The Apprentice 2015: Lauren Riley’s Ep.8 insider view

Lawyer, founder of The Link App, and former-The Apprentice star (series 10) Lauren Riley, provides an insider’s view on the eighth episode of the new series.

Week 8, so a more serious stage of the programme, and those left standing have done well to get to here. This week’s task was an events planning one – children’s party planning to be specific. It had lots of promise to be a fun episode but it was a bit flat for me. The editing team decides what particular aspects are going to be heavily featured and this week it was the turn of health and safety. As a lawyer this pleased me immensely, as a viewer not so much.

I got to the end of the whole thing feeling there were fewer than usual business lessons to be had, save for Richard’s well thought out but poorly delivered comments about focussing on the margins. I think one of Lord Sugar’s assistants may have uttered the customer is king- or words of that sort. I am not the biggest The Apprentice fan or anything but I do like to make a case for its relevance on UK television if it somehow at least ties to business lessons and they have a glimmer of hope to inspire a younger generation to be entrepreneurial. However, either I missed them in the five minutes I was on the phone during the episode or they were sadly lacking. Also, not a lot in the way of entertainment for me either.

I do feel Gary’s team was somehow on a road to failure as soon as the nut allergy was mentioned, that no matter what happened from that point they were lining up Lord Sugar’s puns about the mother going out on a stretcher etc. Allergies are a serious issue of course but no doubt the options were limited and drama expected.

In the end David was the one fired. I knew he wouldn’t last (see my previous blogs) even when he won as project manager. There is a particular type Lord Sugar seems to prefer and no slight on him, he’s not it. From the clips we saw he wasn’t particularly entertaining in his role and it was clear he was the weakest target for the other three left in the final boardroom to pick off.

Next week’s episode is property sales, now that should be interesting.