The Apprentice (UK Series Three)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Series Three of The Apprentice is a television series which aired in the UK on BBC One. The series began on 28 March 2007 and finished on 13 June 2007, with Simon Ambrose as the winner.^[1] Ambrose's prize was to work on a project to develop a hotel and golfing complex near Stansted Airport, whilst training as a chartered surveyor.^[1] Kristina Grimes, the runner-up, has received many job offers from separate companies and is now working as an investment sales director.^[2]

Sir Alan Sugar reprised his role as the boss with Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford as his advisors. Moving from BBC Two,^[3] this series attracted 10,000 applicants and promised "tougher tasks and better people" than before, however Sir Alan believed that the show was morphing into "Big Brother".^[4] Sugar also criticised the US version for making the error of "trying to change things just for the sake of it", causing it to backfire.^[5]

Two 90-minute specials were aired during the series run. The first programme was titled The Apprentice: Beyond the Boardroom and featured information about the personal lives of each of the semi-finalists.^[6] The second, The Apprentice: Why I Fired Them, featured Sugar revealing why he chose to remove each candidate from the programme.^[7]

Contents 1 Candidates 2 Challenges 2.1 Week 1 2.2 Week 2 2.3 Week 3 2.4 Week 4 2.5 Week 5 2.6 Week 6 2.7 Week 7 2.8 Week 8 2.9 Week 9 2.10 Week 10 2.11 Week 11: Interviews 2.12 Week 12: The Grand Finale 3 Weekly results 4 Criticism and controversy 5 Related programmes 5.1 The Apprentice: Beyond the Boardroom 5.2 The Apprentice: Why I Fired Them 6 Aftermath 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Candidates

See also: The Apprentice candidates, Series Three

For this series, there were sixteen candidates instead of fourteen, as seen in the previous two series. The candidates were initially separated into two teams by gender. The women chose the name Stealth for their team, while the men named their team Eclipse.

The candidates were:

Name	Age *	Occupation
Simon Ambrose	27	Internet Entrepreneur
Ghazal Asif	23	Business Development Manager
Tre Azam	27	Marketing and Design Consultant
Gerri Blackwood	33	Transport Development Manager
Paul Callaghan	27	Ex-British Army Lieutenant
Ifti Chaudhri	36	Company Director
Kristina Grimes	36	Pharmaceutical Sales Manager
Katie Hopkins	31	Global Brand Consultant
Adam Hosker	27	Car Sales Manager
Andy Jackson	36	Car Sales Manager
Jadine Johnson	27	Financial adviser
Sophie Kain	32	Quantum Physicist
Lohit Kalburgi	25	Telecoms Manager
Rory Laing	27	Bankrupt Entrepreneur
Naomi Lay	26	Advertising Sales Manager
Natalie Wood	29	Housewife

* as of the date of the programme.

[edit] Challenges

[edit] Week 1

• Project managers: Jadine (Eclipse) and Andy (Stealth).
• Task: Sell coffee in Islington. The team that makes the most profit wins.
• Result: Both teams decided to split up into two, with one half maintaining a fixed coffee stand and the other half staffing a mobile coffee van. Eclipse made a good start despite some initial purchasing blunders whilst Stealth struggled to sell by placing their van in an area already served by many low price coffee outlets. Whilst both teams sold well, Stealth failed to make a large profit as a result of buying too much stock, milk in particular. As a result, Eclipse made the larger overall profit.
• Winner: Eclipse.
• Reward: A trip to the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden.
• Brought into the boardroom: Andy, Gerri and Sophie.
• Who gets fired: Andy, for failing as a leader and not keeping control of the group.
• Notes: Initially the Project Managers were on a same sex team - Andy was on Eclipse, Jadine was on Stealth. On the day of the task Sir Alan changed the project managers over with one another. After being fired, Andy pleaded with Sir Alan to reverse his decision, without success.

[edit] Week 2

• Project managers: Rory (Eclipse) and Katie (Stealth).
• Task: Design an innovative product for dogs and pitch it to three stores: Pets at Home, Harrods and Pets and the City. The team that makes the most profit wins.
• Result: Stealth decided to focus their efforts on pitching their dog wardrobe to the largest store, Pets at Home. In Eclipse, Rory went against his team members' advice and chose to design a dog-owner utility belt. Despite not selling any units to two of the pet stores, Stealth created a £5000 profit by selling in bulk to the largest store, Pets at Home. Eclipse only managed a profit of £500.
• Winner: Stealth.
• Reward: A luxury meal at The Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair.
• Brought into the boardroom: Rory, Ifti and Tre.
• Who gets fired: Ifti, for his self-confessed lack of input to the task; Rory for failing as project manager.
• Notes: While multiple firings have been commonly seen in the US version of the show, this marked the first time that Sir Alan dismissed two people outside the final interviews.

[edit] Week 3

• Project managers: Tre (Eclipse) and Naomi (Stealth).
• Task: Starting with £200, generate the maximum possible profit through whatever means. The team that makes the most profit wins.
• Result: Eclipse started a gardening business in the day and a pub-singing service in the evening whilst Stealth set up a face painting service for children in the day and a kiss-o-gram service in the evening, with a kiss and a hug for £1. Both teams got off to a slow start, though Stealth lost a lot of custom by not managing their location properly Back in the boardroom, Stealth were effectively accused of prostitution by Sir Alan after selling kisses on the streets of London, which he described as being like "another old profession I've heard about". Eclipse made £189 profit whilst Stealth made £65.
• Winner: Eclipse.
• Reward: A night out in a Cuban bar and restaurant in London.
• Brought into the boardroom: Naomi, Gerri and Jadine.
• Who gets fired: Gerri, for failing to find suitable locations on two out of three tasks and for not contributing anything of value to any of the tasks.

[edit] Week 4

• Project managers: Adam (Eclipse) and Ghazal (Stealth).
• Task: Manufacture sweets and sell them at London Zoo. The team that makes the most profit wins.
• Result: Both teams went for similar ideas in terms of their product; Stealth opted for chocolate lollies (with an animal design) and bags of fudge, while Eclipse went for chocolate lollies (with a paw design) and orange flavoured lollies. Stealth struggled to manufacture enough of their product and so ran out of stock by 4pm, an hour before the task finished. In comparison, Eclipse had plenty to sell but struggled to offload their orange lollies which were mistakenly labelled as 'natural'. With limited time left they had to resort to reducing their prices and eventually gave their remaining sweets away for free. Stealth made a profit of £994; Eclipse made £983.
• Winner: Stealth.
• Reward: A night out bowling.
• Brought into the boardroom: Adam, Natalie and Sophie.
• Who gets fired: Sophie, for her unenthusiastic selling.

[edit] Week 5

• Project managers: Natalie (Eclipse) and Kristina (Stealth).
• Task: Choose photographs from two different artists and then sell them in a fashionable east London gallery, making as much money as possible.
• Result: Stealth showcased artists with the themes of horses and fish, whilst Eclipse chose artists whose work related to lips and Morocco and Colombia. In Stealth, Tre was uncomfortable around the pictures, some of which depicted nipples, and claimed they "belong in a fetish gallery”. The teams took very different approaches to selling, with Eclipse going for a softer approach and Stealth opting for the hard-sell. Eclipse made a profit of £1,599.78. Stealth made a profit of £4,702.
• Winner: Stealth.
• Reward: A pampering session at a Champneys spa.
• Brought into the boardroom: Natalie, Adam and Lohit.
• Who gets fired: Natalie, for being "out of her depth" as the project manager.
• Notes: This task also featured in Series One.

[edit] Week 6

• Project managers: Lohit (Eclipse) and Paul (Stealth).
• Task: Buy and sell British produce at a French farmers' market.
• Result: Eclipse chose to sell smoked fish, tea and marmalade whilst Stealth opted for sausages, chutney, and cheap processed cheese bought at the last minute from Makro, a cash and carry. After a communication error with the printers, Stealth ended up having to pay £85 for an incorrectly translated banner, far more than the £40 bunting which Eclipse purchased. Stealth planned to make up their advertising costs by trying to cook their sausages with a tin filled with lighter fuel instead of a camping stove; unfortunately it failed disastrously and left them unable to cook any sausages for customers to sample, losing them precious sales. Eclipse had trouble selling tea in a predominantly coffee-drinking nation. Whilst neither team managed to sell all their produce, Stealth made a loss of £225, partly due to excessive spending on marketing, whilst Eclipse made a profit of £410.
• Winner: Eclipse.
• Reward: Indoor skydiving in a vertical wind tunnel.
• Brought into the boardroom: Paul, Adam and Kristina.
• Who gets fired: Paul, for poor decision-making, losing Sir Alan's money, and not bringing Katie back into the boardroom.
• Notes: By this stage of the competition, Paul and Katie had become romantically involved. When Sir Alan asked Adam to speculate why he and Kristina had been brought into the boardroom and not Katie, Adam stated that Paul and Katie were "too close," after which Kristina revealed the relationship.

[edit] Week 7

• Project managers: Simon (Eclipse) and Adam (Stealth).
• Task: Purchase a set list of ten items for prices lower than those asked by the retailers. The team which spends the least wins.
• Result: Simon's erratic style of leadership caused tension amongst Eclipse, with deals being rushed without enough time for negotiation. Over in Stealth, Katie and Kristina put aside personal differences and managed to negotiate a number of items successfully. Both teams initially had trouble in identifying what nigella seeds were, with Adam even suggesting they may be a form of AstroTurf. Eclipse were fined £50 for buying one item at retail price without haggling the price down as required by the rules, however Stealth were also fined for failing to purchase the nigella seeds. The teams' final balances were separated by only 97p, with Eclipse bringing back £459.68 and Stealth £458.71.
• Winner: Eclipse.
• Reward: A racing car driving day at Bedford Autodrome.
• Brought into the boardroom: Adam, Ghazal and Katie.
• Who gets fired: Adam, for poor management and leadership skills and for appearing in the boardroom showdown once too often. According to Sir Alan, his luck had run out.
• Notes: This task had previously featured on the first and second series of The Apprentice.

[edit] Week 8

• Project managers: Jadine (Eclipse) and Ghazal (Stealth).
• Task: Create a brand logo, poster and video advertisement for a new style of trainers.
• Result: Eclipse created "Street", trainers which "reclaim the street" as a slogan and a promise to donate 10% of the sale price to youth charities. Stealth built the campaign for their "Jam" trainers around an urban music theme. Stealth's TV ad, though well made, was heavily criticised for lacking a message and failing to make it clear what was being advertised. A group of advertising executives decided which team won the task.
• Winner: Eclipse.
• Reward: A lesson at "Cocktail school" in the The Savoy Hotel in London.
• Brought into the boardroom: Ghazal, Katie and Naomi.
• Who gets fired: Ghazal, for being "all talk and no do".

[edit] Week 9

• Project managers: Tre (Eclipse) and Katie (Stealth).
• Task: Interview representatives from five nations and choose three items from that nation and sell them to the trade.
• Result: Stealth chose to market Canadian goods, including a "Rug in a Box" set, a portable light therapy device and a set of sport shoe insoles. Eclipse chose a set of Swedish products, a lamp with a built in air purifier, vacuum cleaner heads and a set of microwavable soft toys. At the end of the first day Jadine suffered a minor emotional breakdown, leaving Lohit able to set up only one appointment with a potential buyer. Similarly, Stealth failed to make any appointments due to spending too long being briefed by the Canadian Trade Commissioner, Michelle Gartland, and so both teams were left to make their appointments the following morning. The teams performed similarly, but Stealth's products proved to have a higher market value, resulting in them making £2,226.59, while Eclipse managed only £1,344.29 (which was reduced by 10% to £1,209.86 after the team was delayed in traffic on the way back to the boardroom).
• Winner: Stealth.
• Reward: £500 gift voucher to spend, with the aid of a personal shopper, at Selfridges.
• Brought into the boardroom: Tre, Jadine and Lohit.
• Who gets fired: Jadine, for not being the "final product" for Sir Alan to work with.
• Notes: This programme featured the Cutty Sark. The ship was badly damaged in a fire just two days before the episode aired.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Week 10

• Project managers: Simon (Eclipse) and Kristina (Stealth).
• Task: Select and sell a variety of items on the Ideal World teleshopping channel.
• Result: Stealth chose good items but Kristina's vacuum cleaner demonstration went badly wrong, and it succeeded only in spreading the dirt around. Lohit was given the awkward task of trying to help sell ladies' slimming pants along with Katie. Eclipse manager Simon gave very few instructions to team-mates Tre and Naomi and thus they struggled. Simon's choice of a foldable wheelchair was questioned but ended up being the most profitable item. Simon also made a hilarious spectacle of himself by bouncing on a trampoline and then unwittingly appearing to be masturbating when screwing in its legs. By the end of the task, Eclipse had made £921.79, but Stealth managed to sell £1,339.10 of goods.
• Winner: Stealth.
• Reward: Trip to a turkish bath.
• Brought into the boardroom: Simon, Naomi and Tre.
• Who gets fired: Naomi, for poor product selection and because Sir Alan felt that of the three she had the least to offer. A majority of the You're Fired studio audience disagreed with the decision.
• Notes: Despite much boardroom hilarity at the on-screen antics, Sir Alan was not pleased with either team and was reluctant to tell Stealth their reward. Complaints from Ideal World viewers described the candidates as 'rubbish' and 'a waste of time'. This task originally featured in Series One.

[edit] Week 11: Interviews

• Task: The five remaining candidates are individually interviewed by three of Sir Alan Sugar's business colleagues. The interviewers then report their impressions of the candidates back to Sir Alan to help him choose the two finalists.
• Result: After the round of 25-minute interviews, three candidates – Katie, Simon and Kristina – stood out. The only candidate with positive reports from all three interviewers was Kristina. Conversely, very few positive comments were made about Lohit, who was quickly fired after being deemed "nice," but too "boring." Tre was next to go, after Sir Alan told him that, while he was a strong candidate, he lacked the required maturity. He was also described as argumentative and difficult. While doubts were expressed over Katie's motives for entering the show, Sir Alan nonetheless made her the first finalist. While he was deliberating over whether to make Simon or Kristina the other finalist, Katie was clearly beset by doubts. After Sir Alan advised her that she would have to make an absolute commitment to the job should she get it, she suggested she "stand down". This allowed Simon and Kristina to proceed to the final.
• Who gets fired: Lohit, for being too nice and Tre, for poor performance in the interviews. After initially being offered a place in the final by Sir Alan, Katie resigned, citing potential difficulties in making childcare arrangements should she be offered the job.
• Notes: In a one-off special, The Apprentice: Why I Fired Them, broadcast a few days later, Sir Alan Sugar expressed his opinion that Katie had never really been interested in working for him but had entered the competition merely for the kudos. He said that he felt he had been hoodwinked, and that if Katie had not voluntarily stood down he would have reversed his decision and fired her after all.

[edit] Week 12: The Grand Finale

• Finalists: Kristina and Simon.
• Task: Each of the two finalists, Simon and Kristina, must put together a proposal for the redevelopment of a site currently occupied by the IBM Building on London's South Bank. The task involves the designing of a major landmark building that is both profit-making and has an iconic design. After each enlisting the help of four of the previously fired candidates, the finalists must then present their ideas to an audience of 100 property, finance and architectural experts, along with Sir Alan Sugar and his assistants Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer.
• Teams: Kristina's team consisted of former candidates Naomi, Paul, Natalie and Adam, while Simon's worked with Tre, Lohit, Jadine and Rory.
• Result: Simon proposed "The Wave", an ambitious building with an "organic" design. Pre-show favourite Kristina offered "The Phoenix", whose name symbolised the regeneration of the site. Both presentations were well received by the experts. In his final boardroom evaluation, Sir Alan contrasted Kristina's experience with Simon's creativity, and said that both candidates were very employable.
• Who is hired: Simon.
• Notes: A maximum of 7.4 million people watched this episode, achieving more ratings than an episode of Big Brother on Channel 4, but less than Britain's Got Talent on ITV1.^[8] The final boardroom scene was staged: two different boardroom showdowns, one for each possible result, were filmed and Sir Alan then took the two finalists to lunch to tell them who had actually won.^[9]

[edit] Weekly results

Candidate Week Result 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Simon PM PM Hired Kristina PM B PM Runner up Katie PM B B PM Resigned in Week 11 Tre B PM PM B Fired in Week 11 Lohit B PM B Fired in Week 11 Naomi PM B B Fired in Week 10 Jadine PM B PM B Fired in Week 9 Ghazal PM B PM Fired in Week 8 Adam PM B B PM Fired in Week 7 Paul PM Fired in Week 6 Natalie B PM Fired in Week 5 Sophie B B Fired in Week 4 Gerri B B Fired in Week 3 Rory PM Fired in Week 2 Ifti B Fired in Week 2 Andy PM Fired in Week 1 Candidate 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Result Week

Legend Finale Interviews Eclipse Stealth PM Project manager B Brought back to boardroom

[edit] Criticism and controversy

This series was described as "the most controversial" out of all three series that had been made at the time.^[10]

Two candidates, Katie Hopkins and Paul Callaghan, started a romance while competing on the programme. This received much coverage from the tabloid press.^{[11][12][13][14]} This was one of the reasons that Callaghan was fired from the competition, as other candidates complained about the situation, saying that the relationship affected the performance of the team during the tasks.^[13]

Candidate Gerri Blackwood claimed that the allocation of showers in the house where the candidates stay appeared to have been manipulated in such a way as to force the female contestants to shower together. She told the Daily Star "One of the bathrooms was used by the film crew, but two of the others were closed off with 'Out of Order' signs on them. That left two bathrooms to share between 16 people. I am not sure whether it was deliberate or not but you can imagine they wanted us to share showers".^[15] In her interview, she also claimed that Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford fed the candidates misleading information so that they would fail the tasks, and that Sir Alan Sugar's boardroom diatribes were re-filmed to make them look better.^[16] Fellow candidate Tre Azam also criticised the editing of the programme, claiming he was worried that his portrayal "might have been dumbed down because I made some of the other characters look too weak".^[17]

The mental health charity MIND has criticised the programme for enrolling Jadine Johnson, a candidate who was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in 2003, expressing fears that a vulnerable person was being used for entertainment. In response, a spokesperson from the BBC said "As a part of the selection process, all candidates are seen by an independent qualified psychologist to assess their suitability for participating in the programme".^[18]

After Paul Callaghan was fired in the sixth episode, wholesale chain Makro and manufacturer Wyke Farms criticised the programme due to the negative comments made about its cheese. In the episode, Sir Alan Sugar verbally blasted Paul for taking the inexpensive products to France to sell.^[19] Makro and Wyke Farms claimed that the cheese is very popular in France. Richard Clothier, the Managing Director of Wyke Farms, said "Alan Sugar, you know a lot about electronics, but not that much about cheese, and for that reason, you're fired!".^[20]

In protest to the hiring of Simon Ambrose, some former candidates who had returned to appear in the final episode of The Apprentice: You're Fired! threatened to leave the studio in which the programme was being recorded.^[21]

Several organisations, including the Trades Union Congress, the Liberal Democrats, The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, accused Alan Sugar of sexism and breaching the 1976 Sex Discrimination act after only questioning contestants Katie Hopkins and Kristina Grimes about their child-care arrangements, despite the fact that other male contestants were also parents.^[22][23][24] Sugar's questioning, during the eleventh episode, eventually made Hopkins resign from the programme and decline Sugar's initial offer of a chance to compete in the final episode.^[25][26] Although, Sugar defended his actions and told Fiona Phillips of GMTV that he was aware of all rules regarding sexual discrimination within the workplace.^[27][28] The incident was well-documented within the media.^[29][30][31]

Contestant Natalie Wood complained about a situation with Adrian Chiles, host of The Apprentice spin-off programme, The Apprentice: You're Fired!. Chiles, who has a distinctive Birmingham accent, asked Wood on the spin-off programme whether her Essex accent had been a hindrance. "But how can you pick up on my accent when Sir Alan is sitting across the table," commented Wood. "How can he say that? Essex is fantastic and I'm proud to come from Essex. A lot of people from Essex are very successful. I find it hard to swallow."^[32]

[edit] Related programmes

[edit] The Apprentice: Beyond the Boardroom

This was a one-off special shown on BBC Two on June 2, 2007.^[33] The programme featured interviews with the final five candidates from this series. Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford also gave their opinions on the final five, along with some of the previously fired candidates.^[6] The programme spoke about the candidates' private lives, revealing that Kristina Grimes was sent to a convent at age 17 due to her pregnancy, Tre Azam once fell asleep whilst driving and nearly died, Simon Ambrose was bullied as a child and has an IQ of 174, Katie Hopkins ran the New York Marathon despite knowing that she was pregnant and that Lohit Kalburgi is a homosexual.^[33][6] Friends of the candidates and members of their families, including parents, children and partners, aired their views.^[6]

[edit] The Apprentice: Why I Fired Them

This one-off special was screened on BBC Two on June 10, 2007, three days before the revelation of the winner of this series of The Apprentice. In the programme Sir Alan Sugar looked back over the series so far, discussed the merits and demerits of the candidates, and explained in more detail why he fired each candidate when he did.^[34] The episode featured the former participants' views of their time on the programme and what they had learnt from the experience.^[7] Sugar's assistants Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford also spoke about the former contestants.^[7] At the end of the programme, Sugar reviewed the performances of the two finalists, Kristina Grimes and Simon Ambrose, and said that deciding who to hire would be difficult.^[7] Despite voluntarily leaving rather than being "fired", Katie Hopkins also featured on the programme and her time on The Apprentice was discussed.^[7]

[edit] Aftermath

As a result of winning The Apprentice, Simon Ambrose started work on a project to develop a hotel and golfing complex near Stansted Airport, whilst training as a chartered surveyor.^[1] Runner-up Kristina Grimes was offered a job by Sir Alan, but decided to work as an investment sales director with property company Dandara instead.^[2] Katie Hopkins, who finished in third place, was sacked from her job as a global brand consultant at The Met Office as a result of her appearance on the programme.^[35] Hopkins is taking the organisation to an employment tribunal.^[36] Candidate Adam Hosker left his job at a car dealership in order to work as a sales director, but was later questioned by police over allegations that he assaulted a man in a nightclub.^[37] Other contestants have started their own businesses, such as Natalie Wood, and Naomi Lay has expressed interest in becoming a television presenter.^[38][39] Both Hopkins and Grimes have been offered to participate on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! and Tre Azam has appeared on Big Brother's Big Mouth.^[40][2][41]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Apprentice at bbc.co.uk

v • d • e The Apprentice UK Series Series One (2005) | Series Two (2006) | Series Three (2007) | Series Four (2008) Featuring Sir Alan Sugar | Nick Hewer | Margaret Mountford | The Candidates | Adrian Chiles Notable candidates Timothy Campbell | Saira Khan | Paul Torrisi | James Max | Michelle Dewberry | Ruth Badger | Simon Ambrose | Kristina Grimes | Katie Hopkins | Lucinda Ledgerwood Production Mark Burnett | talkbackTHAMES | Dru Masters Related programmes The Apprentice: You're Fired! | Comic Relief Does The Apprentice | Sport Relief Does The Apprentice | The Apprentice (franchise) | The Apprentice USA