Fast food

The penultimate episode of the Apprentice was quite an enjoyable one with the final five getting down to the wire as they did their final task, which was to come up with a fast food restaurant chain (a mock one of course!).  So the two teams were split into Tom and Helen (Logic) and Jim, Natasha and Susan (Venture).

Logic had the idea of doing British themed steak pies (or beef or any other type of pies for that matter!) where they named a pie after a famous British historical personality such as Drake, Nightingale, and of course the ultimate Brit: Christopher Columbus!  Yep they did their research there alright!!  Regardless of their little faux pas there, Logic had a much better and more original concept on their hands than Venture did.  As for Venture they decided to go with the Mexican restaurant theme idea and came up a rather silly take of Maracas, called Caracas, which they of course were unaware was the captial city of Venezula!  But their food apparently was cack, on the first day they served it up for the pre-opening day customers who gave their feedback as the nachos were served cold and were kept waiting too long.

By the next day when Lord Sugar and his host of fast food industry experts came along to test out the food and the service, and they themselves made up their minds.  In the feedback it was revealed there was an overwhelming difference between the two teams, Venture's Caracas idea was crap (scoring only 4/10) while Logic's idea was better received (scoring 7/10).  Team Logic's success secured both Helen and Tom's place in the final, so that's now a record breaking 10 wins for Helen, having lost only one task, if she wins the process, that will almost make her like the female Novak Djokovic of the program (i.e. he's only lost one tennis match all year and has won everything else!).

However in the boardroom, the losing team had it out with each other as they battled to see who will stay in the process.  Natasha and Susan both put forward very firm cases for Jim to be fired.  But in the end Lord Sugar decided that Natasha was the one to go as he felt she had lost her energy and enthusiasm in the latter stages of the process, which I thought was fair to be honest.  Susan on this episode though was a bit irritating and overbearing as she did keep criticising everything Natasha said to her in the brainstorm sessions.  Susan at times amid her daft naievity does talk sense, she has started her own business, something that Jim or Helen hasn't done, but she is rather gobby and there are times which she seems not to get on with anyone.  Jim on the other hand did flounder badly in this episode but I think he didn't get a great deal of support from Susan or Natasha, although Susan did contribute more than Natasha did.  In fact I think Jim came out of the boardroom better than Susan did, as he tried his best not to go for jugular like Susan.  I did like Susan but now I must admit she is starting to bug me, her over enthusiasm is annoying and the way in which she either agrees with everyone "I agree, exactly" or "I think that's a bad idea" becomes grating after a while. 

So as I said I think the right person went, as Lord Sugar is looking for a business partner who does more than stand around and not doing much.  Its also ironic once again, that every time a candidate who says they have special skills and expertise and they have to use them in a task it ALWAYS goes wrong for them!  As Natasha said she has an honours degree in Catering and Hospitality, but she said she couldn't cook so she refused to help with the cooking in the background, which I thought was a really bad decision and certainly didn't do her any favours.  Again if you refuse to do things that are actually within your scope, then its not going to win you any brownie points with Lord Sugar.

So we are down to the final four: Jim, Helen, Susan and Tom and next week is the moment we have all been waiting for, not only do we find out who will be Lord Sugar's business partner we will also get to the best part of the program: yep the interview stages!  I'm really pleased that they have saved this till last, as I sometimes think having the interview stage as the penultimate episode leaves the final episode to be a bit of an anti-climax.  But thankfully this time they have got it right, and I am already looking forward to seeing who will get grilled the most (well they all will get their fair share).  Of all the candidates I wan't to see Helen win, she has won the most tasks, is very level headed and shrewd, and she definitely seems to have a good grasp on how to run a business (plus she is a honey :-).  Failing that I wouldn't mind seeing Tom win as he is also quite sharp as well as very inventive, but I'm not so keen to see Jim or Susan win, but we will soon find oot.  

So that will do eeeet!