In Week 8, Sir Alan set the teams the task of rebranding the shabby seaside town of Margate in two days, with predictably shabby results. Moonfaced, argumentative cow Debra talked Howard into letting her manage Empire, leading him, James and Mona; as Yasmina took charge of Ignite to lead Kate, Ben and Lorraine.
Both teams had to create a series of posters and leaflets that rebranded Margate, then present their pitches to a team of advertising professionals and a cross-section of Margate residents. James and Mona headed to Margate to take snapshots of the town to sell Ignite's idea of turning it into a hotspot for the gay community (chasing "the pink pound"), with Yasmina and Kate left behind in London to compile their photos into posters. I was very surprised they didn't think of rebranding Margate into "Margay". Y'know, change all the town's signs and get the place twinned with San Francisco, or something.
For Empire, Lorraine and Ben arrived in Margate to take snaps of the resort for a family audience, armed with the slogan "see Margate through children's eyes", with Debra and Howard in London organizing the publicity material.
As usual, cringeworthy moments weren't in short supply; mainly provided by Mona this week, who asked questions of an ugly "woman" who turned out to be a man going through a sex-change. Rather obviously. But Mona claimed she couldn't tell if he/she was male/female. And there was the general awkwardness of getting heterosexual guys to hold hands for the camera and lick ice creams on the beach.
Elsewhere, Ben and Lorraine contended with thick fog (which inexplicably cleared, so may have been put there by the production team to build some tension -- don't put it past 'em!), and wandered around taking bad photos of the beach and crazy golf course. Ben also developed the odd quirk of continually looking through a finger-square he made with his thumbs and index-fingers, believing it made him look like David Bailey and not a pretentious twat.
The leaflets and posters presented by Empire to the advertisers and townsfolk of Margate ended up being terrible, drab, wordy and (thanks to Debra's bad time-management -- AGAIN!) unfinished. Still, the intention behind their idea was fairly imaginative and earned a modicum of praise. They tried to blag that empty spaces on their leaflet was advertising space for local businesses, amusingly.
The same material from Ignite had a few flaws (predictable design, conventional idea), but they ultimately looked much better and had a uniformity that everyone liked. As usual for The Apprentice, it was actually great work considering they only had two days and are amateurs, but the critics like to put the boot in. One day a candidate's going to explode at these sarcastic putdowns. Something along the lines of: "well, what do you fucking expect?! I've had four hours sleep, I've been up since five, the team had two days to organize this shit, we're not in the tourism or advertising business, and we've been under weeks of pressure with a camera crew stuck in our faces 24/7, so just give us a fucking break!!!"
In the boardroom, Sir Alan gave the predictable news that the focus groups both awarded Empire's gay campaign 4/10 and Ignite's family campaign 7/10. Yasmina's team were awarded with a trip to the Lotus Exige Driving Day to race fast cars around a track, as Debra's team left to lick their wounds in the greasy spoon café. Who owns that place? Someone who thinks any publicity is good publicity, it seems! Maybe Sir Alan should get his candidates to rebrand THAT place next year?
Project Manager Debra chose to bring James and Mona back into the boardroom with her (more evidence for my theory that people who partner the PM never get chosen, because that would reflect badly on the PM's work during the task.) Unfortunately, Mona voicing her dislike of the gay campaign early on seemed came back to bite her (rule #1: never, ever moan about anything on this show), so Sir Alan decided she didn't contribute enough to the task, and hadn't demonstrating skills beyond sales prowess over the past two months. So, she was fired.
Debra was extremely lucky, and not for the first time. She's a very dislikeable person, but I must confess that she sometimes spits venom in a way I have sympathy for. For example, whenever Nick leans in to make a sarcastic quip about the shitiness of something the team has done, you can see she'd snap his neck if the camera wasn't on her. And I can understand her reaction sometimes, as Nick does likes to slip in comments that don't help and are just designed to annoy. "What's that hole?" he pondered of the leaflet's blank space on the computer screeb. "Yeah, just fuck off, you know we've run out of time because of my bad management, four-eyes!" is what Debra's face screamed.
I can't see Debra lasting much longer. But Sir Alan generally keep your around in favour of people that seem to be coasting along -- so, Howard had better watch out! It's unfathomable how he's made it to Week Nine. And James needs to start really impressing and not just leaning on his gormless "I'm a nice bloke" schtick in the boardroom.
13 May 2009
BBC1, 9pm
