Series Five of The Apprentice (UK) was a British reality

Reality television

Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...

 television series which was won by Yasmina Siadatan

Yasmina Siadatan

Yasmina Siadatan is a British businesswoman of mixed British and Iranian descent. She was the winner of the fifth series of the British television show The Apprentice. As the winner she was offered a job working for businessman Sir Alan Sugar , who presents the show.-Early life:Siadatan was...

. The series began airing on BBC One

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 on 25 March 2009 and ran for twelve weekly hour-long episodes, as in all previous years. Auditions and interviews took place during July 2008 in London, Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 and Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. There were fifteen participants; one more dropped out prior to the first boardroom briefing.

Sir Alan Sugar

Alan Sugar

Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar is a British entrepreneur, media personality and political advisor. From humble origins in the East End of London, Sugar now has an estimated fortune of £770m , and was ranked 89th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011...

, Nick Hewer

Nick Hewer

Nicholas Radbourn "Nick" Hewer is a British former public relations consultant turned television personality, who lives in Northamptonshire, England. He is probably best known for his role as Alan Sugar's advisor on the UK version of the popular BBC television show The Apprentice...

 and Margaret Mountford

Margaret Mountford

Margaret Mountford is a British lawyer, businesswoman and television personality known for her role in The Apprentice.-Biography:Mountford is originally from Holywood in Northern Ireland...

 made appearances, as in all previous series. Spin-off show The Apprentice: You're Fired!

The Apprentice: You're Fired!

The Apprentice: You're Fired!, sometimes named You're Fired!, The Apprentice: You're Hired! or You're Hired!, is a British television show made by the BBC and filmed at Riverside Studios as a spin-off from the reality TV hit The Apprentice...

also returned, airing on BBC Two

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 immediately after the main show.

Candidates

Sixteen candidates were selected however only fifteen candidates were announced for the start of the series. The sixteenth candidate, Adam Freeman, withdrew from the show the night before recording of the series was due to begin, and could not be replaced in time. As a result, the series went ahead with only fifteen candidates. In the first episode, Sir Alan Sugar described Freeman (whom he did not name) as having "bottled it".

The team names for this series are Empire (initially the men's team) and Ignite (initially the women's team).

Candidate	Background	Original team	Age	Result
Yasmina Siadatan	Restaurateur	Ignite	27	Hired by Sugar (06-07-2009)
Kate Walsh	Licensing Development Manager	Ignite	27	Fired in the Season Finale (06-07-2009)
Debra Barr	Senior Sales Consultant	Ignite	23	Fired in week 11 (06-03-2009)
Lorraine Tighe	National Accounts Manager	Ignite	36	Fired in week 11 (06-03-2009)
James McQuillan	Senior Commercial Manager	Empire	32	Fired in week 11 (06-03-2009)
Howard Ebison	Retail Business Manager	Empire	24	Fired in week 10 (05-27-2009)
Ben Clarke	Trainee Stockbroker	Empire	22	Fired in week 9 (05-20-2009)
Mona Lewis	Senior Financial Manager	Ignite	28	Fired in week 8 (05-13-2009)
Philip Taylor	Estate Agent	Empire	29	Fired in week 7 (05-06-2009)
Noorul Choudhury	Science Teacher	Empire	33	Fired in week 6 (04-29-2009)
Kimberly Davis	Marketing Consultant	Ignite	33	Fired in week 5 (04-22-2009)
Paula Jones	Human Resources Consultant	Ignite	29	Fired in week 4 (04-15-2009)
Majid Nagra	Business Development Manager	Empire	28	Fired in week 3 (04-08-2009)
Rocky Andrews	Sandwich Chain Owner	Empire	21	Fired in week 2 (04-01-2009)
Anita Shah	Business Strategist	Ignite	35	Fired in week 1 (03-25-2009)

Weekly results

Elimination chart
Candidate	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Yasmina	IN	WIN	IN	BR	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	WIN	IN	HIRED
Kate	IN	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	BR	IN	IN	BR	IN	FIRED
Debra	BR	IN	WIN	IN	IN	BR	IN	LOSE	BR	IN	FIRED
Lorraine	IN	IN	IN	IN	BR	IN	LOSE	IN	WIN	BR	FIRED
James	IN	BR	LOSE	IN	IN	IN	IN	BR	LOSE	IN	FIRED
Howard	WIN	BR	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	FIRED
Ben	IN	IN	BR	BR	IN	LOSE	IN	IN	FIRED
Mona	LOSE	IN	IN	IN	IN	IN	WIN	FIRED
Philip	IN	IN	IN	IN	BR	WIN	FIRED
Noorul	IN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	FIRED
Kimberly	IN	IN	IN	IN	FIRED
Paula	IN	IN	IN	FIRED
Majid	IN	IN	FIRED
Rocky	IN	FIRED
Anita	FIRED

The contestant was on the losing team.

The contestant was hired and won the competition.

The contestant won as project manager on his/her team.

The contestant lost as project manager on his/her team.

The contestant was brought to the final boardroom.

The contestant was fired.

The contestant lost as project manager and was fired.

Week 1

• Project managers: Howard (Empire) and Mona (Ignite).
• Task: To start up a cleaning company, with a starting budget of £200. The team that makes the most profit wins.
• Result: Empire decided to try car cleaning mainly, with half the boys focusing on one big minicab contract. The other 3 boys also tried shoe-shining in St Pancras railway station
  St Pancras railway station
  St Pancras railway station, also known as London St Pancras and since 2007 as St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus celebrated for its Victorian architecture. The Grade I listed building stands on Euston Road in St Pancras, London Borough of Camden, between the...
  
   and made between £60 and £70 in a hour, but then went to help the other boys with the contract; together, they cleaned half the minicab fleet and made altogether £347, spending just over £107 and made a profit of £239. Ignite, meanwhile, focused on just car-cleaning. Half the girls made £120 from cleaning 3 Hummer
  Hummer
  Hummer was a brand of trucks and SUVs, first marketed in 1992 when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee. In 1998, General Motors purchased the brand name and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the Humvee; and the H2 and H3 models that were...
  
   limos, but the other half had their classic car contract cut short after 4 cars (out of 14), due to unsatisfactory cleaning. Instead, all the girls focused on on-the-kerb cleaning, which they had more success with. Ignite took £357, £10 more than the boys: however, they overspent on equipment, spending almost their entire budget (£196) and made £160.55.
• Winner: Empire, by £79
• Reward: Taught how to make cocktails by The Bar Wizards
  The Bar Wizards
  The BarWizards are a British Flair bartending act. They first rose to fame when they were finalists in the first series of the British television talent show Britain's Got Talent in 2007, in which they lost to the eventual winner, singer Paul Potts...
  
  .
• Brought into the boardroom: Mona, Debra, and Anita
• Fired: Anita, for failing to recognise the overspend on cleaning materials and for not demonstrating any business acumen.
• Notes: This was the first time since Series 1 that the woman's team lost the first task (unless Series 3, where 7 girls led by a boy had lost is counted). It has not happened since.

Week 2

• Project managers: Rocky (Empire) and Yasmina (Ignite)
• Task: Providing corporate catering services for top business professionals. The team that makes the most profit wins.
• Result: Empire decided on a 2012 Olympics
  2012 Summer Olympics
  The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...
  
   theme, with a different sandwich representing each of the five Olympic rings and spent £820 on supplies, and Ignite went with a Mediterranean theme and spent under half, spending just £354. Ignite won two lunchtime contracts and one to hold an evening function, while Empire failed to get any lunchtime contracts and had to resort to selling their sandwiches to tourists on the streets of London, which they had some success with. Ignite were accused of skimping on food and making mistakes in preparation (such as a chicken wrap not having chicken in it), which resulted in their £750 evening contract being reduced to £500, but still made a profit of £651.43. Empire on the other hand made the badly received decision to dress in Ancient Greek togas for the evening function, and only provided small portions of food; as a result they had their evening contract halved from £750 to £375 and ended up making a loss of £160.76, giving Empire the first of 3 thumping losses in a row.
• Winner: Ignite, by £812.19
• Reward: Lesson in learning to play polo
  Polo
  Polo is a team sport played on horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team. Sometimes called, "The Sport of Kings", it was highly popularized by the British. Players score by driving a small white plastic or wooden ball into the opposing team's goal using a...
  
  .
• Brought into the boardroom: Rocky, Howard and James
• Fired: Rocky, for making a series of "immature mistakes", losing money on a task that he should have been well-suited to, and not clearly explaining his decision to bring Howard and James back into the boardroom. He was not shown to be fired with regret on the main episode, but it was revealed on You're Fired that he was. The majority of the you're fired audience disagreed with Sir Alan's decision.
• Notes: Nick Hewer singled out Majid (who came up with Empire's doomed Olympic theme) and Noorul (for acting as a bystander for most of the task) for criticism in the boardroom, and Rocky's failure to bring either of them back played a major part in his firing. When Sir Alan enquired about the contract halving, Nick commented that halving it was "more than generous".

Week 3

• Project managers: James (Empire) and Debra (Ignite)
• Team reshuffle: Philip and Noorul move to Ignite; Kate and Kimberly move to Empire.
• Task: To create an original piece of portable home fitness equipment, promote it by creating a poster campaign and pitch it to retailers.
• Result: After doing some market research, James decided that most products at the £29.99 price point tended to be simple in design terms, and instructed his to design a similar product. However, Ben, who was heading the design team, ignored James's directive and instead produced a small multi-gym kit that was badly received by the potential retailers and felt to be a poor alternative to higher-end home gym systems. Ignite went for a simpler product, designed by Philip, that consisted of an exercise ball with a built-in plastic attachment that could be used for aerobics
  Aerobics
  Aerobics is a form of physical exercise that combines rhythmic aerobic exercise with stretching and strength training routines with the goal of improving all elements of fitness...
  
  . Empire received a total of 500 orders for their product from only one retailer, John Lewis
  John Lewis (department store)
  -Recent developments:In June 2004, John Lewis announced plans to open its first store in Northern Ireland at the Sprucefield Park development, the province's largest out of town shopping centre, located outside Lisburn and from Belfast. The application was approved in June 2005 and the opening of...
  
  , whilst Ignite secured 10,180 orders from the three retailers the teams pitched to (they used an exclusivity agreement in their deal with John Lewis, who bought 10,000 units, meaning that Ignite would have won whether or not the 180 units they sold to the other two retailers were counted in the total), giving Empire another thumping loss.
• Winner: Ignite, by 9, 680 orders
• Reward: A private performance by Katherine Jenkins
  Katherine Jenkins
  Katherine Jenkins is a Welsh mezzo-soprano. She is a classical-popular crossover singer who performs across a spectrum of operatic arias, popular songs, musical theatre and hymns.-Early life and education:...
  
  
• Brought into the boardroom: James, Ben and Majid
• Fired: Majid, for being a peripheral figure who made little contribution to the task. It should also be noted that Nick Hewer disagreed with this decision.
• Notes: Despite leading his team to the worst defeat in the show's history (a 20:1 margin in Ignite's favour) at the time (to be surpassed in the next two series) James was not fired, largely down to Margaret telling Sir Alan that aside from not properly supervising Ben in the product design, his leadership had otherwise been competent. Likewise, despite the extremely negative feedback about the product design and his ignoring James's instructions, Ben survived due to no-one else making a significant contribution to the design phase. The BBC Apprentice homepage leaked the news of Majid's firing several hours before the episode had actually been aired.

Week 4

• Project managers: Paula (Empire) and Noorul (Ignite)
• Team reshuffle: Debra, Paula and Yasmina move to Empire; Howard and Kimberly move to Ignite
• Task: To produce and sell two bath and beauty products made from natural ingredients, that stand out from the competition.
• Result: Ignite produced soap bars and bath foam based on honeycomb. Their products were felt to be unattractive, particularly the soap bar, and the team suffered from a lack of direction from Noorul, meaning that while their Camden Town
  Camden Town
  -Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...
  
   market sales were quite successful, their face-to-face sales teams had less success and they resorted to selling their products as cheaply as 30p each by the end of the day. Empire's seaweed-based products were felt to be better, and they were able to actually increase their sales price during the day due to good custom. Unfortunately they massively overspent on essential oils due to mistakenly thinking that 3% of the formula meant 3g of oil would be required (rather than 450g), and mixing up cedarwood oil
  Cedar oil
  Cedar oil, also known as cedarwood oil, is an essential oil derived from the foliage, and sometimes the wood and roots, of various types of conifers, most in the pine or cypress botanical families...
  
   with the much more expensive sandalwood
  Sandalwood
  Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted...
  
   oil. They therefore spent over £700 on ingredients and had total costs of around £1,100, meaning that despite their best efforts they were unable to recoup costs. Ignite made a profit of £493.97, and Empire lost £68.04, giving them another thumping loss.
• Winner: Ignite, by £562.01
• Reward: Dinner at a luxury sushi and sake restaurant, and learnt how to make sushi.
• Brought into the boardroom: Paula, Yasmina and Ben
• Fired: Paula; although Sir Alan felt that Empire had been better-run than Ignite and that all of the final three were equally culpable for the loss, he deemed Paula ultimately responsible as project manager and fired her. A majority of the You're Fired! audience combined with the panel disagreed with Sir Alan's decision.
• Notes: Paula stated she first wanted to make tequila and dog flavoured shower gel and soap but Yasmina laughed it off. Nick commented in the boardroom that if Empire had used cedarwood and not sandalwood in their products, they would have won the task with a profit of £590. Sir Alan commented that he felt Empire had produced better products than Ignite, and that in that aspect of the task, they had done well. In The Apprentice: Why I Fired Them Sir Alan stated Noorul should have been fired but because of the pricing mistake make by Empire, his team won by default. Sir Alan had also commented that Paula had managed her team well, but added that it was irrelevant since she had lost money.

Week 5

• Project managers: Kate (Empire) and Kimberly (Ignite)
• Task: To produce a brand identity for a new breakfast cereal, including a television advert and original character, and pitch it to a panel of advertising experts.
• Result: Empire decided on a pirate theme, and branded their cereal "Treasure Flakes," also creating a pirate parrot character called Captain Squawk to go along with it. On team Ignite, Philip suggested theming their cereal around pants
  Undergarment
  Undergarments or underwear are clothes worn under other clothes, often next to the skin. They keep outer garments from being soiled by bodily secretions and discharges, shape the body, and provide support for parts of it. In cold weather, long underwear is sometimes worn to provide additional...
  
  , and this eventually evolved into a cereal called "Wake Up Call," with a character called "Pants Man" who was supposed to point out that only superheroes are allowed to wear their pants outside their other clothing, and that eating Wake Up Call could prevent people making that mistake. The Treasure Flakes box was felt to be somewhat overcrowded by the advertising experts, though Sir Alan was impressed by it. The experts also questioned whether Empire had considered just who their target audience were. Ignite were criticised for having an incomplete box due to not briefing their graphics designer in time, and Mona's presentation style annoyed the audience. The "Pantsman" idea was generally considered to be muddled, though the technical quality of the accompanying TV ad was praised. In the boardroom Sir Alan branded Ignite's campaign "total, absolute garbage" and declared Empire to be the clear winners.
• Winner: Empire
• Reward: Yoga and laughter therapy session.
• Brought into the boardroom: Kimberly, Philip and Lorraine
• Fired: Kimberly, for being an ineffective leader and coming up with a poor campaign despite her advertising background, and for bringing Lorraine (who Sir Alan did not consider responsible for the loss despite her disruptive behaviour) back into the boardroom instead of Noorul.

Week 6

• Project managers: Ben (Empire) and Philip (Ignite)
• Team reshuffle: Noorul moves to Empire; Kate moves to Ignite
• Task: To sell a miscellaneous assortment of items, including a "hidden gem", on the streets of London.
• Result: Both teams were given ten items which they had to value and sell, including a skeleton, a deceptively valuable Indian rug, a bicycle, a box of second-hand books and a commode. Both teams got stuck into selling without spending a great deal of time trying to identify the higher-value items. Towards the end of the day, with time running out, Ben sold several valuable items at a loss. In particular, Empire lost over £150 on the bicycle and the skeleton, both of which were sold by Noorul. Ignite managed a modest profit on most of their sales, but committed a serious error by selling the rug for virtually nothing, cancelling out all their profits and taking them into a deficit. Both teams made a net loss (relative to the items' nominal values), but Ignite made the smaller loss and therefore were declared the winners. In the boardroom, tensions were high and Debra became angry with Nick Hewer when he suggested that she hadn't closed a deal to sell a second-hand book. Sir Alan responded by warning Debra about her mouth. Ben initially chose to bring James and Noorul back to the boardroom but then changed his selection to Debra and Noorul, after Debra actually demanded to be bought back. Debra was warned about her snappy and argumentative manner, and Ben was told he was on a last warning, but eventually Noorul was singled out and fired.
• Winner: Ignite
• Reward: Dinner, featuring beef and truffles, at a luxury restaurant.
• Brought into the boardroom: Ben, Noorul and Debra.
• Fired: Noorul, for not contributing to the task, for being ineffective throughout the competition and for selling two of the items well below their value
• Notes: A number of Apprentice firsts happened during this week, as it was the first time that both teams had lost money, the first time that a project manager was not fired after losing money, and the first time that a candidate demanded to be brought back into the boardroom (something that usually results in an automatic firing in the show's original U.S. incarnation, although Sir Alan thought that Debra should have been brought back anyway, saving her from this fate). One of the factors that contributed to Sir Alan's decision to fire Noorul was Howard, Philip and Lorraine stating (though never referring to him directly) that they were outraged that he had not been brought back to the boardroom when they had been in previous tasks, due to his consistent habit of going under the radar; Howard expressing the view in Week 2, and Philip and Lorraine in Week 5.

Week 7

• Project managers: Mona (Empire) and Lorraine (Ignite)
• Team reshuffle: Howard and Mona move to Empire; Ben and Yasmina move to Ignite
• Task: To travel to North West England
  North West England
  North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...
  
   where the candidates must select two new innovative products to sell to trade.
• Result: From the 12 available items, neither team selected products that were ideally suited to the two retailers that Sir Alan had laid on for the teams to pitch to; Empire selected a "Selk Bag" (sleeping bag suit) and the "Lovers' Lead" – a dog lead for two people to share – while Ignite selected a bag-carrying attachment for bicycles, and a set of cat playhouses. Empire failed to secure any sales from the main two potential customers, and Ignite had success with only one of them, and so both relied on sales made on the second day of the task, when the teams themselves sought out companies to pitch the products to. Empire sold over £4,500 worth of goods, including Mona's large contribution of £2,447 while Ignite sold just over £1,000 worth. Within Ignite, only Lorraine and Yasmina sold any items; Ben, Kate and Philip sold nothing between them.
• Winner: Empire by £3,500
• Reward: A luxurious helicopter ride over London at sunset.
• Brought into the boardroom: Lorraine, Kate and Philip.
• Fired: Philip, for his poor behaviour and constant negativity towards other candidates, which Sir Alan saw no place for in his organisation.
• Notes: The three cities that the teams operated in were Liverpool
  Liverpool
  Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
  
  , Manchester
  Manchester
  Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
  
   and Chester
  Chester
  Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
  
  . Despite failing to sell anything himself, Ben managed to set up an appointment at the head offices of pet superstore chain Pets at Home
  Pets at Home
  Pets at Home is a large pet supplies retail chain in the United Kingdom. With 300 stores nationwide, it is the largest pet supplies retail chain in the United Kingdom Pets at home currently have over 5000 employees...
  
   for Lorraine and Yasmina, which accounted for most of Ignite's sales income on the second day. In the boardroom, Lorraine revealed that Philip and Kate were in a relationship and accused them of conspiring against her. The two denied this was the case however, and Kate even criticised Philip's performance in the task.

Week 8

• Project managers: Debra (Empire) and Yasmina (Ignite)
• Task: To rebrand the seaside resort of Margate
  Margate
  -Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....
  
  , Kent
  Kent
  Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
  
  , by producing a series of posters and leaflets.
• Result: Empire decided to promote Margate as a gay resort, playing on the town's existing gay scene, while Ignite decided to market it as a family resort. The locals and industry experts felt that while Ignite's idea wasn't hugely inventive and didn't take any risks, it was well executed. Empire's by comparison was felt to be a more daring idea, but very badly executed due to the incomplete leaflet (which Empire falsely claimed was due to them leaving space for local businesses to advertise) and poorly designed, over-crowded posters. Ignite received a score of 7/10 from both the board of local residents and industry experts for their pitch, whereas Empire only received 4/10.
• Winner: Ignite
• Reward: Lotus Exige
  Lotus Exige
  The Lotus Exige is a two-door, two-seat sports car made by Lotus Cars. It is essentially a coupé version of the Lotus Elise, a mid-engined roadster in production since 1996....
  
   Driving Day at Thruxton Circuit
  Thruxton Circuit
  Thruxton Circuit is a motor racing circuit located near the village of Thruxton in Hampshire, England which is used to host a number of motorsport events including British Touring Cars and Formula 3 racing....
  
  .
• Brought into the boardroom: Debra, Mona and James.
• Fired: Mona, with regret, for withdrawing from the task because she disapproved of the gay theme, and for failing to demonstrate any skills other than selling.
• Notes: The Times published the result prematurely online. Also, this was the second week in a row that a candidate went from winning PM to fired in one week. Sir Alan indirectly praised Howard's work ethic this task.

Week 9

• Project managers: James (Empire) and Lorraine (Ignite)
• Team reshuffle: Ben and Yasmina move to Empire; Howard moves to Ignite.
• Task: To interview suppliers of baby equipment, select two products, and sell them on to a potential 10,000 customers at the country's biggest baby show.
• Result: Ignite chose a padded toddler helmet and a travel pushchair, while Empire selected a home birthing pool and an expensive hand-made rocking horse. Ignite came out firmly on top with sales of more than £1,600, compared to Empire's £722.
• Winner: Ignite by £878
• Reward: A caricature
  Caricature
  A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
  
   of themselves drawn by cartoonist Gerald Scarfe
  Gerald Scarfe
  Gerald Anthony Scarfe, CBE, RDI, is an English cartoonist and illustrator. He worked as editorial cartoonist for The Sunday Times and illustrator for The New Yorker...
  
  .
• Brought into the boardroom: James, Ben and Debra
• Fired: Ben, for being too sure of himself; Sir Alan believed he had no future in the competition.

Week 10

• Project managers: Yasmina (Empire) and Howard (Ignite)
• Task: To select a range of products and sell them live on a TV shopping channel
• Result: Empire chose a range of low-price products ranging from £14.99 to £29.99, including a remote control car, a gardening tool, hair clips and a head-wrap. They sold a large volume of goods, and Debra's selling of the head-wraps in particular was praised. Ignite went for more of a mixture, including a lower-priced craft set and infra-red "air guitar", and a shallow fryer and leather jacket priced at £199.99 and £149.99 respectively. Despite their inclusion of higher value items, Ignite's sales figures were poor: they sold only £1376.73 worth of products versus Empire's £1541.88.
• Winner: Empire by £165.15
• Reward: A private flight with an aerobatics
  Aerobatics
  Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in normal flight. Aerobatics are performed in airplanes and gliders for training, recreation, entertainment and sport...
  
   team.
• Brought into the boardroom: Howard, Lorraine, Kate (the remaining three in the team)
• Fired: Howard, for not taking enough risks and lacking any truly exceptional qualities. He was not shown to be fired with regret on the main episode, but it was revealed on You're Fired that he was.
• Notes: After Empire's win, Yasmina became the first Apprentice candidate to hold a 3-0 win record as a Project Manager. On You're Fired, the decision of firing Howard was not supported by both the panel (which included Margret Mountford) and the audience.

Week 11: Interviews — Semi-finals

• Semi-finalists: Kate, Lorraine, James, Yasmina, Debra
• Task: The five remaining candidates must undergo a series of interviews by four of Sir Alan's
  Alan Sugar
  Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar is a British entrepreneur, media personality and political advisor. From humble origins in the East End of London, Sugar now has an estimated fortune of £770m , and was ranked 89th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011...
  
   business colleagues.
• Result: Kate was felt to be the best all-round candidate, but there were questions about her being "too perfect" and she was also accused of being too controlled and robotic. Yasmina also received praise from the interviewers, but her motives for wanting to work for Sir Alan were called into question, and she was criticised for not knowing the turnover of her own restaurant, and also for getting her mother to remortgage her home to finance the restaurant's start-up costs. James was accused of not being serious enough, and for having a CV that was incomprehensible to anyone outside the communications industry. Debra earned fierce criticism, ironically enough from her own referees, for being difficult to work with and being extremely aggressive and bad-tempered. But Sir Alan realised that she had great potential and that she was only 23 and that he needed a fiery person in his business as she was extremely skilled and other candidates claimed she was a "business expert." Lorraine fared the worst, as her relatively sparse CV came in for criticism and she also stood accused of being hard to work with; she was also found to have overstated her previous employment term for a year, which she claimed was a typographical error, but the interviewer accused her of lying and attempting to pad out her CV. In the boardroom, Sir Alan came to the conclusion that James's corporate background and failure to take things seriously made him completely unsuitable for the job, and he was the first to be fired. Lorraine went second, after Sir Alan decided that despite whatever intuition she had displayed, he couldn't overlook the poor reports from the interviewers and her former team-mates. Of the remaining candidates, Sir Alan had serious issues with Debra's attitude and Yasmina's motives, but found no such major faults with Kate and so made her the first finalist. He found choice of the second difficult, but reluctantly fired Debra in what he said was virtually a split-decision, making Yasmina the other finalist.
• Fired:
  • James, with regret, for being a "corporate" person, which Sir Alan said such an environment doesn't exist in his organisation. (The remaining four candidates had tears in their eyes upon firing of James, resulting in Sir Alan sending them out of the Boardroom to cool down.)
  • Lorraine for unable to communicate clearly to the executives, as well as being too aggressive.
  • Debra for too aggressive and being difficult to work with. However, Sir Alan's parting remark to Debra was to "Keep in touch".
• Notes: This was technically the first treble firing in the show's history; three candidates also left in the interview stage of the third series, but Katie Hopkins
  Katie Hopkins
  Katie Hopkins is a British reality television contestant, businesswoman and journalist, best known for her 2007 appearance on the third UK series of TV reality programme The Apprentice, in which contestants compete for a £100,000-a-year job working for British businessman Sir Alan Sugar. Hopkins...
  
   resigned rather than being fired. Sir Alan also said that deciding on a final two from Debra, Kate, and Yasmina was very hard. He had given serious consideration to just firing James and letting the other four candidates all proceed to the final (in a repeat of the previous year), but decided not to after discussing Lorraine's performances in the previous tasks with Nick and Margaret during the intermission after James's firing. Nick and Margaret agreed that Lorraine was a far weaker candidate than any of the other three, and that she would disadvantage whoever she was paired up with in the final.

Week 12: The Grand Finale

• Finalists: Kate and Yasmina
• Task: The two remaining finalists have to create, brand and market a new box of chocolates from scratch before presenting them in front of a panel of over 100 business and chocolate experts. They will also each create a 30 second television commercial. 8 previously fired contestants (Ben, Debra, Howard, James, Kimberly, Lorraine, Philip, and Rocky) return to the series to once again form teams in order to help push their final project manager to victory.
• Teams:
  • Ignite: Kate with Ben, Debra, Kimberly, and Rocky (watched by Nick)
  • Empire: Yasmina with Howard, Lorraine, James, and Philip (watched by Margaret)
• Results:
  • Ignite: Kate and her team quickly chose a romantic theme 'for him, for her, to share..." for their chocolates, which they named 'Intimate' before Debra criticized the name, saying it sounded like feminine sanitary products. Kate changed it to 'Choc d'amour'. They worked with Master Chocolatier Paul A Young
    Paul A Young
    Paul A. Young is an English chocolatier and pattissier.-Early life and education:Young was born in Yorkshire and raised in the small mining town of Trimdon Station, Co. Durham...
    
     of Paul A Young Fine Chocolates to develop a high quality product with flavours including Strawberry & Champagne, Sea-salted Caramel, Passionfruit, and Honey & Lemongrass. Kate's presentation and flavours were praised, but her product was felt to be too expensive for the mass market at £13.
  • Empire: Yasmina initially chose to theme her chocolates towards males, but after negative feedback, they decided on an unconventionally flavoured budget priced box called 'Coco Electric' which they developed with Gerard Coleman of L'Artisan du Chocolat. The design of Yasmina's box, the low price of £6, and the commercial were praised, but the low quality of the product and poor flavours, which included strawberry & basil and chili & popping candy, were strongly criticized.

In the end, Sir Alan decided that Yasmina was the better candidate as she was not too perfect, robotic, or controlled and thought that she was more of a risk taker and that she would suit his business best. However, Sir Alan had claimed this to be the hardest decision he had ever made on the programme and if compared to another apprentice winner, Kate would have won the job. But since Yasmina was more willing to take risks, he chose to hire her.

• Runner-Up: Kate, for being "too perfect and robotic", and for pricing the chocolates at a high retail price
• Hired: Yasmina, for being more of a risk taker, and for promoting her chocolates well business-wise, despite the bad quality of the taste of the chocolates
• Notes: The broadcast was moved from its original slot on a Wednesday to the earlier Sunday. This was to avoid competing with a football match due to be shown live on ITV1 between England & Andorra.
• Response: Response to the final decision was mixed: The Mirror stated that "the wrong candidate won." The Times merely noted that "the final, much like this series, was brisk, efficient and quite boring", and in the blogosphere Edwin's Raisin declared it "all a bit much of a muchness in the end: both contestants impeccably competent in their performance of the final task and both fully accepting of the hype that Suralan is the fiercest, most successful businessman the world has ever known."

Ratings

Episode Viewing figures from BARB

Barb

Barb may refer to:* A backward-facing point on a fish hook or similar implement, rendering extraction from the victim's flesh more difficult* Wind barbs for each station on a map of reported weather conditions...

.

Episode No.	Airdate	Total Viewers	BBC One Weekly Ranking
1	25 March 2009	8,710,000	4
2	1 April 2009	7,160,000	5
3	8 April 2009	8,040,000	5
4	15 April 2009	7,860,000	4
5	22 April 2009	8,320,000	2
6	29 April 2009	8,290,000	2
7	6 May 2009	8,450,000	2
8	13 May 2009	8,500,000	2
9	20 May 2009	8,900,000	2
10	27 May 2009	7,140,000	3
11	3 June 2009	9,760,000	1
12	7 June 2009	9,310,000	2

External links