The Bullet Proof Apprentice

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The Bullet Proof Apprentice

November 16, 2017 - 13:59
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Well, she survived another week and, as predicted, Elizabeth gets closer and closer to the ‘final 5’ who endure the interview from hell in the penultimate episode. She will, of course, breeze through this in the same manner that she has passed every other task, getting it mostly wrong when the camera is pointing at her, but executing Nobel prize-winning business skills at all other times. This we know because how else would she have ever passed the audition, let alone survived until week eight.

Elizabeth dances in the pitch

By TellysGoneWrong @tellyswrong

Well, she survived another week and, as predicted, Elizabeth gets closer and closer to the ‘final 5’ who endure the interview from hell in the penultimate episode. She will, of course, breeze through this in the same manner that she has passed every other task, getting it mostly wrong when the camera is pointing at her, but executing Nobel prize-winning business skills at all other times. This we know because how else would she have ever passed the audition, let alone survived until week eight.
Ever since week two, when she was charged with the task of measuring the wall of a hotel room and confidently declared it to be 3 centimetres high, she has blundered her way through each task in the manner of Tommy Cooper sawing a woman in half, somehow getting to the end of the performance with hardly a drop of blood spilt and reputation and integrity just about intact.
In Wednesday’s episode, Elizabeth hi-jacked the task completely, casting herself in the role of comic-lead in a motor car advert completely dreamed up by herself. It’s hard to tell if her colleagues are now completely spellbound by her or if they are simply standing back in the sure and certain hope that she will self-destruct before them. I’m sure that, if she does, it will be on Claude Littner’s watch and will culminate in a hostage situation with Elizabeth holed-up in the board room, gun at Claude’s temple and demanding a helicopter.
Either way, James, this week’s losing project manager, stood blinking up at her and nodding in agreement as she outlined her plot for the ad.
“I’m a stressed-out mother trying to get my kids to school, I leave my handbag on top of the car and when I drive off it falls into the road.”
“It’s funny’” she added, reassuringly.
James tried to speak, but no words came out.
Needless to say, the rest of the programme simply followed the team’s implosion. Their opposition may as well have just produced a campaign that involved them standing around pointing at their allocated vehicle and shouting ‘Car, Car, Car, Car’ for two minutes, they’d have still won. They tried their best to even it up by responding in the affirmative to criticism levelled at them by the industry experts to whom they were pitching.
“You’re right,,” said Creative Director, Anisa, “some of the feedback said they thought we were selling a bicycle.”
This is a mixed message of some extreme magnitude when you are trying to convey the benefits of a new car. Charles would never have stood for it, “We intentionally portrayed the car as a bike in order to give the customer and enhanced experience when they took it for a test drive.’ He would have said.
It didn’t matter, they may as well have advertised blancmange, the judges would have still preferred their output over Elizabeth’s clowning effort. Which, actually, may have worked had the car been named a ‘Pillock’ and backed by a digital campaign that offered something like, “The car for the big lumbering sod in your life.” But no, they billed it as the ideal ‘family car’ and called it an Xpando, with the accent on the ‘X’.
Back in the boardroom, Lord Sugar started to make up his own rules. James, still confused twixt arse and elbow, decided that Sarjan and Joanna were the two candidates who deserved a further grilling by His Lordship.
“What about her?” said the Lord, pointing furiously at Elizabeth who was putting her hat and coat on and trying to exit the boardroom via the broom cupboard. With an air of ‘it’s my ball and we’ll put the goal posts wherever I say’, Elizabeth was told to wait outside with the others while Sugar was hosed down with cold water and had his dials re-set from ‘apoplectic’ to ‘mildly irritated’.
Having taken it upon himself to drag Elizabeth back in, he then proceeded to sack the only member of the team who’d simply stuck to his task and tried to apply a reasonable amount of polish to the Elizabeth-sized turd that had been presented to him. Sarjan left amid some confusion and one could only assume that, if he was gone, all four were going to be boarding a taxi for home. But dear Lizzie had weaved her magic spell again and Lord Sug relented. He must have looked at her baleful expression and realised that even he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of her. She’s priceless, and unless she kills herself clattering down the stairs one morning to answer the phone, he’s going to have to work with her. If she doesn’t win this series, she’ll probably just keep turning up uninvited next year until he gives her 250 grand.
Back at the house, as the ground beneath them started to shake, carefree expressions turned to grim resignation as the remaining candidates realised, long before she appeared at the door, that Elizabeth had been reprieved.