Yasmina Siadatan Wins The Apprentice 2009
The Fifth Year of the BBC’s Business Series Concludes
Jun 7, 2009
So it’s finally come to an end. The tantrums, the swearing, petty arguing about tiny details, the vacuous souls coming under scrutiny by a rich bloke and his accomplices, but enough about Britain’s Got Talent as that thankfully ceases to exist for another year. In the fifth series of the BBC’s Apprentice it was restaurateur Yasmina Siadatan who impressed the boss Alan Sugar enough to survive the walk of shame over Kate Walsh.
The schedules were jumbled this year as the final was shown on Sunday, June 7 because the Beeb didn’t want to compete with ITV’s broadcast of a bunch of flash millionaires kicking a ball around a field on the Wednesday. Whoever made that decision should be...commended, as it would end in tears.
Yasmina Wins in the Chocolate Task
In the twelfth week the two remaining candidates had to create, brand and market a new box of chocolates to be presented in front of a panel of chocolate experts. It’s the usual bog-standard ending of taking all the main bits from previous tasks together. Given what transpired during the last episode it was somewhat a shock decision.
One face value Kate’s “his and her” box, despite being the most expensive, was a far superior product that would find its market and she was very good at presenting. It wasn’t, however, enough to swing the single vote in her favour. Yasmina’s idea of choccies aimed at blokes was never going to work, neither was some of the “shocking” flavours – strawberry and basil anyone? And Electro Choc would have been a much punchier name than Cocoa Electric.
Did the Right Person Win The Apprentice 2009?
If the winner was based solely on this task alone then Kate should have been chosen as The Apprentice. Her brand was clearly better even if the price was a bit high. Taking the series as a whole, it’s a close call to make – Beardy did, as always, say it was the hardest choice – but Kate still edges it as although she had scary teeth and a strange manner when talking on the phone her performance throughout the series was more impressive and she was a very good negotiator.
Both are the same age and in all the tasks both of them were consistent but Yasmina proved to Sir Alan that running her own business demonstrated she had natural ability, on the show she was a very successful project manager, was a good team player and did bring out the best in other people. Money and the credit crunch was the theme this year and she appeared to have embraced that with no problem by watching the funds and profit margins closely (except for the sandlewood error).
Series Overview and the Hilarious James McQuillan
One thing that changed this year was to have 35 minutes of the task and then 25 minute of boardroom action. Is it really necessary to have extended scenes of the same people have the same childish arguments every week while an angry bearded bloke peers on ready to strike with his firing finger? If the producers felt that the jobs weren’t interesting enough for TV then pick better ones; it would certainly cut down a lot of the selective editing and the viewer has more chance to see the people put their ego-driven words into action.
What was a largely mediocre series had one major saving grace: James McQuillan. If The Apprentice was about entertainment value then James would have sailed through without breaking a sweat. No single candidate has ever provided so many laugh-out-loud moments and quotable phrases (“when I wake up in the morning I can taste success in my spit” amongst others), perhaps the only thing that let him down in the competition was his frequent bouts of foot-in-mouth syndrome.
In all honesty he’s the big winner here. Whatever route he chooses for himself now (stand-up comedy maybe?) he’s bound to do well and it would be a rare occurrence where a former reality TV star would actually be a welcome addition to the media. Please?
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