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Tom

"Did Columbus discover the potato in America?"
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tom_pellereau_008.jpg

  • Beware the Nice Ones: By Week 10 it was obvious that he was tired of constantly being ignored and landing on the losing team, and he went on a major offensive against Melody and even Helen in the boardroom. This probably did a lot to convince Lord Sugar that he was actually tough enough to handle running his business.
  • The Cassandra: During Weeks 4, 5 and 10 in particular, where he spotted big mistakes that the teams were making, but was completely ignored.
  • Commuting on a Bus: Since winning The Apprentice, Tom continued to reappear during periods of The Apprentice including being in the audience of the following year to show how Lord Sugar's investment had changed his life and alongside the other people who won Lord Sugar's investment, bar Joseph Valente returned at the beginning of Season 13 as a symbol of what the present candidates would have to live up to.
  • Crazy Enough to Work: His scheme for getting his invention onto the shelves in Wal-Mart, which likely did a great deal to show a visibly-impressed Lord Sugar that Tom was cut out for the job.
  • Dark Horse Victory: Very few predicted him as the winner, with most seeing the season as being a two-horse race between Helen and Susan. They both blew it in the final, however, leaving Tom to claim victory as the one with the most business experience and least problematic plan.
  • Nice Guys Finish Last: Inverted magnificently.

Helen

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  • The Ace: It seemed highly unlikely that anyone would ever better her record, with victories in all but one of the tasks and three wins as project manager. Eight years later, Carina Lepore of Series 15 did just that, going on to win the competition (albeit Helen won ten tasks to Carina's nine, due to Seasons 7 and 8 having an extra task and then ending with the interviews).
  • Crippling Overspecialization: She'd spent her entire career working in the corporate big-business environment, and it showed during the Week 10 task where she still tried to persist with a bulk sales strategy even though they were selling to small retailers, which would earn very little profit. It was the only time she was on a losing team, but it likely did a lot of harm to her chances of winning.
  • Tragic Mistake: Unfortunately, she completely blew her chances of winning during the final, by presenting a plan for a concierge service that she didn't have the expertise to run.
  • The Stoic: New interviewer Mike Soutar found she came across as perhaps a bit too stoic and as a result asked her to make a joke to make her show him her "human side".
  • Tempting Fate: Was asked by Susan during the Week 10 task if she was going to go through the rest of the process without losing a task, Helen's response was that was the plan. No prizes for guessing what happened next.

Susan

"Are the French very fond of their children?"
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  • Achilles' Heel: Her inexperience was glaringly obvious at times, and it ultimately cost her victory. Sugar still invested in her the following year however, once she had some more experience under her belt.
  • The Ditz: Often came across this way, especially in Week 8 when her idea of market research for the task of selling in France was to ask questions like "Do the French love their children?"
  • The Runner-Up Takes It All: Lord Sugar subsequently invested £200,000 in her business; as of 2017, it was making as much profit as the winners' businesses combined.
  • Tragic Mistake: Even more so than Helen, as nearly everyone agreed that her business plan was easily the best of the final four. Unfortunately, she made a fatal mistake by offering up financial figures that suggested she'd have quickly blown the whole investment trying to compete with the big skincare brands, and refused to back down on them. Of course, it all worked out in the end.

Jim

"I'm not the person you should be bringing back in, if you think I did a sterling job so you need to change your decision."
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jim_eastwood_006.jpg
  • Crippling Overspecialization: A great salesman and negotiator, but that was about it. He lost both his turns as project manager, and his "business plan" more resembled a charity.
  • In-Series Nickname: "Jedi Jim" The winner's special You're Hired added in a photoshopped Jedi cloak over his highlight to make it funnier.
  • Manipulative Bastard: He was nicknamed "Jedi Jim" for his seeming ability to talk people out of ever bringing him into the final boardroom; both times he actually ended up there were by default as the losing project manager.
  • Professional Butt-Kisser: Nick described his business plan as "one long seduction letter," for how blatantly tailored it was towards Lord Sugar's technology background and charitable interests.

Natasha

"Melody just turned to me and just basically got a big plate of blame and went “There you go. Fancy a bite?”"
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/natasha_scribbins_012.jpg
  • Arch-Enemy: To Susan in there final two tasks, this extended to blaming her for losing there reward for the reinvestment task, even though it was Natasha's own fault
  • Ask a Stupid Question...: "Lad's magazines are...about lads, yeah?" No.note 
  • Departmentof Redundancy Department:
    "I think it's safe to say that our focus group was quite focused."
  • Every Year They Fizzle Out: Started off as very enthusiastic, but towards the end of her time in the process, Lord Sugar noticed that she had lost the energy and passion she displayed earlier in the process.
  • Never My Fault: Blamed Susan for her failure in the reinvestment task where she repeatedly ignored Jim pleas for reinvestment. This caused Lord Sugar to strip her team of there reward solely due to Natasha's actions.
  • Pet the Dog: Shook Vincent's hand after he was fired despite him unfairly bringing her into the boardroom and hugged Susan goodbye after she got fired despite there past enmity.
  • Sex Sells: Pushed this strategy during her first time as Project Manager and unlike the last person who tried it in the form of Karen from Series 2, this time Lord Sugar didn't have any objections to her doing so (in part because it was more appropriate given they were making lads' magazines, and also because her team so thoroughly pulverized their opponents that there was no point making any fuss over it).
  • Valley Girl: Seemed reasonably intelligent, but was very inarticulate.

Melody

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  • Blatant Lies: Deliberately gave Tom misleading market research in the Week 8 task just because she didn't personally like the product that was most popular among the Parisians that she asked.
  • Jerkass: Became especially pronounced during her last three weeks on the show, where she argued with just about everyone and refused to ever take anyone's advice.
  • Karma Houdini: A short-lived example. Despite playing a major role in the defeat in Week 8, and acting like a complete bitch in Week 9, Lord Sugar made it clear that he wasn't going to entertain the slightest notion of firing her and heavily criticized the losing PMs (Tom in the former week, Zoe in the latter) for bringing her back. When she lost as project manager herself in Week 10 however, Sugar really had no choice but to fire her.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Ruined Tom's run as PM and didn't listen to his advice during the Reinvestment task. This all backfired on her massively as Tom went on a major offensive against her in the boardroom which led to Melody finally getting fired. For extra Karma, Tom ended up the winner.

Zoe

"Melody is a nightmare to work with. She’s come up with this one idea, and she’s pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. I don't like it, Susie doesn't like it and Tom doesn't like it. I can imagine that in the focus group, she would have talked them to death until they all held up a white flag and say “Yes, we’ll go with the bloody heart.”
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zoe_beresford_009.jpg
  • Arch-Enemy: Became this to Melody in her last task.
  • Epic Fail: In Week 9 she led her team to the show's worst-ever defeat, in an industry that she works in day-to-day no less. Aside from that she was actually a decent candidate, but she had no hope of surviving after that fiasco.
  • Romance on the Set: With Glenn which Edna claimed clouded Zoe's judgement and resulted in her bringing Edna back into the boardroom.
    • Downer Ending: It was revealed later in early 2012 by Glenn that he and Zoe had split up, much to the latter's devastation, with it reported that he had become image conscious of Zoe and put her under pressure to look good when they went out, resulting in arguments between them for her not going without makeup or heels.

Leon

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/leon_doyle_004.jpg
  • Celebrity Resemblance: Was stated by Lord Sugar to resemble "Piers Morgan's lovechild".
  • The Ditherer: Initially wanted to bring back Alex and Jim, but the latter persuaded him to go for Glenn who then tried to make him go for Tom but Leon stuck to his decision.
  • Never My Fault: Tried to blame his failure to sell much of anything in Week 8 on the fact that he didn't speak French. Even though Natasha also didn't speak French, and sold reasonably well.
  • Rule of Three: Even though he was fired after his third appearance in the boardroom, Lord Sugar warned him that if he was caught in the boardroom again for the third time in a row, then there wouldn't be a third chance.

Glenn

"(in a Liverpudlian accent) How's your wife and my kids?"
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/glenn_ward_014.jpg
  • Crack Defeat: On his firing, Lord Sugar commented that he hadn't seen an engineer turn his hands to business and that was the example he found in Glenn. Of course, this led to outrage among the engineering community with James Dyson being commonly held as an example of an engineer who had also became a successful entrepreneur.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Tried to do the same as Jim by attempting to talk Leon into bringing Tom back instead of him, but Leon, probably afraid of looking even more indecisive than he already did, refused to do so.
  • Romance on the Set: With Zoe. Unfortunately it was revealed later in early 2012 by Glenn that he and Zoe had split up, much to the latter's devastation, with it reported that he had become image conscious of Zoe and put her under pressure to look good when they went out, resulting in arguments between them for her not going without makeup or heels.

Edna

"I seek out pain, than I do pleasure."
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/edna_agbarha_007.jpg
  • Blatant Lies: Tried to claim that she earned most of her team's sales appointments in Week 6, even though it was actually Leon and Glenn who got them.
  • Epic Fail: In Week 2 she blew off the pleas of team mates who were more experienced in giving presentations, and gave a bizarre, rambling speech to promote the team's app...
  • Karma Houdini: ...but the women's team still thrashed the men anyway, thanks to the guys producing an app that was offensively unfunny bordering on racist, and had no appeal outside the UK.
  • The Scapegoat: Like Nicholas of Series 4, a self inflicted example as she kept going on about her qualifications as to why she would remain in the process.

Vincent

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  • Epic Fail: Vincent lasted for five weeks and was on the losing team for all those weeks. All of them. Until Elle, Frances and Season 12's Rebecca came along (plus Harry M. if you count Young Apprentice), this was the longest anyone lasted in the show without winning a single task.
  • Make an Example of Them: Lord Sugar saw his firing as a means to send a message to the other candidates: Anyone else trying to transparently manipulate him would be fired.
  • Stupid Sacrifice: Granted, his getting himself fired was unintentional, but refusing to bring back Jim and consequently getting himself fired was entirely needless, given that they otherwise didn't fail the task enough to justify a double-firing, and Lord Sugar was clearly gunning for Ellie.
  • Third-Person Person: "Vincent makes all the calls, Vincent makes all the deals."
  • True Companions: With Jim, which ended up backfiring on Vincent massively when he refused to bring Jim back out of loyalty after the Week 5 task, only to be himself fired for so transparently trying to manipulate Lord Sugar.

Ellie

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  • Bystander Syndrome: The main reason why she was fired, with Lord Sugar saying that he hadn't seen anything from her in the space of five weeks.
  • The Eeyore: Never really seemed very happy or comfortable on the show.
  • Never My Fault: Kept on blaming everybody else for her own lack of contribution and enthusiasm during the process.

Felicity

"They wouldn't take a penny off! A penny!"
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/felicity_jackson_011.jpg
  • Dumb Blonde: During her turn as project manager she completely ignored the task briefing and poured all the team's efforts into selling stuff that had a low profit margin, blew off Tom's warnings about the location, and couldn't even decide who she wanted to bring back into the final boardroom.
  • Epic Fail: The result of all her blunders as project manager was a huge loss, second only to the infamous chicken fiasco from Season 2.

Gavin

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gavin_winstanley_015.jpg
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Generally a decent guy, but didn't hold back when Edward brought him back for clearly personal reasons in the first task.
  • One-Hit Wonder: Sold the second-highest number of units (after Jim) in the first task, but was fairly anonymous in the second task, and then proved extremely indecisive and ineffectual in the third task, leading to his getting fired.
  • Worthy Opponent: Lord Sugar saw him as this telling the other candidates he was a strong contender for the prize in the task after he was fired.
invoked

Alex

"My contribution is more positive than negative. Your contribution is nada."
Jim to Alex.
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mediacaspianpublishingco_ukimage9af7dbf9f68fcd0286d06d0df3966683_022b4c376462da10b7adbc7d03222614c71d4cb8.jpg
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Put up a very spirited defence in his time in the last three. While this tactic may have worked in the past, things were different this year as Lord Sugar was now looking for a business partner rather than an employee.
  • Bystander Syndrome: Another person who got the axe in Week 2 for being generally useless.
  • Karma Houdini: Managed to get away with spending the day just standing around and serving soup during the first task, by virtue of Edward not thinking to bring him back. It didn't last long, however, as Alex also did nothing on the following task, and this time did get brought back, causing him to make a quick exit.

Edward

"When I was producing, that was production, and the selling was gonna take care of itself."
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/edward_hunter_002.jpg
  • Blatant Lies: Tried to deny that Gavin had put himself forward as a possible project manager, even though he very clearly did.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: He very helpfully told Lord Sugar that "When I was producing, that was production" when discussing how he had organized the task.
  • Didn't Think This Through: His two main defenses in the boardroom were that he was the only one brave enough to be project manager (which wasn't true) and that he was more than just an accountant (even though this meant shelving his one skill). By hammering in two paper-thin points that actively worked against his case, Edward gave Lord Sugar no other option but to fire him.
  • Genre Blind: In two major ways:
    • Firstly, he actively tried to avoid using his accountancy expertise. While he did it for different reasons than usual — he wanted to prove that he was more than just an accountant, instead of just taking a backseat — Lord Sugar still wasn't too pleased with him.
    • Secondly, he brought Gavin back into the boardroom just because he didn't like him, and didn't even think to check to see how much Gavin had actually sold. When Karren revealed that Gavin had the second-highest sales on the team, Edward clearly realized that he had just screwed up royally.
  • The Napoleon: Claimed that he had a harder job of leading the team because he was the shortest of the men, much to the amusement of everyone else in the boardroom.
  • Sore Loser: One of the extremely few candidates who said nothing after being fired. Even after Lord Sugar called him back for a positive parting comment, Edward simply responded with an angry look before leaving the room.
  • The Unintelligible: Half of the time he rambled on without actually making a coherent point, and the other half he responded with short fragments of sentences. To give one example, when Lord Sugar asked him about his having worked with a large accountancy firm, his reply was simply "Don't fit the mold."

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