What if one day…we could go on a roller-coaster or drive a racing car? Toot toot! Or maybe even go to a magical place called Milton Keynes, where they say “pah!” to the general atmospheric climate of Buckinghamshire, and build an echoing palace of snow and wonderment and the occasional broken collarbone!
But we know that’s never going to happen. If only there was a way where we could pretend to be doing those things, and then somehow watch ourselves doing them, again and again, in the darkness and loneliness of our private hovels, in no way touching ourselves inappropriately. If only… If only…
Dreamers we may be, but we have a hunch that tonight’s Apprentice will be right up our dreamer’s alley.
6am then, and the townhouse phone pierces through the peace of the Islington night, disturbing the Apprentice neighbours. Poor loves, they’re already sleep deprived from six weeks of listening to Alex barking his positive affirmations into the mirror all night, every night. Laura seems unaffected though, relaying the information through the house that they would be required to attend world-famous Pinewood Studios.
“Pinewood Studios? I’m sure it’s a furniture store,” quips Sandeesh cluelessly, nailing her audition for all future Sky One comedy panel shows. Somewhere, James Corden bangs on a table and laughs like a fool.
Her fellow candidates seem to also be unaware of the presence of 100 years of British cinema history plonked just outside Shepperton. But then, there’s no room for general knowledge when business levels in your bloodstream are at 110%. It’s surprising they’ve got enough brainpower left to command their lungs to give breath to the nonsensical buzzwords they all constantly spout.
An appropriate gritty filmic look surrounds them as they stand, hair blustering about, in a deserted lot at Pinewood in front of the biggest blue screen in Europe. The Good Lord’s sonorous tones echo menacingly round the place like a Kray brother dispatching an nark, telling the teams this week, they’ll be selling interactive blue-screen movie experiences, filmed in a shopping centre, to the passing crowds. Stuart “The Brand” Baggs is put in charge of Stella, Jo and Laura, and he puffs out his absurd little chest in triumph. Sandeesh is told to finally put her hi-beams to good use as PM over Chris, Jamie and Christopher.
She looks as thrilled as if the Good Lord had asked her to dispose of the suspiciously lumpy blood-stained roll of carpet in his Aston’s boot.
First, they must decide on a pre-made backdrop for their interactive movies. And while a unified if undermanaged Team Sandeesh wave happily at a DVD of a small child sitting in front of a super-imposed horse, over on Team Brand, Stuart clarifies his management style: caps lock on, shouting like a particularly peeved Jack Bauer. Claiming there was NO POINT IN WASTING TIME as he’d seen all the videoed backdrops A MILLION TIMES, like some sort of stock footage Rain Man, he demands an immediate vote to agree with his decision on a waterskiing scene they will never use.
When Laura dares to not immediately throw her hand in the air like she just does not care, he bellows YES OR NO? THAT’S HALF UP! YES OR NO?!, very much using his outdoor voice. The others reacted coldly to his consequent odious compliments that they’d made good decisions under pressure; pressure, that is, caused by Stuart himself forgetting he was dealing with a waterskiing scene, not the attempted assassination of the President of the United States.
Meanwhile, Sandeesh disproves the Good Lord’s assertion that she does “naff all” by making a jolly good stab at a decision and being immediately undermined by the Hollywood glamour of lip-smacking Liz. Tasked with filming their own backdrop as well, Mr Family Man Jamie suggests something fun for the kids, and outlines his grand directorial vision of a ski-ing vista which would coincidentally require him to go and muck about with skis for a day. Because, as he rightly pointed out, what grown adult (bar the deviants at hecklerspray) would want to flap about in front of a camera like a panicking flamingo in the middle of a massive shopping centre?!
WE’RE GONNA DO SOMETHING ASPIRATIONAL FOR THE AFFLUENT 20-3O DEMOGRAPHIC honks The Brand in virtual response. Jo disagrees. I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT. YOU ARE BEING WOOLY. JUST GIVE ME YOUR OPINION booms The Brand. Stella disagrees more strongly. IS EVERYONE IN AGREEMENT THEN RIGHT WE’LL BOOK BRANDS HATCH overbears The Brand.
Nick Hewer steps outside to allow himself to “tremble with irritation” at The Brand’s management, and make a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp made out of a lemon’s smacked arse. And thus, The Brand finds himself and his “extreme masculinity” and terrified face driving round the circuit, Jeremy Clarkson’s imagined commentary on his amazing Stig-like skills echoing round his mind, while the rest of his team dejectedly watch their chances of winning the task float away on a cloud of diesel smoke and badly-blagged matey car banter.
While Sandeesh, Chris and Liz learn all about the technical ins-and-outs of DVD burning through the medium of embarrassing attempts at Bollywood dancing, Christopher and Jamie gad about on the Milton Keynes dry ski slope.
Having filmed a few swishes and swooshes in their ski daywear, Jamie does a run in something a little bit more tasty for the younger viewer – a large-eyed penguin suit. “It’s a bit more fun,” he giggles. Well, just as long as they edit out the bit at the end where the friendly penguin stacks it and his head shears clean off, they’ll be laughing.
Laughing until they realise that Liz is about to make a humongous carrying-the-one error and order twice as many DVDs as they will feasibly have time to sell. Sandeesh continues to nod under the weight of her gigantic eyeballs in the background and fails to notice the calamity waiting to befall them.
On the other team, Stuart, completing his 400th lap of honour past a moping Laura, squeals to a halt and declares that he has worked out in his extremely masculine brain that all the customers will, in fact, be children. He sends an eye-rolling, disgruntled Jo and Stella to do a ram-raid on Toys R Us, where they pick up a toy car that will eventually be their making and several tons of bribe-sweets.
When the team have their unhappy reunion, Jo points out that Stuart’s car film is a risible piece of hooey, and Stuart counters that his massive entrepreneurial skills and finely honed gut-based judgement have got him to the position of extremely masculine success he enjoys today (and not, as unsubstansiated internet rumour would have it, the fact that Daddy Brand is a millionaire…) and that the others in his team are worthless peons. “Any other comments, niggles?” he postcripts sweetly, after his epic passive-aggressive slaggings. Stella murders him with a look, and we move on to day two!
Both teams set up stalls in the ridonkulous pan-galactic spaceport that is Westfield shopping centre in London, and Sandeesh starts on her day of Useless Arbitrary Decision-Making, deciding to train Christopher on the DVD burning and plonk Liz and Chris in front of the punters and causing a hours delay in opening as Christopher daydreamed about his robot octo-bride from last week.
Jamie was relegated from Orson Welles to delivery boy, running the orders from the stall to the back office, due to his dashing Milk Tray Man black polo-neck (a jibe which Christopher would irritatingly steal from the minds of hecklerspray a little later.) He was not a happy bunny about this and moaned and bristled through the whole day, when he found the time in his busy abseiling through hotel windows schedule.
Business gets off to a brisk start on Team Brand, with children drawn in by the magnetic pull of the toy car and parents too harrassed to refuse to buy a DVD of their competitive little sods crowing after winning a fake race with a pre-filmed car. Jo helps along sales by using powerful mum-speak mojo and handing out choccy medals, Laura stands about like a sullen teen for the 3,000th consecutive day of her life, and The Brand lolls in the back office, dishing out equal amounts of mirth at the stupid faces of the stupid toddlers and at Stella’s antiquated system of “writing things down.” For you see, The Brand don’t need no paper, baby. He keeps it all in his mind. The Brand’s mind is like a Filofax, where every section is marked “massive tool”.
Sandeesh surveys the barren wasteland of her filming stall and makes another patented Useless Arbitrary Decision, slashing the price of her team’s DVDs to ?8. Even that doesn’t really get the cash-tills vibrating, so Liz ninja-sneaks a look at the Team Brand competition and then slams her cold, hard fist of capitalism into them – nicking their toy car idea and undercutting the price. The problems pile up along with unclaimed DVDs at the Brand HQ; having taken no money up front, the team are startled when some parents don’t hurry back to shower them with ?20 notes for a five-minute, badly edited and poor quality DVD. But will that be enough to sink Battleship Brand? Only the Boardroom will tell.
As judgement day falls, and Team Brand rip into the flesh of their leader, the stress causes Stuart to develop a bizarre facial tic, licking his lips like a Benny Hill gecko. He tries a bit of matey back’n’forth with the Good Lord, who bats it away like a bored lion. He tries to make an issue out of Stella’s unspeakable antiquity (she being the grand old age of 30) and is, in the parlance of the youth with which he is so familiar, pwned. Eventually he settles on a policy of constant smirking while everyone around him discusses what an epic ballbag he is.
But even with his scrotal disposition, Team Brand somehow scraped a win by ?40, helped by Team Sandeesh’s massive overspending and late opening. So Stuart will be back next week – bad news for fans of fairness and decency, good news for those who need a bit of hate in their lives to keep them vital.
After the spectacular bullet-swerve demostrated by Stuart, it hardly seems worth concentrating on who went out. Christopher escapes entirely unharmed, Jamie is given a light scolding for being such a know-it-all crybaby, and Sandeesh shoots herself soundly through the temples by bringing Liz (sold record-breaking fake order of radioactive babygrows to an idiot, is fit) and Chris (sold record-breakingly awful dress made of ties to an idiot, is fit) back into the boardroom.
Blame is bandied about a bit just for appearances’ sake, and the Good Lord gets a little bit over-excited and boos at Chris and Liz for being investment bankers. But Sandeesh, who’s done nothing of note for seven weeks and been in the final three for the last four weeks, is fired; she smiles for the first time in the whole process and is instantly, devastatingly beautiful.
Luckily, Testicular Stuart reappears shortly afterwards and the moment is erased forever. Keep it real, Stu.
Harry Hill TV Burp Moment
Harry: “Do you know, I’ve got this delicious soup here, but I just don’t know how to eat it.”
Stuart: “YOU’VE GOT TO BE SPOONFED! A SPOON!”
Harry: “Thanks, Stuart.” (LAUGHTER)
Harry: (turns to other camera) “Of course, I could also use a straw, or a hollowed out weasel.” (simpers)
Next week: Gott in Himmel! Ze Apprentizes are going to Germany, to buy savoury snacks and indulge in ze casual racism demostrrrrrated by zis statement! Schnell!
Tim says
Both Chris and Liz made mistakes on this task, but Sandeesh deserved to go for having shown nothing positive at all during the entire series. Other than being there – and even that was arguable on occasions.
It says a lot about how badly Stuart managed that Synergy won by such a small margin, despite all Apollo’s mistakes. Definitely a case of winning in spite of him rather than because of him – although, to be fair, the one decision he did get right was the big one: putting the price up rather than down.
Still, it’s only a matter of time before he self-destructs in a blaze of ego.
http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2010/11/18/apprentice-candidates-make-blue-screen-movies-sandeesh-fired-after-x-rated-performance/