Rolling with the punches
A belting start to this season’s Apprentice has already thrown up a couple of classic one-liners and some very uncomfortable cringe-worthy moments.
Lord Sugar commenced by declaring that “a very uncivil partnership” lay ahead for the eventual winner, and like lambs to the slaughter, the fresh-faced candidates nodded nervously and smiled sweetly, whilst surely in slight trepidation of the challenges ahead.
As is now tradition for the first task, Lord Sugar arranged the teams with the simple split of boys versus girls, and from this moment on, it was a no-brainer as to who the first winning team would be.
Anyone who has even been a part of, (or even been an onlooker of) a gang of blokes, will be familiar with the very public battles to be ‘the dominant male’.
I’ve been on a number of lads’ holidays, stag-party’s and jolly boys’ outings during my time and once these events are in full swing, they become testosterone-fuelled nightmares!
Put a bunch of blokes together in a room, and it’s an on-going battle of bravado. Who can be the loudest? Who can be the cheekiest? Who can be the funniest? Who’s the best wrestler, the best drinker and of course, who can be the one that gets the most girls!
Volunteering to be the Project Manager for the first task then, is surely akin to sipping from the most poisoned chalice of them all. Yet - the egos of these arrogant apprentice candidates are too huge to reign-in and that they just can’t help but want to be the first to take that chalice, and sink a huge gulp!
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| Falling with the punches. Edward: The first domino to fall |
For us viewers, it was just a case of sitting back and watching how Edward would capitulate in front of us. And my, how he did!
Roll with the punches? …It was more a case of “let’s make it up as we go along and hope we don’t get fall flat on our faces”!!
The funny thing about Edward was that he –probably had some real intellectual potential within him. Personality-wise, he was perhaps lacking, but quite clearly from his educational background, he was a very bright boy.
The problem was of course, that he had some weird complex about being labelled as ‘an accountant’, and chose to mask-over what was likely to be his strongest asset.
Edward’s predicament actually reminded me somewhat of the character ‘Karofsky’ from Glee. For those who don’t watch this bubbly programme of pure fizzy pop, Karofsky is the archetypical high school bully; He throws his weight around by playing college football and picking on the geeks from Glee club and in particular, he bullies Kurt because he’s gay. However, as Karofsky himself is gay too, his denial just makes the whole situation worse for himself.
In Edward’s case, he concentrated on ‘throwing his weight around’ with ill-considered orders, but if he’d have accepted who he ‘really was’ and played to his strengths, he may still have been in the competition. Having considered all this though, he was never going to be the eventual winner, and the right person left the process first.
As far as the rest of the first episode went, the nominations for the ‘most annoying person award’ were stacking-up in abundance.
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| Melody: Annoyingly confident. But easy on the eye |
The girls’ PM was the excruciatingly annoying Melody. Apparently educated by Al Gore, Desmond Tutu and Dalai Lama amongst others, the uber confident Melody stepped up to the plate and lapped-up all the (slightly over-exaggerated) post-victory plaudits. However, this girl is definitely one to watch …and extremely easy on the eye too! What’s more, in the second task, she did take a quietly dignified role and despite her lack of faith in the app, she ‘mucked-in’ impressively.
Having heard from Melody in the boardroom, Lord Sugar’s wit was as sharp as ever as he looked toward the rest of the girls: “I’ve heard the melody, now let’s here the chorus”. Brilliant!
As for the other annoying candidates, I thought Edna was wearing a Bo’ Selecta mask with what seemed to be a prosthetic head! As it transpires, her shiny plastic-looking face does actually seem to be her own! And finally …Vincent took the biscuit by holding up a huge orange thing in the wholesalers and asking “Is that an orange?”
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| Tom: My early favourite |
My final observations from Episode One are with regard to the glasses-wearing inventor Tom.
I was well impressed with Tom throughout the first episode and have earmarked him - alongside Jim and Melody as the early front-runners. Even Lord Sugar complimented Tom’s boardroom observations by declaring that his comments were “the most sensible thing I’ve heard in this boardroom yet!” High-praise from the little big man indeed!
The only blemish on Tom’s copybook though was his “Sorry Lord Sugar” when leaving the boardroom, did seem to be a little bit of a ‘suck-up’. Nevertheless, I think this fella has a bright future in the programme and will be around for a good few weeks to come!
App-alling comedy!
Before Task Two had even started, some comedy gold unfolded in the back of the space wagon. Project Manager Leon declared that the team had “App-roximately twelve hours to get this App done”, to which Irish charmer Jim promptly asked the driver “Are we fast app-roaching our destination?”
Not to be outdone, Leon quipped that it was “App-solutely crucial that we nail this task!” …and then …the tumbleweed moment to end all tumbleweed moments, as floppy-haired muppet Vincent proclaimed: “Did you grab an app-le”. Erm …NO Vincent!
This wasn’t to be the last of Vincent’s ("and I'm not bad looking either") cringe-worthy moments though…
If the boys had anyone to blame for the loss of task two, it was surely this long-haired lothario!
For me, the boys executed their task with far more conviction than that of the girls, and it was surely only a combination of Vincent's cock-up at the pitch and sheer luck that the girls were victorious in task two.
Perhaps though, the boys may have had more luck globally if they'd concentrated on just the one regional accent?
A 'cockney-rhyming slang' app for example, would have had benefits for London-visiting tourists the world over, whilst still having the desired comedic effects. By sticking to 'cockney', I'm sure the app wouldn't have had quite the same offensive stereotyping issues that plagued the 'big' internet pitch.
In the end though, even us Brits struggle to understand other regional dialects and as the introductory page to the app was far too unclear, it was all too easy for SurrrAlun to lay into the boys and tear them down.
In the boardroom, Leon's U-turn in the face of Jim's tirade was a classic Apprentice moment and was looking likely to cost the fast-food marketing entrepreneur his place. But in the end, the Orlando Bloom look-a-likely was spared his blushed by the fairly useless, and very quiet Alex.
To be fair, Alex hardly helped himself with a total lack of involvement throughout the first couple of tasks. When he wasn't hiding in the shadows, he looked likely to burst into tears at any moment and it was no surprise at all to see him take the bullet rather tamely to become the second contender to walk out of Amstrad towers in as many days.
And finally ...a little note on Gavin, who is a bit of a conundrum. As one of only a few Northerners, I expected to warm to this fella straight away, but early impressions of him are that he’s far too negative.
Following the loss of the first task, Gavin declared in the boardroom that he was the only other candidate to self-nominate for the role of PM. However, this wasn't entirely true...
Whilst he did question Edward's credentials, he didn't make it particularly difficult for Edward to bully himself into the role and he hardly stepped up to the plate himself either. In fact, he just kind of sat on the fence.
Meanwhile, in task two, nearly all of his input had a negative slant and in general, this attitude disappointed me.
Gavin did however come alive on stage, during what was an excellent and entertaining team-presentation - that completely blew rubber-faced Edna's terrible attempt out of the water. And I did like his rather cool Ray-Ban glasses too!
All-in-all then, it’s been a cracking start to Series 7 and I hope you all enjoyed the first week as much as I did!
Until next time, many blessings!
Jay x
