Episode Grade: A

Stella answers the phone today, and is in fact already dressed and ready to go while everyone else is still in bed. After hearing that they’ll be meeting at the Fashion Retail Academy, and need to pack overnight bags, Stella hangs up without saying goodbye, like they do on television. Predictably, everybody goes crazy upon hearing the phrase ‘overnight bag’, because all Apprenti have a Pavlovian response to that phrase that makes them think they’ll be going somewhere awesome, like Milan or Paris. Well, except for Stuart Baggs™ who laughs in Jamie and Christopher’s faces and says “That’s so ridiculously optimistic!”, and I don’t know what is up with him this week, but it’s awesome. He’s like this throughout the episode, just making fun of all the ridiculous delusions that everybody on this show operates under, it’s amazing. In interview, he explains the source of his Greek chorus attitude this week; “Fashion is the most boring thing in the whole world.” Which I think every male candidate will say some variation on at some point in the episode, because they are all desperately concerned about the possibility that someone will see them displaying anything but disdain for the whole concept and think that they are gay. Stuart Baggs™, though, I actually believe it coming from him. Whatever else he may be, he is not a man who is overly concerned about the way he is dressed.

LSAS explains the task, which is to pick two up and coming fashion designers in London, and try to sell their shit in the Trafford Centre in Manchester, then decides to shuffle up the teams a little more, to make it “fair”, because currently there are three dudes and two chicks on Synergy, and two dudes and four chicks on Apollo, and we’re all just going to take stereotypes at face value and assume that the men have nothing to contribute on this task. Which makes it a 2/4 split, and that’s not fair. So, Liz heads over to Synergy, while Stuart Baggs™ joins Apollo. LSAS also appoints the PMs himself this time; Liz will head Synergy, Paloma will head Apollo. Do you think he’s deliberately obstructing anyone who tries the “I haven’t been PM yet” defence in the Boardroom from getting that chance? If he makes it Christopher and Alex next week, that’d be hilarious, because then literally everyone but Sandeesh and Stuart Baggs™ will have been PM at some point.

Apollo. Paloma opens up by asking who on the team is “a fashionista”, and answers her own question by flatly assuming that the answer is “Laura and Sandeesh”. Alex, the only man who doesn’t run screaming away from the gay grenade, and is instead cheerfully oblivious to it, redirects the question to the more useful question of explaining what skills he has that might be of some use on this task; “a very famous professor of retailing taught me retailing.” I’m trying to think of a more ludicrous claim I’ve ever heard on this show, but I’m coming up short. A very famous professor of retailing. Not just famous, mind you, but very famous. In interview he shares some of the wisdom he learned from this very famous professor of retailing; “Retail is all about creating a hive of honey, and getting people to the honey pot.” You want to attract customers, not repel them. That kind of knowledge is worth its weight in gold, that’s for sure.

Episode Grade: A

Stuart Baggs™ is the phone-answerer this week, and receives the news that the Apprenti are off to the Science Museum to receive their next task. Jamie, who apparently has never paid attention to the esoteric nature of LSAS’s segues, predicts that the task will have “something to do with science or museums”. They arrive at the museum, and Nick and Karren are standing there, of course, right next to a conveniently placed exhibit that LSAS can jump out from behind, dressed in a hockey mask and carrying a chainsaw, which he does. “This building is full of objects!” he starts immediately, not even giving the candidates a moment to break wind. These objects have changed the world, but they all started out as someone’s crazy idea, and LSAS has ten people with crazy ideas of their own, and he wants the teams to pick two of these crazy ideas and sell them to trade. Also, to increase the drama and petty infighting that Apollo are so good at, each candidate will have their own order book to fill up, so they all need to make some sales. Ostensibly, this is done so that no one can coast on this task, but really, it’s for the drama. The teams are currently split 7/5, so LSAS sends Alex over to Apollo, and away they go.

Now we get one of those increasingly rare bits where LSAS sits in the back of a limo and tells us which team wins ahead of time. Donald Trump does this every week on the US version. It’s kind of patronising. LSAS explains that he has lined up appointments with some large retailers, so the key to this task will be picking the right products for the right retailers. So look out for that.

Synergy set to work choosing their PM, and they have two volunteers; Melissa and Jamie. Just like last week. Melissa is doing it because, surprisingly, she did actually pay some attention when LSAS said “the team won in spite of you and I’m going to fire you ASAP”, so she thinks she needs to prove herself. Oh, and this task “speaks to [her] skill set.” Like it does every week. Jamie freely admits that his experience is less relevant to this particular task, and it’s a unanimous vote in his favour, obviously, because they were all there last week. Melissa looks absolutely crushed by the team’s lack of faith in her. Which is dumb, because yes, OK, they all think you suck, but also because even if you’d been the best PM ever, nobody gets to be PM two weeks in a row, this early in the competition. But to realise that, Melissa would have to realise that the candidates are all equals, competing for the same prize, and not robots sent to obstruct Melissa personally in the pursuit of her ultimate destiny.

Episode Grade: A

6:30 AM, Alex, who is already up and fully dressed, and possibly does not actually require sleep, takes the phone call this time. There’s the usual 30 minutes, and Stuart Baggs™ is looking particularly out of it this morning, and the Apprenti are off to Fortnum and Mason. In the car, Liz says that F&M are “famous for their hampers”, although no famous enough for me personally to have ever heard of them, and Melissa thinks maybe the task is to “create a hamper that speaks to certain people”, and Stuart Baggs™ makes a dumb joke about talking hampers that falls completely flat. What’s he doing in their car? Did they mix the teams already and nobody told me? I’d hate to miss that.

F&M. There’s some lovely looking cakes arranged on trays, and very regal music playing, and Nick and Karren (two r’s, as I have now realised. Sorry about that.) standing stiffly, and then LSAS hops into the picture in that way he always does where he looks like he’s going to throw out the jazz hands and say “wahey!”. It totally ruins the moment every time, I love it. The segue to the task is awfully direct; cakes, pastries, “turning flour into serious dough”, which actually elicits a groan out of someone, while everyone else fake-laughs. LSAS has “laid on two bakeries”. They weren’t particularly comfortable. Really, where does the ‘laid on’ thing come from? He says it all the time, it’s weird. Anyway, essentially, this is the same task as week one, but with bread and cakes and muffins instead of sausages, and also there are a few meetings with big business pre-arranged.

And now, because all LSAS has seen for the past two weeks is apparently “arguing and cackling”, he’s hoping that mixing the teams will settle that down a bit. I love team mixing, it’s like my favourite part of the show. I don’t know why. It’s best when the Apprenti get to choose for themselves, but this is pretty fun too; Chris and Shippy are sent to Apollo, while Melissa and Joanna join Synergy. I think he was deliberately aiming for the weakest members on each team. Certainly, Melissa is the obvious problem child on Apollo, while Joanna has been incorrectly identified as such. And Chris is definitely a problem child for Synergy, emphasis on the child, and Shibby, well, we’ll see how that goes. It would have been more parallel if Stuart Baggs™ had been sent over, I guess, since he’s in the same spot as Joanna right now.

Episode Grade: D

5:30 AM, and Jamie takes the call; the Apprenti have half an hour to get ready for a trip to Heathrow. We run through the requisite shots of everyone looking groggy and unkempt, and on the way to the airport, Jamie and Shibby agree that this week they must beat “those girlies”. And then… Heathrow.

LSAS is too busy with something actually important to meet these chumps in person today, so he appears via video to inform them of their task. “Beach holidays are big business, whether it’s Bermuda or Bognor. People are prepared to spend a lot of money before they go on holiday to make sure they have a relaxing and stress-free time.” Take note of that last parts, guys, it’s important. It means “don’t design something that actually causes more hassle than the alternative of using nothing whatsoever to perform the task for which your product is designed.” So yeah, the task. Design a ‘beach accessory’ to be pitched to three different retailers. LSAS also notes that Synergy are “a man down”, which is perhaps not the best choice of phrasing, given the circumstances. Raleigh’s brother was critically injured in Afghanistan, so he’s decided to bow out of the competition to be with his family, and no one will begrudge him that choice. As a result, though, the teams need a little balancing, so Stella is sent to join the men to “keep them in check”. She looks fairly apprehensive about the prospect, but manages to put on a fairly convincing smile as she walks over to join them.

Now, I didn’t hear LSAS actually say in so many words that he was appointing Stella as PM for Synergy, but it appears that they’ve taken that as read anyway. She tells us that she’s had plenty of experience working with “serious businessmen”, and these guys are “quite young”, so she has “no problem whatsoever in whipping these boys into shape”. I certainly believe her. She tells the guys that she’s not going to put up with petty squabbling. Jamie adjusts his tie nervously, Stella glares.

Right now, I get to watch it three times a week, because the Irish version, the American version and the British version are all running simultaneously. I’m so happy. I might post some words about the other two versions later, but for now, here is a recap of the definitive version of

The Apprentice episode 6×01 – “Bangers”

Episode Grade: A-

“There’s absolutely nothing mediocre about me. I’m supremely intelligent, ambitious… I am an all around gifted individual.” Ah, Apprenti, how I have missed your humility. That one’s Chris, but as usual, these opening soundbites are so loaded with cliché that it doesn’t actually matter who is speaking. Melissa, the most visually interesting candidate with her scene haircut and glasses, is “charismatic”, “intelligent”, “a damn good business woman” and “unbeatable”. Stuart Baggs™, who has distilled the very essence of the typical Apprentice cockiness, mixed it in with two parts Alan Partridge, and somehow produced PURE GOLD, considers himself an absolutely fantastic salesman – “Everything I touch turns to sold,” he says. That’s fantastic, it really is. It’s a clever play on words, except for the clever part – he has changed nothing of the actual meaning of the original phrase, he’s just made it more grammatically dubious. “Everything I touch turns to sold.” That’s just precious. Alex claims to consider himself a maverick, and not just a corporate clone, but I don’t feel like his heart is in it. Liz opts for the ‘youthful and adaptable’ tack. Shibby makes a pretty credible attempt to claim Stuart Baggs™’s award for the most ridiculous opening soundbite by claiming that his first word “wasn’t mummy, it was money”, and he says it with a little smile on his face like he’s really proud of coming up with it. Think about that for a second.

That’s enough soundbites, time to big up Lord Sir Alan Sugar and his exciting new title and show us a bunch of clips from future episodes that one could scrutinize in great detail to determine when certain candidates will or will not be fired ahead of time, if one was that way inclined. Skipping over that, obviously.

It’s midnight, and LSAS has called the assorted Apprenti to the boardroom to test their brownnosing credentials by telling terrible jokes and seeing who laughs convincingly. “I’ve read all of your CVs. On paper, you all look very good, but then again, so does fish and chips.” That one doesn’t even make sense. There’s a bit of blah blah recessioncakes, then it’s straight on with the exciting first twist – this year, they don’t get the traditional meet and greet garden party, they’re getting down to business right here, right now. The candidates will be working through the night making sausages, ready to sell in the morning. LSAS introduces his Viceroys, Nick Hewer and new addition Karen Brady, who has the unenviable task of trying to fill Margaret’s shoes. Nick will be following the “ladies” team, and Karen will follow the “gentlemen”. I get that the ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ thing he usually does is kind of demeaning, but somehow this is even worse to me. “It’s sink or swim,” LSAS adds, “and as you’ve probably picked up by now, I don’t do life jackets.” Shibby manages a weak smile, no one can muster up a laugh.

Episode grade: C-

We’re in the middle of a field somewhere. A dude with full Ringmaster regalia (top hat, twirly mustache, extremely scary voice; the works) is doing the whole “Roll up! Roll up!” thing, and keeps repeating the phrase “a once in a lifetime show”. I’m getting some slightly villainous vibes off this guy, I don’t know what it is. We pan around to see what you’ll find in this once in a lifetime show, and there’s fire-jugglers, a strongman and some horrible cross between a mime and a clown. Well, not sleeping tonight! The old-timey nature of all this, along with the clothes of the audience members, is hinting that we’re probably in the past right now. A woman and a little girl hesitate at the entrance, and the Ringmaster hands the girl a ticket in a creepy way. The little girl walks into the show, and suddenly everything; circus performance, audience, Ringmaster, signs and all, everything vanishes. Except for the hesitant woman, who is left standing alone in an empty field in shock. Eerie music plays.

Credits. Episode by Peter J. Hammond, previously responsible for “Small Worlds”, and also some show called Sapphire & Steel. Now, I don’t know or care what that is, but I keep goddamn hearing about it in relation to both of his Torchwood episodes, which are not actually Torchwood episodes at all, so I imagine they are probably Sapphire & Steel episodes with the Torchwood cast badly integrated into the occasional scene in order to pass them off as Torchwood episodes. Now, what I want to say is this; fuck Peter J. Hammond. Until he can prove that he is actually able to write an episode of Torchwood, stop hiring him to write episodes of Torchwood.

Some pimply young man with glasses sits in a dingy basement, watching a grainy old black & white film on a projector screen with a perverse grin on his face. One of these things does not fit with the others. If he was watching porn, this would all seem so much more normal.

Hub. Jack drinks coffee. There’s a weird sort of screaming noise on the soundtrack, but Jack doesn’t react to it. I don’t know what the point of that was, besides saying “See! It’s a Torchwood episode! I bet you’ve never seen Captain Jack Harkness drinking coffee in anything except Torchwood, so it must be!” Well, I’m not so easily fooled.

Back to the basement. The film rolls on. Basement Boy declares it “Great” in a heavily northern accent. The Ringmaster from the opening suddenly appears, making a ‘come here’ gesture. Basement Boy is confused. “What is that?”

Hub. There’s some whispering, and a little snatch of carnival music, and this time, Jack does react.

Episode grade: D

Previously, on Torchwood: Gwen agreed to marry Rhys because quote “No one else will have me”. They play that scene back to us at the start, because I guess they want to be sure we remember that this wedding is a terrible, terrible idea. I really didn’t need the reminder, but thanks anyway!

A subtitle tells us it’s Friday night. We’re in a nightclub with garish disco lights flashing everywhere and Scissors Sisters playing. A bunch of women in uniform red T-shirts and fluffy pink cowboy hats dance around drunkenly. “It’s the service she’s meant to be late for, not her hen do!” one of them announces. Gwen arrives soon after this, and they all sing some dirty version of “Here Comes The Bride” including a line about ‘taking it up the aisle’. Yep. Gwen excuses her lateness with work-related shit, of course.

…And we jump back to two hours earlier, to see Gwen heading into a public toilet with her gun out. Owen radios to warn her to be careful, because “this thing eats people.” Gwen kicks in the doors of some empty cubicles, and then a plump bearded chap walks out of one of them and looks freaked by her gun. She apologises and tells him the go on his way, but he decides instead to bare his sharp, pointy teeth and red eyes and lunge at her. Well, that was a really dumb move on both of their parts. Gwen fires a few shots, and Teeth flees, and comes out onto the street looking like a totally different person. Gwen radios to tell Jack that they’re dealing with a shapeshifter here, and that whatever he looks like now, he’s leaving a trail of black blood as he goes. She chases.

At the hen party, Gwen asks if there’s any food tonight, or if they’re all planning to subsist on alcohol alone. While eating a bag of crisps. Not the shapest knife in the drawer, that one. Then there’s a stripper dressed as a policeman, who just says “Gwen Cooper, you’re nicked,” and immediately rips off his shirt and trousers. Now, I’m no expert on the subject, but isn’t a strip show supposed to have some element of ‘show’ to it? Not just “Here’s what I look like in a thong, that’ll be fifty quid, thanks”?

Two hours earlier, Teeth leaps out of a bush and tackles Gwen to the ground, and she struggles to fight him off.

Hen night. In the bathroom, two of Gwen’s friends agree that Gwen is gorgeous, and Rhys is lucky to have her. They ask Gwen what she’s done to her arm, which has a huge freakin’ bandage wrapped around it.

Two hours ago, Teeth bites her arm. Gwen pushes him off and holds her arm, crying in pain, and Jack appears to pump him full of lead.

“It’s just a scratch,” Gwen says. That is some seriously hefty bandaging for “just a scratch”.

Episode grade: A-

Owen stands in the middle of a street, looking grim and serious, as all around him the world goes by in rewind. Or maybe those people are all just walking backwards, in fast-forward. “My name is Dr. Owen Harper,” he says, “and I am a zombie alcoholic.” No, wait, “and this is my life.” I don’t see anyone waiting to jump out with a big red book anywhere. “A life that is full of action, and violence, and work, and wonder. Secrets, and sex, and love, and heartbreak.” Each of these eight pillars of Owenosity is illustrated with a quick flash of a scene from a previous episode, I’m not going to bother identifying them except to note that ‘wonder’ is attached to the magic date rape spray from way back in the first episode. Gross. Oh, and heartbreak is attached to the actual literal ‘heartbreak’ caused by a bullet ripping through it, hee. “And death,” he adds, which was probably what that one was supposed to go with, but they really timed it badly in that case. “My death. The death I survived. The death I am now living through.” And we’re back to the backwards street again.

“Except,” Owen continues, “this isn’t living.” We watch from inside Owen’s fridge as he opens it, grabs a bottle of drink, then puts it back with a sigh, remembering that he has no digestive system any more. “Every day is the same,” he says, even though we see that the next day, he remembers before he grabs the bottle. “I get up, get ready for work, same as everyone else.” Owen squeezes some shaving foam into his hands and is about to rub it onto his face when he realises that zombies don’t need to shave. If he needs this many reminders of his undead status every day, I think we can safely assume that Owen is not a morning person. “Thing is, I’m not the same. I get to work, and everyone’s doing the same old thing. Babbling away about aliens and weddings.” Owen at work, looking on as everyone babbles about aliens and weddings. “I’m not real.” Owen floats underwater. “Three days ago, I died, and they think I’m fine. But they’re wrong.” Owen touches his mouth, and discovers that he isn’t going to drown, duh, and starts screaming inaudibly. And now he’s going to be full of water and have to do that disgusting regurgitation thing again, nice. Pan up a tall building to find Owen sitting on the edge of the roof with a sobbing blonde woman. “So,” Owen asks, “you ready to jump?”

Credits. Episode by Joseph Lidster, who is a television newbie, but has done a lot of work on Doctor Who audio plays which I can tell you nothing about. Zombie Owen is still a stupid and nonsensical idea, but I’m just holding that against the episode where it happened. At this point, we just have to accept that it has happened, however ridiculous it may be, and move on with our lives.

Episode grade: C-

Owen lies on the operating table in the medical room, hole in his chest, turning rather pale. Yep, he’s still dead. Martha, speaking into a microphone, tells us that the time is 21:30, and she’s Dr. Martha Jones, ready to perform autopsy on Owen Harper, caucasian, age 27. Why exactly do they need to perform an autopsy when he got shot in the chest, and they all saw it? Look, there’s the bullet wound, right there! See it? That big gaping hole in his chest? “Time of death witnessed at approximately 20:30″. So it’s been an hour since the end of the last episode. Martha sure has made a quick recovery from having an alien critter on the verge of bursting out of her insides in the style of, y’know, Alien. Ianto, Gwen and Tosh hang out on the balcony in varying states of disgust and distress. Martha picks up a great honking bonesaw and prepares to begin the autopsy, but just then, Jack bursts in and yells “Stop! Nobody touches him until I get back, is that clear?” Without waiting for an answer, he’s off again. Martha’s like, “Great, I got all this surgical gear on for nothing.”

Jack hops out of the Hyena and hammers on the door of a… no, I have no clue what this place is supposed to be. It’s decorated like a really tacky B&B, there’s some big bald bouncer type who holds Jack back, but a creepy preadolescent girl calls him off, because she’s been “looking forward to seeing the Captain again”. As she says this, she shows a tarot card with a picture of someone who looks awfully like Jack, dressed in a suit of armour. I’d love to tell you what any of this means, but first someone would have to tell me. We’ve somehow stepped into an episode of Hex. I could be more generous and say Angel, but… no. “Can you see where it is?” Jack asks of Tarot Girl. She tells him that he’ll owe her a favour, which Jack doesn’t even dignify with a response. We don’t get to see the card she shows Jack, but he surmises from it that “they” hid “it” in a church. We’ll find out what at least one of those pronouns is soon enough, at least. Tarot Girl corrects Jack; “When they found out what it could do, they built the church on top of it.” Jack exits without asking for any more clues, like perhaps a name or location for this church. A quick googling tells me that there are 64 churches in Cardiff alone. Martha’s going to get awfully fidgety with that saw, waiting for him to search all of those. On his way out, Tarot Girl asks if he’d listen if she told him not to use whatever thing he’s looking for. Jack says she should know the answer to that, I guess because she’s psychic. After he’s gone, Tarot Girl says “I do” and ominously holds up the ‘Death’ card. Hey, but that could just mean ‘change’, right? I think everything’s going to work out fine.

Somehow, Jack’s come upon a “St. Mary’s Church” as the correct location of this mysterious artifact. He kicks the sign identifying it as such down, and what are you going to do about it, huh? He’s outside the government! Beyond the police! That makes acts of petty vandalism a-OK. Inside, the place is looking pretty abandoned. Well, by humans, at any rate; the place is absolutely crawling with sleeping Weevils. Jack spends a good long time attempting to steal the artifact from under their noses without waking them, and it’s all very Indiana Jones. He fails, and instead resorts to grabbing a box and running away like a little girl, and not the creepy Tarot-reading kind.

Episode grade: C+

Someone’s running in the dark. Through… is that a greenhouse? Strange. This someone is running in a weird, jerky, shoulder-jumpy kind of way, which is the signature move of the Weevils, so I guess it’s one of them. It’s being chased by people with torches and guns; probably Torchwood. It’s really damn dark. The Weevil growls straight at the camera, demonstrating to all and sundry that it is most definitely a Weevil. A couple of the Torchwood silhouettes catch up to it and shine their torches at it, but it runs away, and the torches are left shining on the body of a bald man that the Weevil had previously been concealing. Owen runs into the torchlight to check the body. “He’s dead,” he reports.

We Cardiff!porn our way over to Ianto’s tourist information shop, where he tells a mysterious figure whose eyes we are looking through that he’s just about to close up for the night. Does Ianto spend all day in this shop, just in case someone comes in here, or does he stay down in the Hub and have cameras to watch out for unexpected visitors? The Mysterious Figure shows an ID card, and Ianto immediately snaps to attention and directs her to the Hub. Oops, I mean him/her/it. Screw it, the mysterious figure is Martha. If you saw the previews last week, it’s incredibly obvious that it’s Martha, and even if you had no idea she was coming on to this show, there’s no real reason for these five seconds of Tonight’s Mystery Guest to exist.

“Documents on the body identify the victim as… Meredith Roberts,” says Jack. Owen reports that there are no obvious signs of violence, which seems to suggest that the Weevil they were chasing is not the culprit. Ianto radios down to tell Jack that his “VIP visitor” is here, and he giddily runs over to the entrance to greet Martha. “I didn’t know we were having a visitor,” Gwen mutters to nobody in particular. Nobody responds, so it’s unclear if this is just Gwen not paying attention, or if Jack told nobody besides Ianto that Martha was coming. Anyway, the door opens in an appropriately dramatic way to reveal that Martha is Martha, and we go to credits.

…Which have a brand new addition of “with Freema Agyeman” tacked on the end. Episode by one J.C. Wilsher, who hasn’t written for either show before, nor anything else I’ve ever watched.

Martha hugs Jack and tells him it’s good to see him, Jack introduces her to the team. Owen asks if this is just a casual visit, but apparently not; Martha’s here to complete his post-mortem. As in, the post-mortem of the Meredith Roberts guy that Owen was performing, not a post-mortem of Owen himself. I don’t know if you could call that foreshadowing. Jack tells everyone that Martha is from UNIT, and Gwen asks what that is. For some crazy legal reasons or something, apparently, Jack’s not actually allowed to say that it stands for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, so he just goes on about how cute their uniforms (which Martha isn’t wearing today, I guess sadly) are.