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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The Apprentice Season 4

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Whisky Priestess

23:05 / 04.06.08

Helene's corporation is a successful money-making enterprise?

10:18 / 05.06.08

She worked for General Electric. I guess the difference is that by comparison to GE all of Alan's businesses look like mewling kittens.

Anna de Logardiere

13:33 / 05.06.08

The difference between a huge corporate business and a mid-size business has to be fairly large. Helene keeps saying how difficult it is to hide in a large corporation but that's nonsense. You've got to be more accountable when the MD is walking past you and knows your name, when you're more likely to receive emails from anyone in the management chain and when you're in the head office of the whole company. Sure Helene could get fired at somewhere like GE if she screwed up but she could also pass the blame to someone in a similar position or someone being managed by her far more easily. Potentially she wouldn't need to shift the blame because it might never be a problem if your line manager liked you and your mistake wasn't horrendously bad. Essentially he doesn't know how she's stayed there so it might not be because she's a good businesswoman, it might be because she seems good.

Anna de Logardiere

13:42 / 05.06.08

Incidentally the difference in size is really simple. On 4 September 2007 Amstrad was acquired by BSkyB. GE actually has 5 branches doing different things including financial services and healthcare and also owns NBC universal. Contacts pages also explain this: Amstrad and GE

13:58 / 05.06.08

Hehe. I just checked Wikipedia for number of employees:
GE: ~319,000 (2007)
Amstrad: 85 (2005)

I don't know if it's accurate, but it's funny. I understand that Siralan's Vast Business Empire is a bit more than just Amstrad, but I thought it was a significant part of his company. And that whoever won would be working in an organization with a few thousands of employees (although it'd still pale in comparison to GE's 300k).

14:16 / 05.06.08

I was under the impression that Sugar owned Viglen, but I've no real idea of how big an IT company it is.

14:53 / 05.06.08

As an ex-corporate employee I can confirm that they can be very cosy places indeed, especially for the valued staff.

Not in the Face

08:34 / 06.06.08

GE is supposed to be somewhat different than other large companies in its staff attitude and development including a strong line on sacking those who don't perform, so I think there is some truth in her statement about nowhere to hide. But ultimately Helen is my least fave to win because SirAlan's presumably had his cockles surgically removed when they were last warmed by a tale of a hard childhood in S2. Also Helen strikes me as being fairly replaceable by any one of a million similar people in terms of skills and attributes. She also probably earns close to £100,000 anyway (as does Claire it seems) and so doesn't have the rank desperation of Alex or Lee who seems to be cracking under the pressure.

Shame to see Lucinda go but hardly surprising, although the final task seems like it would play to her strengths.

I think the show made an error in deciding to have 4 finalists, something I think must have been planned from the start for variety sake. Even with just two finalists, the coverage tends to be quite brief. With 4 its not going to be easy to gain a real idea of where the losers go wrong unless its something spectacular

08:51 / 06.06.08

Talking about hard childhoods i was touched but slightly confused by the section in 'The Final Five' programme where Lee was in tears over his father being a milkman. This cruel twist of fate was very hard for him, apparently, and gave him the drive to succeed in life. Now I realise that I may be a few years older than Lee and he may not have spent much time in the 70s but, through exposure to ‘Ernie: The fastest Milkman in the West’ and a number of Confessions films, I’ve always thought of the milk delivery trade as being a fine and proud thing to be part of.

12:24 / 10.06.08

It was strange to see how emotional Lee was about that. I got the impression it was less about the jobs that his parents had than about the amount of money they were making.

Anna de Logardiere

21:58 / 11.06.08

Did he make up for the badger, did he fuck.

Not in the Face

14:03 / 12.06.08

Disappointing all round. As I thought you never really got to see the teams - splitting into what was effectively 4 teams made it even harder. As for Siralan's comment that the components of the task tested the elements of each of them, that was laughable. It was another excuse for a party and Suuralan to hob-nob.

Whisky Priestess

18:45 / 12.06.08

But I was glad Lee won in the end. Claire will survive and thrive out from under Sir's wing - Lee would probably just go off and top himself.

21:05 / 12.06.08

Good for Lee, that's what I'm talking about!

The show was a bit crap. I would have liked to see a bit more about the perfume making. I wonder exactly how much influence the teams had over the final product, I can imagine that it was just "Oh, yeah, do something with chocolate", and that the perfume maker(s) just had to cobble something together quickly. Kind of like the bottle I guess! Getting to see what they did in general would have been nice.

The editing of the boardroom really sprung out at me this time. The full teams were all sitting in the boardroom, Siralan says something, and suddenly Lee is answering with Simon, Jenny & Michael suddenly gone. Then Siralan says something, and suddenly the room's filled up again.

09:14 / 13.06.08

As my better half pointed out, what the world needs now is a sitcom entitled Raef & Michael Go to Hollywood.

But yeah, I'm also glad Lee won. There seemed to be something of a moment of awkwardness when he immediately slumped in his chair after being declared the victor; sir al's hiring finger hanging in the air fractionally too long as the worried look that Lee had left them for the Great Reverse Pterodactyl in the Sky crept over his face.

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