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- For other Apprentice (UK) series see: Series One; Series Three; Series Four.
Series Two of the The Apprentice (UK) was a television series which was broadcast on BBC Two between 22 February and 10 May 2006. As in the previous series, Sir Alan Sugar continued as the boss, assigning the teams specifically designed tasks. Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford also returned as Sugar's advisers and observed the teams in action.
The series was won by Michelle Dewberry in the final episode broadcast on 10 May 2006.
[edit] Candidates
- See also: The Apprentice candidates, Series Two
As in the first series, there were fourteen candidates and they were initially separated into two teams by gender. The women chose the name Velocity for their team, while the men named their team Invicta.
The candidates were:
* as of the date of the programme.
[edit] Challenges
[edit] Week 1
- Project managers: Ben (Invicta) and Karen (Velocity).
- Task: Sell fruit and vegetables in Hackney.
- Result: The Velocity team obtained most of their fruit for little or nothing by asking for overripe products and acting flirtatiously towards the vendors. The entire Invicta team remained at Hackney market for most of the day, only selling fruit door-to-door in the closing hour. The Velocity team split up and sold both at the market and to small businesses. Velocity spent just £41 of the £500 they were given at the start of the task, and returned to the boardroom with £1143. Invicta spent £300, over seven times as much as their opponents, but only made a profit of £781.
- Winner: Velocity.
- Reward: Celebratory champagne in one of the Vertigo 42 bars at the top of Tower 42 in the City of London.
- Brought into the boardroom: Ben, Samuel and Syed.
- Who gets fired: Ben, for failing as a leader.
- Notes: While Velocity won the task, Sir Alan Sugar questioned their tactic of using their sex appeal and the women had to present an argument why they deserved the win.
[edit] Week 2
- Project managers: Samuel (Invicta) and Nargis (Velocity).
- Task: Design, shoot and produce a calendar to raise money for Sir Alan's "favourite charity", Great Ormond Street Hospital, and then pitch it to three different purchasers; Virgin Megastore, Harrods and Calendar Club. The team that makes the most money from sales wins.
- Result: Velocity decided to go for a 'contemporary' calendar featuring kitten photos despite numerous protests from Jo. Invicta decided on a calendar featuring 'fun' photos of children dressed up in various costumes. Nargis' pitching went horribly wrong as she appeared to lose track of what she was saying and even snap at the purchasers. Despite this, Velocity manage to sell calendars to all three retailers. Mani's pitching for Invicta wasn't as bad, but they only managed to sell to one retailer, Calendar Club. However, that one retailer bought 6000 calendars, which gave them a substantially greater profit than Velocity.
- Winner: Invicta.
- Reward: A session of caviar tasting.
- Brought into the boardroom: Nargis, Jo and Karen.
- Who gets fired: Nargis, for having a terrible sales pitch, and being responsible for overseeing a poor product.
[edit] Week 3
- Project managers: Syed (Invicta) and Jo (Velocity).
- Task: Purchase a set list of ten items for prices lower than those asked by the vendors. The team which spends the least of their £1000 budget wins.
- Result: Both teams decided to split up into two smaller groups to procure the items. Invicta immediately got on with the task, but decided to do a lot of shopping around before buying. They managed to purchase all 10 items. Velocity wasted time coming up with a strategy and bargaining for items that were not even in stock, and failed to purchase the tyre required on the shopping list. This resulted in a penalty, with the list price of the tyre being deducted from their total profit.
- Winner: Invicta, by £8.
- Reward: A day watching horse racing.
- Brought into the boardroom: Jo, Alexa and Karen.
- Who gets fired: Karen, for not sticking up for herself in the boardroom.
- Notes: In firing Karen, Sir Alan stated that he didn't need another corporate lawyer. He referred to Jo as a "bloody nutter" but admired her vigorous self-defence. Sir Alan agreed to give Alexa a chance to prove her abilities after she defended herself.
[edit] Week 4
- Project managers: Alexa (Invicta) and Mani (Velocity).
- Task: , To set up a food stall at the Thames Festival and make as great a profit as they could in a day.
- Result: With a budget of £2000 for each team, Alexa's team decided to sell pizza at an Italian-themed stall. Mani's team sold noodles at an oriental-themed stall. Mani's team made around £300 in profit and Alexa's team lost around £800. The loss of money for Alexa's team could arguably be blamed on Tuan's overestimate that the team could make and sell 500 pizzas (when they made 90), Syed ordering an excessive amount of ingredients (such as 100 whole chickens when they only made 90 pizzas) and Alexa for not controlling her team or dealing with Syed's mistake.
- Winner: Velocity.
- Reward: Dinner at the Oxo Tower restaurant.
- Brought into the boardroom: Alexa, Syed and Tuan.
- Who gets fired: Alexa, for being a poor team leader.
- Notes: Sir Alan called out the project managers and told them to switch to the other team. Thus, Alexa ended up leading Invicta while Mani took over Velocity.
[edit] Week 5
- Project managers: Paul (Invicta) and Ruth (Velocity).
- Task: To produce both a billboard and a short promotional video for Sir Alan's new venture: a card that allows booking of business jets and related services.
- Result: Paul's team had few ideas at the start, while Ruth's appeared to have a clear strategy throughout. Despite this, Sir Alan felt that Ruth's television advertisement focused too much on the concierge service and not enough on the card. Invicta's presentation, while clichéd, is closer to what Sir Alan would have wanted.
- Winner: Invicta.
- Reward: Champagne reception and front-row seats at the London Fashion Show.
- Brought into the boardroom: Ruth, Jo and Mani.
- Who gets fired: Mani, for the apparent delivery of "misinformation" to the team and attempting to evade blame.
- Notes: Although Mani was blamed (and ultimately) fired for Velocity's advert having the wrong focus, it had in fact been Ansell that mentioned the concierge aspect to the team. Ruth later said that she bought Mani back in, because while Ansell had apologized off-camera for the mix-up, Mani blamed Ruth and went so far as to mock her for the mistake.
[edit] Week 6
- Project managers: Sharon (Invicta) and Ansell (Velocity).
- Task: Sell second-hand cars for a commission.
- Result: After a bad start, Sharon's team managed to take a lead by selling the extras which carried a higher commission. Ruth managed to sell six cars alone, giving Ansell's team an advantage at the start.
- Winner: Invicta.
- Reward: Boat trip down the River Thames.
- Brought into the boardroom: Ansell, Jo and Samuel.
- Who gets fired: Jo, as it was her fourth time in the boardroom in only six weeks.
- Notes: During the reward boat trip, an argument broke out between Paul and Michelle.
[edit] Week 7
- Project managers: Tuan (Invicta) and Michelle (Velocity).
- Task: Selling items for Topshop.
- Result: After getting off to a flying start, Invicta started to lose their 23% lead at the end of the morning. However, Michelle's unproductive time spent in the VIP Room drinking champagne for most of the morning and Samuel's lack of success at dragging in customers from the street led to Tuan's team emerging as victors.
- Winner: Invicta.
- Reward: A night in a top-class country hotel, with skeet shooting.
- Brought into the boardroom: Michelle, Ruth and Samuel.
- Who gets fired: Samuel, for his mismanagement of marketing.
[edit] Week 8
- Project managers: Syed (Invicta) and Ruth (Velocity).
- Task: Buying a particular product from the designer and selling it on to the trade.
- Result: Both teams split up in order to sell their products in different parts of London. Although Tuan and Syed were able to secure a large order, they were penalised by 25% of their total sales as they were late for the deadline of 6pm, and this was enough to cost them the task.
- Winner: Velocity.
- Reward: A day at a luxury spa.
- Brought into the boardroom: Syed, Sharon and Tuan.
- Who gets fired: Sharon, for being too "nice" and not aggressive enough.
- Notes: Sir Alan offered Syed Ahmed immunity from being fired because he was so impressed by his selling prowess. However, Ahmed refused this and put himself forward for firing with his team. The entire segment was edited out. [1]
[edit] Week 9
- Project managers: Tuan (Invicta) and Michelle (Velocity).
- Task: Rent out property in different areas of London.
- Result: With only three members on each team, Velocity split up and worked individually with Michelle keeping in contact with both Paul and Ansell. For Invicta's part, Tuan took a back seat role leaving Ruth and Syed to concentrate on sales. Syed made many mistakes including taking the wrong keys to properties on two occasions and mistaking Wandsworth Bridge for a railway line. Both teams closed six deals (two each for Velocity, whereas in Invicta, Ruth closed five, Syed one and Tuan none). Invicta lost the task by approximately £250.
- Winner: Velocity.
- Reward: A day's tuition with chef Raymond Blanc.
- Brought into the boardroom: Tuan, Ruth and Syed.
- Who gets fired: Tuan for not managing to let out any properties, and for taking a back seat during the task yet again, despite being given a warning by Sir Alan the previous week.
- Notes: After Ruth and Syed had been dismissed by Sir Alan from the boardroom, Syed remained seated and began to plead with Alan about an unknown issue, and Sir Alan immediately interrupted and sent him out.
[edit] Week 10
- Project managers: Syed (Invicta) and Paul (Velocity).
- Task: Devise and promote a service available to passengers aboard the cruise liner, the Grand Princess, on her voyage between Istanbul and Naples.
- Result: For Velocity, Paul hit upon the idea of running and promoting a series of dance classes and a competition with a grand prize of £50 to the winners. For Invicta, Syed came up with the idea of an above-deck fun day with events taking place across the ship. The teams were told that success would not be judged solely on sales, but also on many other criteria including marketing, originality and customer satisfaction. At the end of the task, Velocity had generated £507, whereas Invicta had only made £191.50. Invicta's deficit was due in part to Ruth buying more bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne (distributed as thank-you gifts to staff) than was necessary.
- Winner: Velocity.
- Reward: As the liner was docked in Naples on the coast of Italy, the winning team was sent to Rome to stay in a luxury apartment and spend a few days in the city.
- Brought into the boardroom: Ruth and Syed (only two team members remained).
- Who gets fired: Syed, for being "too much of a risk".
- Notes: Syed's firing was the first significant point in the series in which a key character was fired; Syed had become well-known, and a different style of ending with higher, slower music emphasised this. There was also an incident with raffle tickets where Syed lost the names of many people who had bought tickets and suggested going ahead anyway (the names were later found).
[edit] Week 11: Interviews
- Semi-Finalists: Ansell, Michelle, Paul and Ruth.
- Task: The four remaining candidates went through a series of interviews with each of three associates of Sir Alan. The interviews were based around the candidates' previous work and experience as well as their reasons and motivations for appearing on the show.
- Result: Despite consistent success with previous tasks, Paul's underwhelming employment record was unearthed and he was heavily cross-examined by the interviewers. His confident attitude and cocky personality meant the interviewers delivered bad reports to Sir Alan. He was described by one of the interviewers as a "door-to-door salesman". Michelle received better reports, yet Sir Alan was confused by the fact that she already had a £100k salary and was self-employed. Ansell was described by all as a "nice guy" and yet there were questions over his limited experience in sales and how well he would cope in a more aggressive environment. Ruth had an impressive sales record over the series and generally she impressed, despite Sir Alan having some doubts over the credibility of parts of her CV.
- Who gets fired: Paul and Ansell; Alan spoke to Paul in depth for the first time in the series and despite Paul's record throughout the tasks, having been on the winning team seven times, Sir Alan decided he was nothing like what he wanted and fired him. Michelle, when questioned, justified her cause and Sir Alan was impressed with her independent business nature and her apparent generosity with family and friends. He decided that she should stay. It was close between Ansell and Ruth, with Sir Alan obviously torn between them. It was Ruth's intelligence, however, that led to her staying – both she and Ansell were strong candidates, but Ansell was deemed to be too nice.
[edit] Week 12: The Grand Finale
- Finalists: Michelle and Ruth.
- Task: Each were given the opportunity to select from six previous candidates – Syed, Sharon, Tuan, Paul, Ansell and Jo. They had to put on an evening event to be staged at London's Tower Bridge with a theme of their choice. While money was not the main issue, costs were monitored carefully.
- Result: Ruth chose to have a "Murder Mystery Theme" and hired actors to play the parts of various characters throughout the night. Despite Sir Alan having doubts about this, her event took more money than Michelle's and sold more tickets, mostly because of the way in which her team of Tuan, Ansell and Jo worked through contacts made throughout the series. Sir Alan, however, having himself paid a visit to both evenings, questioned her originality in that she had directly implemented his suggestions to her of can-can dancers. Michelle's night also came under fire for being almost identical to Sir Alan's suggestions when he had briefed the two on the task. She chose a casino themed 007 (James Bond) evening called '00Heaven'. Her team of Sharon, Paul and Syed was an interesting choice as the group had experienced many confrontations in previous weeks. They failed to work as efficiently as Ruth's – Syed and Paul sold very few tickets and clearly did not enjoy working together, and this led to conflict between Syed and Sharon. In the end tickets were sold for as little as £10, despite the original price being £65, although Michelle did manage to improve their sales by reorganising her team.
- Who gets hired: Michelle.
[edit] Weekly results
| Candidate |
Week |
Result |
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
| Michelle |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PM |
|
PM |
|
|
|
Hired |
| Ruth |
|
|
|
|
PM |
|
B |
PM |
B |
B |
|
|
Runner up |
| Ansell |
|
|
|
|
|
PM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fired in Week 11 |
| Paul |
|
|
|
|
PM |
|
|
|
|
PM |
|
|
Fired in Week 11 |
| Syed |
B |
|
PM |
B |
|
|
|
PM |
B |
PM |
|
Fired in Week 10 |
| Tuan |
|
|
|
B |
|
|
PM |
B |
PM |
|
Fired in Week 9 |
| Sharon |
|
|
|
|
|
PM |
|
B |
|
Fired in Week 8 |
| Samuel |
B |
PM |
|
|
|
B |
B |
|
Fired in Week 7 |
| Jo |
|
B |
PM |
|
B |
B |
|
Fired in Week 6 |
| Mani |
|
|
|
PM |
B |
|
Fired in Week 5 |
| Alexa |
|
|
B |
PM |
|
Fired in Week 4 |
| Karen |
PM |
B |
B |
|
Fired in Week 3 |
| Nargis |
|
PM |
|
Fired in Week 2 |
| Ben |
PM |
|
Fired in Week 1 |
| Candidate |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
Result |
| Week |
|
| Legend |
|
Finale |
|
Interviews |
|
Invicta |
|
Velocity |
| PM |
Project manager |
| B |
Brought back to boardroom |
|
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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