Over this series of the Apprentice there have been only two tasks where the loosing project manager has survived the boardroom. Coupled with the fact that over the past three weeks Stealth have lost the task, and their project manager, and in two of those tasks the project manager had been a survivor of the board room who had begged for a chance to be project manager to prove themselves, things were looking bad for Katie.

Up against her was Eclipse being led by Tre, who on paper was by far the stronger candidate. Tre had been on the winning team the same number of times that Katie had lost.

However, despite the apparent indications of previous performance, the result was exactly the opposite. Katie and stealth were victorious, and it was Tre who ended up in the boardroom.

So what went wrong – or should that be what went right? The task this week was to sell products to the trade. The key thing that the teams were told was that the task was about cold calling and making appointments with retailers – this wasn’t about just selling to people on the street.

In the case of Stealth, the bad run of recent weeks has cleared out a number of the people who were sources of friction, leaving just Katie, Kristina and Naomi. Whilst there are tense relationships amongst the three of them, especially between Katie and Kristina, they seem to have grasped that you need to put those issues to one side, and as a result they came up with a good strategy and it paid off. Whilst they didn’t get any advanced appointments, after a solid block of work on the phones they made appointments with possible retailers, and managed to sell all their products.

Looking at Eclipse, the story was very different. Over the past few weeks the source of friction – Tre has been kept largely in check. The other candidates seem to have got a handle on how to manage him. His only previous attempt at being project manager, way back in week 3 was marked by a team not really under control, and as I noted then it was more a competition as to who made the biggest hash of it. Here, up against a well organised and motivated Stealth, and without one of the others keeping him in line the disorganisation of Tre really came out. Whilst they managed to get one appointment arranged in advance (one more than Stealth of course) they didn’t follow this up with more cold calling, and pretty soon took to wandering the streets and visiting shops without appointments. Simon had managed to get a list of possible retailers which he had handed to Lohit, but it transpired many of them were incorrect anyway. The whole task was an absolute mess from start to finish.

When it came to the boardroom, Tre was hammered by Sir Alan. He then makes a pretty brave decision, and opts to leave Simon out, taking in Lohit and Jadine who together had made the biggest sale of the day. In the final boardroom it as always came down to strategy. Jadine, much like Ifti had a bad case of homesickness during the task, and really didn’t defend herself well. Tre as always fought his corner. Lohit, much as he has done on his previous visit to the boardroom got quite heavily hammered by Sir Alan of not having the ‘killer instinct’.

However, much like the treatment of Syed in series 2, Sir Alan gave Tre another chance. Although Sir Alan seems to have a real problem with the fact that Lohit is relatively quiet and well spoken, he survived too, with Sir Alan saying that he was still a possible winner. Ultimately it was Jadine and her bad day that were shown the door.

It was however one of the most apologetic firings of the series. Sir Alan explained that this time he was looking for someone with experience, and that he felt that Jadine still had too much to learn. However after firing her he congratulated her on getting so far, and said that he couldn’t say anything negative about her. He told her to go home to her daughter and wished her good luck.

Once she’d gone though, he again told Tre how lucky he had been – will he go the same way as Syed? Tre and Lohit seem to be two extremes, on the one hand Lohit comes over as quiet and efficient, whereas Tre spends much of his time talking about how much better he is than everybody else, and then when he is put in charge just blows it totally. As in the past Sir Alan does seem to be willing to give the loud candidates the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately when it comes to the crunch, doesn’t go with them – putting aside Ruth Badger in favour of Michelle last year, and Saira Khan in favour of Tim in series 1. On that basis, and with only a couple of weeks of the series left, I’m pretty sure that Tre won’t win. Despite her win tonight I think Katie’s card is marked too. There is definitely a very flirtatious level of sparring between her an Sir Alan, which whilst it is entertaining, certainly isn’t the basis of a business relationship. Lohit does seem to be unpopular with Sir Alan, so perhaps isn’t the right fit, whilst all thought that Simon who has never faced the boardroom had a lucky escape this week. In the past, candidates who have avoided visits to the boardroom in the early stages have often slipped up when ultimately they do face Sir Alan.

However it can all change next week, in what looks like it will be another entertaining episode. The teams try their hand at hosting some TV shopping, and from the clips so far look to make a catalogue of errors. Will we be seeing a whole load of potential media careers go up in smoke?