As parents themselves, James and Lorraine become the team leaders: James headed up Empire with Ben, Debra and Yasmina, while Lorraine managed Kate and Howard for Ignite.
Perhaps intentionally, most of the products available to the teams were gimmicky nonsense. Baby shoes with heels? Puh-leeze! Protective rubber hats? A playsuit of thick cotton wool is only a matter of time, I reckon. The only thing that made any sense to me was the collapsible buggy and the birthing pool (although that did seem very niche.) The teams generally made good choices from a bad selection, or at least you could understand their thinking: Ignite chose the buggy and the silly rubber hats (which they thought would be a good, cheap impulse buy -- fair enough), while Empire opted for the birthing pool and rocking horses (retailing at £1,700-£4000, so just one sale would hand them an easy victory -- well, in theory.)
This is The Apprentice, so problems were inevitably encountered at the big show itself: Ignite spent the first few hours unable the properly demonstrate their buggy's USP, then discovered that their product was being sold on a neighbouring stall for £100 (£30 cheaper!) Empire found it impossible to sell a single rocking horse all day, and the birthing pools weren't that popular either. Debra got tantalizingly close to making a horse sale just before closing, but an agreement with the manufacturers didn't allow for any legroom on the price, so Empire were unable to lower the price-tag by £200, so the task-winning sale was lost.
In the boardroom, Sir Alan revealed that Ignite made £1,600-worth of sales versus Empires £700. Winning project manager Lorraine (despite forgetting to check if the buggy was being sold anywhere else at the show) generally did a good job marshalling her team, but the win was essentially down to good product choice. As a treat, they were taken to the National Portrait Gallery, where renowned political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe drew caricatures of them -- although Lorraine's looked more like a photo.
As losers, James decided to bring Debra and Ben back into the boardroom to explain themselves. Clearly he believed the birthing pool would be more popular with punters (despite knowing only 2.2% of the market want home-birthing kits), and was largely distracted from selling them because the team were too anxious about flogging the rocking horse to win the task.
Once again, Sir Alan's decision was a little puzzling. Would he fire jovial James, whom he seems to think is just a likeable dope? Or dish-faced Debra, who probably ate a few babies at Earl's Court? Perhaps big-head Ben, who mentions his Sandhurst scholarship as some kind of defensive tic? Well, despite the fact it felt like poisonous Debra's time to go, and that James was instrumental in choosing bad products, Sir Alan jabbed his finger in Ben's direction -- for being too full of himself, basically.
So, heading into Week Ten, can anyone stop smiley Kate from winning? It's surely all academic now, unless her people skills and likeability are no match for the pure business acumen of closest rival Yasmina? Is Howard a dark horse, though? Or has he left it all too late? He does seem to lack a real spark, though. One thing's for sure: Debra's on borrowed time. I don't see her lasting long if Nick and Margaret are dead against her. If she gets to the job interview round, she'll be torn apart by Sir Alan's sharp-tongued friends. Or maybe she'll prove a match for them and earn their begrudging respect, as her "belligerence" seems to have charmed Sir Alan already. It's the face, see. She hypnotizes
20 May 2009
BBC1, 9pm
