead of poor Pm Sanjay Sood-Smith)


                    1- Karen Bremner (Series 2 Episode 3)

So Lord Sugar prefers nutters to Lawyers

In the history of the Apprentice I have never seen such a firing come out of nowhere. She was the winning Pm in week 1 (but to be fair her tactics to get free fruit by flirting wasn't great). Then in week 2 she was brought in by useless Pm Nargis for no good reason and didn't speak at all (So if Lord Sugar didn't like her he should have fired her then and we would have had Nargis and Jo together in week 3). So in week 3 she was with PM Jo trying to by 10 items as cheaply as possible. Jo's tactics were to annoy the sub team as much as possible by saying that they could not buy anything without her say so which in the end they ignored and bought 7 out of the 10 items. Jo spent her time brooding about this and therefore Alexa (who was also in the car) had to buy the saffron which she proved to be nearly useless at and Karen to buy the dinner jacket. which she did eventually after faffing around for a while. (Jo bought nothing). Then came the tire situation. Karen spent her time on the phone trying to find a garage that A- had it in stock and B- wanted to be on tv. A wasn't the issue. B was. In the end they failed to get the tire. and the team lost.

Jo bought Karen and Alexa in and started to gabble on like a nutter and it seem inevitable that Jo was going, Karen was quiet but compared to Jo she couldn't get a chance to speak. However Jo went on so much that in the end Lord Sugar decided NOT to fire her and fired Karen for being a lawyer. And for letting Jo speak. That was it really. Nothing to do with the task itself. Awful decision and to this day it ranks as the harshest firing ever.

Most useless candidate

So sometimes the apprentice can bring out the best in candidates. Some like Yasmina, Ruth Badger, Joseph from series 11 etc. However sometimes it shows up the pure fallibility of others. Here are my top 5 most useless candidates ever.

                               5- Laura Moore (Series 6)

Good God. She made it to week 9????

There are some candidates who think they are fantastic then one bite of the PMship proves to them and the audience how utterly useless they are. Laura was Pm for the week 2 disaster where the girls team (minus Stella who had been put in charge of the boys team)had to design a new accessory for the beach. Unable to control the team she managed to design the worst product (at the time) the Book-Eeze

I wonder why it got 0 orders.....

Anyway the team kept talking over her making Laura cry instead of telling them to be-quiet. Then when it came to pitching, Boots (clearly having taken a lot of LSD over lunch) liked the product wanted exclusivity of it. Laura refused despite the rest of the team telling her what a good idea it was. They lost. And Laura even dithered in the boardroom because she thought the whole of the team were to blame instead of her. And Lord Sugar blamed quiet Joy instead of Laura who survived.

Laura took this as a sign to keep her head down but managed to Fuck up in the 4th week about doing exclusivity on products that were not hers which were kicked out of the boardroom (did she not watch series 4 or 5). Unfortunately her team won. Then when her team didn't win she was so liked (god knows why) that her teammates didn't bring her into the final three despite Lord Sugar gagging to fire her.  This finally happened in week 9 when she and Stella were working together and once again she fucked up over truffles using at a starting  point £200 to buy them when the fine for not getting them was £150. Now Stella for me was more to blame in the task for the failure but in the end Laura had to go for 9 weeks of being useless. she begged for another chance saying she had put herself forward as pm for the last 3 weeks and no-one had listened. Yeah maybe it was because of last time???

                           4- Jaz Ampaw-Farr (Series 9)

Big Smiles!!!!

Being a Pm in the first task is a big risk. You should use what skills and experience you have to apply yourself that will win you respect and win the task. Jaz's approach was to put herself as PM before she knew what the task was and then treat the rest of the team like five years olds by trying to motivate them (when she didn't need to). The task itself was to sell a huge crate of an assortment of goods (including mugs leather Jackets and Lucky cats) for the highest profit. Jaz's first GENIUS brainwave was to go to Chinatown in London at 8.45 in the morning to sell the cats. Two minor issues with that. Chinatown doesn't open until 10am. and also, I would not try and flog them anything because they probably buy lucky cats from china for below cost price. complete waste of time. yes they did sell them but at a very low price. Next huge mistake. She and her team decided to go to oxford street to flog the gear. (why? how many independent retailers are there in oxford street?). Amazingly she managed to find someone in a tourist shop who wanted to buy all the goods. Unfortunately he was only a member of staff and was not allowed to buy anything (his boss said no).

Final Mistake- after team lost (well that was a surprise) her own team turned on her and she called Lord Sugar 'man'. Instant sacking there. No big loss.


coming soon 3.2 and 1

Coming soon- Best winner and Best episode