Wednesday, May 10, 2006
You're hired!
JOBS! The Apprentice, BBC2, 9.00pm/The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, Discovery Home and Health, 10.30pm
Can it really be the final already? So much time has flown. We started with 14 hopefuls, and after the sackings of (deep breath) Ben, Nargis, Karen, Alexa, Mani, Jo, Samuel, Sharon, Tuan, Syed, Paul and Ansell, we're now left with a final two of Ruth, aka The Badger, and Michelle, aka The Cold Fish. Kind of a surprise for the people who assumed Sralan was a big ol' sexist and that a woman was never going to win this show (not us, we hasten to add). As much as we thought Ansell was a top bloke and we were sorry to see him go, once Paul had been given the boot and Michelle declared safe, this was the final we were hoping for: Michelle vs. Ansell would probably have been exceedingly dull to watch, whereas Michelle vs. Ruth has plenty of drama to offer.
So who's going to win? Well, we're not Sralan Sugar and we haven't got a clue, but we can offer the following from watching the show: Ruth is a fan favourite and has performed extremely well on several of the tasks (absolutely troucing everyone else in the property letting task), but has been on the losing team more times than she'd probably like to admit. We've got no doubt that she'd do a good job, but she can come across as pushy and overly aggressive (particularly in last week's interviews). Michelle looked like a dead woman walking after her first turn at project management on the Top Shop task saw her abandoning her team to quaff champagne in the VIP room, and was lucky to escape without being fired. Since then she's (sensibly, we might add) got her act together and turned in some better performances, leading her team to victory in the property letting task and assuming an air of calm inflappability during the interviews. The awesome Margaret considers her a cold fish, but we think it's entirely possible that Michelle has the icy determination necessary to steal the win from under Ruth's nose. This is why this final should be awesome - we have absolutely no idea which one of these two will walk off with the job at the end of it, and in a strange way we think they both deserve it.
As yet we have no news on whether The Apprentice USA is to return to our screens, but we sure hope so, because while we don't especially miss Mr Trump and the pretty famewhores who walk into his boardroom, we miss the brilliant George and the superlative Carolyn whose astute comments always have us cheering. However, in the meantime you could always tune over to Discovery Home and Health to catch the recent spin-off, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart at 10.30. The show flopped in the ratings over in the US and only one series was made, but from what we've heard there's still plenty of fun to be had. Obnoxious contestant Jim is four times the annoyance Syed or Sharon could ever hope to have been, for starters. Sadly, Martha does not have a snappy catchphrase (choosing in the first episode to replace the iconic "you're fired!" with the anaemic "you just don't fit in"), although she does write a personalised letter to each fired hopeful, giving us all a chance to marvel at her appalling penmanship (seriously - some of them are illegible). And while it may lack the glitz and sparkle of the Trump version (or indeed the Sugar version), the deployment of Martha's daughter Alexis as one of her advisors is inspired. We're told there are plenty of classic mother-daughter bonding moments of the "yes, MOTHER *eye-roll*" variety to come. We can't wait.
By Steve :: Post link
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