The Apprentice episode 2: David Alden is fired as the boys' comic proves marginally more atrocious
The Apprentice week 2 (10 October) saw the contestants tasked with creating their own comic books, Lord Sugar pointing out that they're a billion dollar industry.
Unfortunately, the challenge turned out to be an embarrassment for pretty much all involved. Both the boys and the girls' teams completely missing the target market of eight to 12-year-olds, creating comics that would struggle to keep a four-year-old's attention.
Here were the biggest talking points:
The boys dream up the least interesting superhero imaginable
After debating a number of banal, alliterative names for superheroes, the boys settled on "Benji from the Beyond". It wasn't exactly the most original or nuanced story, Benji managing to save the world with one zap of his blaster.
Benji had a diversity problem
And it wasn't spotted by one of the businessmen but a school child in their focus group.
The girls decide their protagonist will teach kids French, only none of them speak it
They dreamed up "MC Gogo", a red blob with legs and rainbow hair who visits the Eiffel Tower. From the moment a contestant wrote "bonjoir" (sic) on the storyboard, however, it was clear their French wasn't up to eight-year-old scratch. The retailers they pitched to were quick to pull them up on this.
Khadija has never heard of Kim Jong un
Somehow, the girls – led by Khadija – managed to secure more orders than the boys and were sent off to a climbing wall, while the boys huddled around Styrofoam cups of lukewarm tea down the caf'.
Khadija was hailed by Lord Sugar as ruling with the iron fist of a Vladimir Putin or a Kim Jong un. She later confessed however that she didn't know who the latter was.
Fantasy writer David didn't have the storytelling chops
Project manager Frank chose to bring Kurran and David back into the boardroom, all of whom received a thorough grilling by Lord Sugar.
Frank was criticised for Benji's bland concept, but it was David who got the boot, having bragged about his fantasy fiction writing on his CV only to turn in that sub-par comic. Don't expect to see his novels on the shelves anytime soon. Nevertheless, "I had so much more to give," he insisted on the cab ride home.
If you want to read how it went down moment-by-moment, please find what was our live coverage below:
As ever, Sugar was joined by aides Karren Brady and Claude Littner this week. You can find out more about the 2018 candidates by flicking through the gallery below:
Last week we spoke to fired contestant Sarah about her time on the show: “[Lord Sugar] definitely made the wrong choice. I put 100 per cent effort into the task. I got two items.
“They said that I was disruptive, but at the end of the day without the items we would have failed even more than we did. He definitely made the wrong decision and I shouldn’t have gone.”
She also backed Sabrina and Kayode to win the fourteenth series.
The Apprentice airs every Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One.
