Hiring and firing

When this series of The Apprentice started, the ‘boys’ looked strong and the ‘girls’ couldn’t have looked more clueless.  It seemed a certainty that for the third consecutive year Lord Sugar’s business partner would be a man (and indeed four of the remaining five from last year were male).  This year, three out of the first four firings were women and the only reason it wasn’t connect four was because in the second week one of the guys was transferred and put in charge of running the girls and paid the price for their incompetence.  In Week 5, a bit of balance was restored with a guy going, but in the following two weeks, two girls and one boy were sent packing from the process.  By the start of Week 8, there were five boys to three girls.  Leah seemed a candidate to make it through to at least the interview stage but it seemed for certain that the back-biting Luisa and Francesca would face the chop sooner rather than later. 

But then a strange thing happened.  Over weeks 8, 9 and 10 (and let’s be honest, they aren’t really weeks, though the contestants are contractually obliged to say that they are because the whole process is filmed in under a total of four weeks), each task saw a boy depart – although at 39, I’m not sure Myles really qualifies as a ‘boy’.  So by the time of the interview stage, the most incredible thing happened where the girls outnumbered the boys three to two.

And when Jason and Neil crashed and burned with their business plans (I would have liked to have seen the urbane and experienced Myles defend his case against the interrogators but after being responsible for two failed tasks in a row, he had to go), only the girls remained.  Incredible.  When Leah was chosen as one of the final two, I thought Luisa’s lack of focus at running three concurrent businesses (and if successful a fourth) would be costly but TV protocol dictated that two blonde, white women could not be the ones battling it out and so Francesca was shown the door for lacking ‘spark’.

And now, after being dumped for two seasons, the final episode is where all the bumblers return to throw a spanner in the works of those who pick them (or are forced to take them).  The interview stage seemed a more natural conclusion for an entrepreneur but sagging ratings demands a revamp.  Thus, instead of another task set by Sugar (i.e. the BBC), Leah and Luisa must start-up their businesses in the most unrealistic of circumstances.  Bet that was hailed as genius at the BBC brainstorming session.