Thursday 4 June 2009

The Apprentice: Almost There

Admittedly I haven't quite caught up with the full offerings from last night's The Apprentice; as I write, I have The Apprentice: The Final Five playing in a pop-out window. Since it is basically a summary of all the things we've heard so far, and not a crucial part of The Events, I think it's ok for me to comment on the actual episode even at this stage.

So last night was the interviews; we have 4 high-up people in suits interviewing the remaining candidates, and their job is to establish that their CVs are esentially rubbish.

Sorry, getting distracted here by The Final Five in the pop-out window, telling us about how Kate's granny died in the middle of the whole Margayte fiasco.

The remaining candidates are: Kate, Debra, Yasmina, James and Lorraine. At the start, we hear them all saying how they love interviews and do really well at them, so it's a safe bet that they'll be universally hopeless (as if we didn't know that from the previous weeks' performances).

It cannot be denied that everybody likes Kate; the worst they can throw at her is that she's a bit robotic, and not very exciting. Which is probably true, but not all that interesting when you want a night's entertainment.

Debra is better; the consensus is that she's extremely nasty and everyone who has ever met her thinks so too. On asked about this, Debra explains: "When you're successful and people hate you, you have to wonder whether they hate you because you're so successful". Or not, Debs.

Yasmina has always, to my mind, been something of a dark horse - she owns her own business but demonstrates nothing much in the way of competence, and you have to wonder how. In the food task, she made disgusting food from cheap ingredients, and won mainly because the boys did more or less the same while wearing togas. So she has the wit not to wear a toga, but what else is in there? Well, an incapability with numbers, for a start, as demonstrated in the 450g of £100000000/kilo oil debacle. Apparently this is not a strong skill in real life either, as we learn from her financial records ("How much profit does your business make?" "About 4% of turnover" "What's turnover?" "It's like, you know, the money we make" "Gross or net profit?" "Net" "It says gross here" and so on). The best part is when Yasmina is torn to pieces, leaves the room, and when asked by the others how it went, says "Yeah, really good! They were really nice! Went really well."

Better yet is James, who is told his CV is "exceptional", as in "exceptionally bad". It also makes no sense, other than the bit where he says that one of his strengths is that he "brings ignorance to the table", which explains a lot.

Onto Lorraine, and if I hear one more sodding thing about her sodding instinct, I think I shall gouge my ears out with toothpicks. So, moving on.

After a briefing from the Interviewers, Sir Alan brings the candidates into the board room. We have been informed that at least one of them will be sacked, but it could be up to three of them. Sir Alan goes round the table and tells them, more or less, that they're a bunch of tossers, which is a fair summary.

Then, to keep things moving, he fires James and everyone cries. They all get sent outside for hugs and cuddles, and then are brought back in to fight again. Next down is Lorraine, which is reasonable enough, and that leaves Kate, Yasmina and Debra. After once again saying how useless they all are, Sir Alan fires Debra, and a nation holds its breath - will she leave peacefully, or eat him? She leaves peacefully, and we are down to the finalists: Kate and Yasmina.

(An aside: in the pop-up window, I am witnessing James' dad saying how great James is, and he appears to be from Co Tyrone, which is vaguely interesting).

Sunday is the final: Kate and Yasmina will go claw-to-claw in chocolate-making (or something). The glorious joy is that everyone else is coming back to help them! Hurrah! Ben is back! Pantsman returns! James lives to pee another day!

We look forward immensely.

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