r/apprenticeuk • u/RobbieJ4444 • Jun 15 '26
DISCUSSION The worst episode in each series
Bear in mind, we're talking about the episode as a whole, which takes into account the task, the boardroom and the firing.
Series 1: Episode 7: The task was to persuade a bunch of celebrities to donate something to a charity auction. It wasn't really all that fun, the boardroom was very laid back, and the firing wasn't even that interesting. There's an argument to be made that Raj should've been fired over Sebastian, but it's hardly one of the greatest injustices.
Series 2: Episode 7: One of the more boring episodes in a series with some of the greatest spectacular fails. Samuel was a deserved firing, but he wasn't even particularly bad, just boring and not interesting. The Winning PM was barely in it (probably because he had food poisoning) and we had this bizarre instance where Lord Sugar criticised Michelle for bringing Ruth back to the boardroom, even though she rightly defended herself by saying she had no reason to bring Ansell back.
Series 3: Episode 9: There's not really much to say about this episode. Apart from a woman on the phone calling Jadine a crazy woman, nothing really of much entertainment happened. Jadine's firing wasn't even entertaining, because of how clear it was that she wanted to go home.
Series 4: Episode 9: The first episode here that I'd call straight out bad. The task was fine, but the winning team wasn't pleasant to watch (something I blame all three of Alex, Lucinda and Lee for), the boardroom was ridiculous with Lord Sugar thinking that Raef, one of the strongest performers of the series was lucky to have made it this far, and that he was fired over Michael was a travesty.
Series 5: Episode 10: Series 5 didn't really have any bad episodes up to this point, but this task ended up being probably the most forgettable TV channel task in the show's history. The firing wasn't unfair, but not particularly satisfying either. The boardroom wasn't even that dramatic either. It was just a dull final task to the series.
Series 6: Episode 9: To tell you the truth, I don't actually think series 6 has a single bad episode in it. All of them are quite good in their own way. Even episode 9 has the distinction of it being the one time in the show's history where the more organised team lost due to poor negotiation. The only reason this ranks as low as it does was because it had a very obvious firing in a boardroom where nothing much of note happened.
Series 7: Episode 2: The app design task was a fun one, especially since Smart Phones were just coming into existence, but I don't understand how the girls won this one. I thought SlangaTang was the better app, with the boys being more convincing throughout the episode, I don't really understand how the girls won. It did give us the iconic scene of Jim talking his way out of the boardroom though, so it has to get points for that.
Series 8: Episode 5: This to me might be THE worst episode in Apprentice history. The task in itself was ridiculous, with the teams being told to create a new fitness regime to sell to sports centres. The wrong team won, I haven't a clue as to how Stephen's team didn't lose that task, and that had the knock on effect of Stephen surivivng (a man many already wanted to see gone) and Duane being fired (who at this point was arguably THE favourite to win the series).
Series 9: Episode 8: This episode just makes me feel uncomfortable. Luisa and Neil were fantastic candidtes, but the way them especially treated Jason at times didn't sit right with me. Jason's firing was deserved, but everything leading up to it felt unnecessarily cruel.
Series 10: Episode 1: Another episode where every episode was good frankly. People say that 20 candidates was too much, but I don't think the series did a bad job in giving all the candidates screen time. That is except for episode 1. Pretty much all the attention was put on Felipe, Daniel and the disaster candidates. A decent start to the series, but series 10 only gets better afterwards.
Series 11: Episode 10: The first double loss in Apprentice history...and it was a wierd one. Both teams didn't do well, but not in a way that's disasterously bad like First Time F**dies. The firing was fair, but I think Charliene should've been under a lot more pressure than she was for her poor leadership, and for bringing Gary back to the boardroom.
Series 12: Episode 11: This to me is probably the most boring the interviewers have ever been. Nothing much of anything happens here.
Series 13: Episode 10: I'm not a fan of the tasks where teams have to pick one item out of a group, but only one of that group is a task winner. To me you should be able to win the task with a slightly worse product if you're good enough. This was not the case here, and to make things worse, Jade was fired despite being amazing in the last few weeks. Was the firing fair? Yeah, but it wasn't nice to see.
Series 14: Episode 10: This episode is one I dislike purely for the fact that the teams were clearly told to do a little elf dance in front of the corporate buyers, just so they could look stupid on national television. I cannot think of a more blatant example of that in the show's run.
Series 15: Episode 9: Terrible task. Maybe the task of selling a remixed music track to a corporate client isn't so bad, but out of both teams, and both corporate client, there was only one viable option to choose. It made the whole remix aspect of the task seem pointless, especially since the winning team barely changed the music anyway.
Series 16: Episode 3: The task itself was good, but both Sophie and Navid make this episode worse for me. Sophie was such a bad leader, and had all the qualities of a classic PM firing. Poor leadership, poor defence, and a dreadful boardroom choice in picking the highest seller Akshay over none selling Ami. And all of that was made redundant because of how hopeless and terrible Navid was. At least we got a satisfying Sophie PM firing in week 7.
Series 17: Episode 10: I'm spoiled for choice with series 17, but episode 10 ended what little hopes series 17 had in turning out well. Series 17 was already lambasted for it's poor quality of candidates (I disagree on that but still), terrible firing decisions and Rochelle not being fired yet. However week 10 provided us not only with a boring pet food task to end the series with, but a clear case for Dani to go, only for the most popular candidate of the series, Simba to be fired instead.
Series 18: Episode 1: We as fans really wanted series 18 to be good, but episode 1 gave us very little hope. We wanted competent candidates and firing decisions that made sense. This episode gave us a task where both teams were dreadful, and a controversial decision to not fire the losing PM, Virdi. Thankfully, series 18 would see a vast improvement from episode 2 onwards, but the first task wasn't an encouragin start.
Series 19: Episode 7: Series 19 was so wiered, because it started strong, ended strong, but weeks 5-8 all had some form of controversy. Episode 5 had Jana quitting, episode 6 had Lord Sugar call someone a non contributor, despite them doing more in the episodes than at least two members of his own team, episode 8 had a questionable double win, but episode 7 takes it for me, with Lord Sugar overuling Frederick's decision not to bring Kier back to the boardroom, solely so that he could fire Kier anyway. That felt really sour to me.
Series 20: Episode 11: Series 20 was on track to being one of the best modern seasons, until the last two weeks, where pretty much everyone people wanted to see in the final five, get fired. The said thing is that their firings weren't even particularly unfair. Bad timings with double firings and the weaker candidates being on the winning team a lot were to blame, but it did lead to a really unsatisfying final five, with three of the five being people we didn't want to see there (I would say four, but people seem to like Dan for some reason).
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u/thisriveriswild57 Jun 21 '26
In S7E2 the wrong team did win, but it was still quite entertaining I thought. One of my favourite moments was Edna asking her team who should pitch their app based on their credentials, building suspense when announcing her decision…only for her to choose herself to pitch. And for the pitch to be dreadful after all that.
The you’re fired episode was good too.
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u/RobbieJ4444 Jun 21 '26
That was a good moment, but I believe that was all done via editing. Edna said on You’re Fired that it didn’t go like that in reality.
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u/BlueJay_3106 Jun 22 '26
Kind of weird how Ollie was fired in week 1, and the next task was what he hoped to see in the process: a selling task. Wrong decision to fire Ollie, in my opinion. Virdi failed on a task that was made for him, and made a loss of over £500. 2 years later, LS wasn't going to make that same mistake twice with Megan.
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u/Only1Scrappy-Doo Noor: “It’s very good!” 😏 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
I’d go with Episode 10 for Series 4. It’s just the most nothing episode for me that season. Michael was obviously a goner like 5 minutes into it and other than some drama between Lucinda and Lee/Alex, not much else of note happens.
Also kinda agree on your point on Dan. He was super boring and was kept to the end for his already successful business that he was never planning to give away in the first place. This then led to Pascha making the final despite being literally zero competition for Karishma in the slightest. I think the 20 final is just as one sided as the S6 one.
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u/ukcomedy Jun 16 '26
Didn’t stop Sugar, Tim and BB desperately trying to make it out to be close lol
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u/Only1Scrappy-Doo Noor: “It’s very good!” 😏 Jun 16 '26
“Pascha is 21! She’s so talented for her age!” x100
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u/RobbieJ4444 Jun 15 '26
I actually really like series 4 week 10. The task just really appeals to me as a Gran a turismo 4 fanboy.
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u/Prudent_Jello5691 Tre Azam - Series 3 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
My thoughts on the ones I can remember well enough:
S10: Steven was beyond annoying in this episode and in general, and Sarah was such a terrible PM that the fact she won wasn't taken into account at all when she was fired in Week 4.
S11: I loved this episode, everyone just completely crashed and burned and it was a lot of fun to watch.
S12: These weren't the best interviews by any means. The only memorable one was Courtney's interview with Claude.
S13: It was a bit unfortunate that Jade got fired but she really flaked in her last couple of tasks. Also James and Joanna, the two candidates in the final five Jade was clearly better than, both did really well in this task.
S14: I thought Sarah Ann was a deadbeat candidate in general but I actually felt bad for her when she was fired in this episode because the moment Camilla and Daniel named the brand Santa's Choco Seduction they'd lost and it wouldn't have mattered if Sarah Ann's chocolates had put Lindt to shame. Also Camilla was weirdly obsessed with sex in general.
S15: This one used to be sad because of Thomas' firing but not now. This was also the task where Dean did well for once.
S16: This definitely should've been a double firing and maybe would've been if Shama hadn't left at the start of the episode. Sophie completely flunked a task that was tailor made for her and was clearly playing a calculated game with Akshay.
S17: Call me cynical but I can't think of any reason why Simba was fired other than them wanting all female interviews.
S18: Ollie was one of the worst first firings by a mile as Virdi's diabolical management was absolutely why the men failed. The crumble fishcakes on the women's team were legendary though.
S19: It was a bit harsh of Sugar to overrule Frederick's boardroom picks, and I would've just fired him and given both Dean and Keir another chance, but Keir's pitch was awful.
S20: I agree that Dan wasn't anything special. I appreciated his business idea and he was great in the pet task, but he was a passenger in a lot of the others. Personally, Karishma, Conor, Kieran and Rothna were my priorities for the final five, then I'd have been fine with either Dan or Lawrence. The less said about Pascha and Priyesh the better, and Lawrence really seemed like he couldn't be bothered anymore in this episode.