In the first week, the lads team Cuchulainn lost the task and it came down to Weedy Craig, Harvard Boy Breffny and Depressed Donal in Bill Cullen’s boardroom. Bill made the right decision and sent Craig packing. The girls celebrated in style with dinner in L’Ecrivain.
But this was a whole new week, with a tougher task and the claws have started to come out.
I missed last week’s live blog but the chat was flowing with Niamh, Pluincee and Sinead keeping the home fires burning. I did catch up on it though and if you missed it, I hope I can give you some idea of how it went.
[Comment From Stephen]
So what’s this week’s task again?
[Comment From Maria]
How’s this for an idea for an apprentice challenge - the teams get to canvass for a yes or no vote to Lisbon and the losers all get fired? Or is Brian Cowen already playing that game - with his trusted aides Brian and Mary?
Week 2 should have been a great opportunity for the candidates to really shine. But so much went wrong for both teams. Teams Cuchulainn and Platinum were briefed to create an outdoor advertising campaign for the new Samsung Jet mobile phone.
As with the first week, the live blog had its priorities right:
[Comment From CT]
what’s up with Brian’s hair??
For the girl’s team, both Aoiffe and Lucinda made pathetic pitches to be team leader and Aoiffe seemed to breath a sigh of relief when Lucinda was accepted. With a decent product and a fantastic chance to do an innovative billboard campaign, I would have expected all the girls to jump at the chance to lead. Perhaps they were still thinking that if they lose the team leader is most likely to go home.
The Duracell Bunny Sam started off extremely well this week having a good idea and being very positive about the task. She seemed to be keeping her singing to a minimum but that wasn’t to last. Once the idiotic singing and theatrics began, any clever ideas and any business skills she might have are thrown by the wayside.
[Comment From Aileen]
musical theme oh no please please no singing!!!
[Comment From Leontia]
I hope she sings in the boardroom
Psycho Eyes Aoiffe was quick to point out what an attention seeker Sam was, but all we saw from her throughout the task was bitching and moaning, mostly directed at Geraldine.
[Comment From ann_donnelly]
Best quote from Apprentice ever [Geraldine]“Daddy can’t buy you cop on from Trinity College”
Though they started well, the girls quickly lost their way, neglecting casting times and having very poor communication between the groups they divided themselves into – for example, one team thought the backdrop for the photoshoot was white, while the other thought black, leading to a disaster when trying to photoshop the ad together. They made themselves look very stupid in front of the photographer then when they only told him at the last minute they would need some close-up shots of the phone too, requiring considerable set up time which they just didn’t have.
[Comment From Dr. M]
black phone can’t be seen on black background? shocker
Lucinda led the team well, but poor attention to detail and an inability to control the bitching between her team mates did go against her
The boys team Platinum, in contrast to the girls, took an age to get themselves together. Spending far too long discussing the concept, they ended up going their separate ways, location scouting, casting and beginning preparations for the photo shoot with no concept in place at all. How they managed to come up with anything semi-decent was amazing.
[Comment From Niamh]
Boys - location and models sorted….still no concept though!!
[Comment From Leontia]
Boys are definitely going to lose again this week!
The boys were slow to agree on anything and were constantly talking over each other. Even at the early stages of the show, the live blog voted with 63% thinking the girls would win.
Brendan: “Let’s have two hot girls walking pat the screen…a little bit different.”
Communication between the team was poor throughout and while Stephen was a far better leader than Craig in the previous week, he just couldn’t get the team to work. Donal in particular came across as useless – standing back ad doing nothing much of the time.
Once again, they completely went off brief, designing a campaign that seemed directed at D4 yummy-mummies rather than the professional business person.
Bill eased off on the teams a bit this week in my opinion. Granted it was a harder task than selling ice-cream on a sunny day, but he really could have sliced through Sam, Aoiffe, Donal, Stephen, Breffers…actually, all of them could have done with a good kick up the arse.
[Comment From Leontia]
Both terrible, very hard to call this one
Bill felt that the girls listened to and responded well to the brief, but Sam’s cheesy music and poor tag line let them down.
[Comment From CliodhnaL]
Desperate music!
He thought the lads didn’t understand the brief at all. Unsurprisingly, the girls team beat off poor competition from the lads and Donal and Breffny were returned to the boardroom again by Stephen.
The live blog thought Harvard Boy Breff was going home with 53% of the vote against Donal’s 25% and Stephen’s 17%. That was until Stephen opened his mouth in the boardroom – he shot up to 54% then against the other two lads 23% each. Curiously, Jackie seemed to like Breffny:
Jackie: “Breffny is making the point that if you don’t have a destination, how can you navigate your way. Breffny is a man who sails around the world.”
Stephen was clever and sly, using the other two guys’ words against them. Lost, empty-headed and dour, Donal was sent packing. Bill thought he was all talk and no action.
[Comment From Dr. M]
shut up Proctor
Join us at 8.45 this evening for this week’s live blog, as we watch the remaining contestants battle it out. The show starts at 9pm on TV3 and we’ll even hang around to watch Brendan O’Connor’s You’re Fired! At 10.20.
