Apologies again for the tech glitch that prevented us starting on time. But thank you for staying with us and we look forward to normal service - twits doing daftness with commentary - resuming next week. See you in the comments!
Next week, they are throwing the team right into the pit with the advertising challenge. It looks like Alan gets pretty angry about jeans next week. Something to look forward to.
Michelle is bitter and thinks Rebecca is skating on very thin ice. Back at the house, the teams welcome back Alana and Rebecca and quiz them on what the firing finger jamboree is like.
As the drums build it’s Michelle! The PM is fired and she thanks Alan for the opportunity. The opportunity to run around London like a pillock, and have it filmed for TV.
Alan’s summarising and he starts with Rebecca. She’s a bit meh, Alana didn’t something or other, Michelle didn’t boss good.
But Rebecca feels the crosshairs hot on her forehead.
Alan says Michelle didn’t take control of her team properly. When do we think we’re going to find out Alana was actually named after Alan by her Apprentice super-fan mum? Perhaps there’ll be a subplot which reveals she’s actually Alan’s daughter? I’m drifting off while they argue.
In terms of television, I suppose Rebecca would be the least noticeable loss on account of her not making any kind of impression at all. It would be like Lord Sugar firing water or air.
Alana and Michelle turn on Rebecca because she looks a bit weak and an easy target because she sold nowt.
Claude also has it in for her. Is she to be the first sacrifice for blending into the wallpaper?
Karrren tucks into Alana while the three wait outside. It’s not long before they are marched back in. Who is getting the firing finger right in their mush?
It’s reality show tradition that a woman should go first. The world is a misogynist. Business is a misogynist.
Trishna has put in quite a chippy boardroom performance so far, saying she knew it was all bobbins and she was the only one who tried to do it properly. All eyes turn towards Michelle for want of a better scapegoat.
She brings back Alana and Rebecca. I don’t think she even knows who Rebecca is. I certainly don’t.
Grainne appeared briefly there, frozen in the headlights. Has she spoken yet or is she a Westworld escapee stuck in a reverie?
Frances (no distinguishing features so far) blames Alana as sub-team leader for the poor pricing policy at the car boot. Natalie (Scots) apologies for selling two £300 vases for £15. I hope the vases’ new owner is watching tonight and drinking champagne out of those vases.
Lord Sugar aims both barrels at the team in general and Aleksandra (god it takes a long time to type her name) jumps straight in and blames the team leader with a side order of Alana.
That tray of polystyrene cups is so depressing. They’re not even allowed mugs. That’s how austere this segment gets. They don’t deserve china.
The arguing begins. Michelle says she isn’t here to make friends and starts fighting for her life. Everyone blames everyone else but not for long as they’re back in boardroom hell.
Never mind the boys lindy-hopping. Cut the bitter recriminations over scummy tea and disconsolate elbows on sad formica.
Alan has laid on vintage dance lessons for the boys. Their eyes betray their utter disappointment. The girls, however, look sadder. They are bound for the sad cafe for at least one of them will be fired. Who is going?
Titans took £1428 and Nebula took £959. And there we have it. Boys win. Girls lose.
Re the failed sale in Chelsea, Dillon says “It was kind of awkward.” At the moment, whenever Dillon speaks I see Jedward talking in unison. Really similar voices.
Mukai has sensibly gone with a more sombre bow tie for the boardroom. I’d actually have admired him more if he’d fronted it out and gone full leopard print.
Sofiane strikes me as one of those geezers who Alan will like because “you remind me of a young me”.
Now onto the boys’ horrible mistakes. JD justifies the name Titans and Alan makes his first zinger of the episode. A truly awful gag about the Greek god of sausages. Who had 38 minutes for the first zinger? Come and collect your prize ham at the end.
Michelle doesn’t hang anyone out to dry and says they were all smashing. Her team aren’t so charitable and start lobbing blame pie in Michelle’s unimpressed face.
The market team from Nebula are immediately on the chopping block for selling stuff too cheap (Alana’s fault?) and for spending too much time with the expert who they then ignored.
Alan says Nebula is “toxic gas in space”. Aleksandra feebly tries to correct him but he doesn’t care and she should know that.
I haven’t even breathed or sipped my drink and we’re already in the boardroom. I’d forgotten how much of the show they spin this section out for. Almost half the show.
I just love the sooooooooound of money, hollers Karthick. I’m sorry, but in my mind palace he will forever be sat in the back of a Renault 5, puking into a paper bag.
I could actually do with that plant stand to put my phone on. No seriously, which shop did the girls sell that to?
The girls go into full bullshit mode as they try to sell anything and everything. Trishna is raging as Jessica (The Mask) sells something too easily when she claims she’d have made a ton on it.
A tenner says he comes out with “Bow ties are cool,” before the end of his time on the show. Twenty!
Seriously, Mukai’s matching pocket kerchief is the last straw. He seems like a nice guy but he’s asking to get bog-washed by the rest of his team before the end of episode one.
The girls stumble around the cobbles of Camden Lock shouting into their horizontal smart phones as Claude derides their lack of common sense and business sense. Has he met an Apprentice candidate before? The ones with common sense are screened out at the first interview.
Is that Mukai wearing the insane orange crochet bowtie? Who does he think he is? Zandra Rhodes? This is the Apprentice, not the Clothes Show, Mukai.
Two straw-haired ladies banter about how much to charge for stuff. Oh it was Alana and Rebecca. These people will be like old friends in a few short weeks. But right now they are shapes, like that episode of Black Mirror where you can’t see someone’s face because they’ve real-time blocked you. Just shapes.
The girls make their scheduled stop while their uninformed van driver arrives in Camden. With all of their stuff. Who was in charge of logistics? WHO?
Karrrrren despairs from behind her smoked glass eye protectors as he loses the sale. Back at the car boot, tut covers the table, unsold. Titans decide Portobello is the place to be if they want to knock out the remaining junk to unsuspecting poshoes with more money than sense.
The boys are polishing their Alan Partridge chair and Oliver (posh) pushes the sale by telling the dealer “I’ve actually got a sofa myself”. That’s the kind of expertise money can’t buy. I want Oliver to sit me down and tell me ALL about sofas.
Jessica love bombs an antiques dealer and tells him she will bring him her wares on their way to Camden. He has little option but to accept. YAY, she says on the phone to him as he hangs up, terrified.
Michelle, having spent 8 hours quizzing her expert, pulls a Michael Gove and ignores him completely, opting to eschew his Portobello hint and driving to Camden. A place where the only things you can buy are patchouli, Doc Martens and ethnic throws. Super.
Oliver sounds quite posh, doesn’t he? More observations like that to come. The girls are still quizzing their expert while Claude looks at his watch, wondering when they’re going to start selling the stuff.
The upscale faction of Team Titans go to Chelsea to tout an old drinks trolley they should obviously be strewing in bunting and chilli lights and flogging to a Hoxton minty with a bulging wallet. Fail.
Karrren watches the boys through her aviators. She’s impressed.
Paul looks at the Alan Partridge chair and gets a £300 valuation from his expert. He thinks hipsters will like it. Add a couple of antique trombone parts and an ironic lampshade and you’ve got a deal. The girls sell the same chair for about 50p. Go girls!
It’s already mid-morning. How time flies in Alan world. Both teams meet with experts to find out how much the good stuff is worth.
Little do the girls know that the whole boys’ team is hiding inside that tiny, blue wooden horse.
At the car boot sale, the boys set out their tatty old trestle table with broken china and an old statuette. The girls haven’t even unpacked when some eager beavers with an eye for a bargain start taking them for a ride, I mean buying their stuff. They have no idea what they’re flogging and ask for some magic beans in exchange for a Rembrandt.
Jessica almost dropped a vase! Did you see! But she was pretending which is definitely a quality Lord Sugar is looking for. Choice dummy drop skillz, Jess. You’re hired! Only joking.
Jessica wisecracks her from boardroom to people carrier to stock room. She never stops. She loves a laff. We all love a laff don’t we? Cos it’s a laff!
Alana or one of the others who looks a bit similar says she’s happy to play market trader and knock tut out for tuppence. At this stage, the girls all look the same and so do the boys. Except for Dillon who looks ASTONISHING.
Michele decides to mark everything down whether it’s Ming or minging. She doesn’t care what it’s worth, knock it out for a fiver.
Literally not a single girl wants to step up and manage Nebula. Michele bores everyone senseless with her mortgage managing experience and meekly accepts the PM mantle before boasting about how much of a threat she is. Yuh.
Titans choose their project manager and the first lamb to the slaughter is Paul who has seen Bargain Hunt and has GOT THIS.
The boys go straight for Team Titans. The girls are pondering Nebula. Aleksandra says it’s something to do with stars and goes into full Brian Cox on a mountain top paroxysms of cosmic joy. So they agree to shut her up.
So, to recap the first 10 minutes. Boardroom face, Jessica hysterical, Karrren menacing. They see their luxury house. Some squealing. And straight into boys v girls. Team naming!
I take it we’ve all taken Jessica to our hearts. She’s the only one whose name I can remember. Today is all about taking names and then forgetting them again. She’s the female Jim Carey.
Sorry about the late start! Tech problems. Right, let’s start.
As Bake Off heads towards its conclusion, here comes its evil twin, The Apprentice, upturning bun-covered tables and kicking out the guy ropes of the tent as it goes.
We now live in a world where the boss of The Apprentice (US version) can actually run for leader of the free world. Think about that for a minute - Lord Sugar as Prime Minister. It could happen.
So it is our duty to watch the heck out of this series so the daft ayputh doesn’t get any ideas. We shall distract him with 18 hepped-up business lemmings, desperate for his £250,000 and a kind look from his furry face. There’s 12 weeks of competition with 18 contestants, so expect some multiple firings and general backstabbing.
We’ll be liveblogging each week’s action, so do join us and share your observations in the comments below. Is this thing on? It’s business time. At 9pm. So join me here then.
