Last Night's Telly: 22/05/08 The Apprentice Week 9

He's still there! He's not been fired, again! I can't believe it. I don't know what SirAlan sees in that self-righteous little toerag Michael, but yet again he has escaped a big boot up his poncey behind.

Not that I'm over-invested or anything.

So, the Apprentices are summoned to the National Theatre where, SirA tells them with the air of a man who's just been told himself, they put on plays. Which has little to do with their task of making TV adverts for tissues. I wonder if they all find it hard to meet his eyes when he comes out with embarrassing links like that?

Raef is leading Michael, Claire and Helene; Alex is in charge (but not well, it turns out) of Lucinda and Lee. Raef and Michael are instantly excited at the prospect of becoming film directors as they both have been in plays at their very posh schools, or something. Raef was Sky Masterton in Guys And Dolls (my favourite musical ever - not bad casting), Michael was third gambler from the left or something but, he reveals later, he also once played Fagin in Oliver! with a peculiar accent. I don't know what it's meant to be, but it ain't kosher, not that he'd know about that.

While they are faffing about and bonding over how super-fun it all was at St Larry's School For The Pretentious, Claire names their tissue brand I Love My Tissues (as in, she helpfully explains, I Love New York. Because they're the same?) Alex and co. name theirs Atishu, which is a bit rubbish but then again I think there is a brand called Sniff. The two men pack Lucinda off to look at family homes to stop her making the tissues gay.

Raef and Michael want to hire Sian Lloyd for the advert, because they fancy her in a mumsy sort of way (or should that be Nanny?). Poor Sian has to endure a number of digs in the show about Lembit Opik leaving her for a Cheeky Girl, so it's good of her to still be pleasant when she turns up in You're Fired! Nostalgic for school, they have written a Hovis-style epic about love behind the bike sheds.

Meanwhile, Claire and Helene have made a nice box, which is not as silly as it sounds as I must admit I do tend to buy pretty boxes since you've got to look at them every day (though I try not to buy tissues much, being all environmentally friendly like one of Jenny Celery's cards). The other chaps have made a yucky Lidl-style cheapo box, which makes Lucinda feel sick. She moans about it a lot and while she's right, it's a bit redundant by the time they've been made.

Nick wonders why Sian Lloyd is involved, since she's really only known for being a weathergirl. Sian also seems surprised that there is no "weather element" (you'd think they could have at least knocked up a "In the North, there will be a strong chance of sniffles, so stock up on tissues!" type scenario). Raef and Michael, however, are describing their direction as Fellini-esque (it is, but not how they mean) and the young actor as the new Leonardo di Caprio. They're so impressed by their silent movie - set to Ronan Bloody Keating - about the tissue-sharing first love that they consider dumping Sian's bit and do actually dump the bit where she shoves the box right into the camera's eye. Claire and Helene aren't happy but are off making a magazine ad or something that we don't see much about.

Cometh the day, cometh the WORST pitch or speech anyone has ever made. Lee is so bad, he's like a parody from a particularly unrealistic sitcom. It's painful, especially when he describes women as a "genre" and says that mothers are a particularly important part of this "genre". However, then their ad is shown and it is, astonishingly, worse. "She's not well," bleats a mother, repeatedly. "Don't worry darling," says the 1950s husband, "Atishu is anti-bacterial!" It's so bad and dated that perhaps it could become a cult, like the Shake'n'Vac woman.

SirAlan, who was watching, then talks to a bunch of advertising people but we don't really get to follow which one they were talking about. In the boardroom, he praises the little kids' acting and Raef and Michael get all excited, then fail to hide their contempt for the other crappy advert. Lee is ashamed of himself for the terrible pitch. SirAlan says that Raef's team did almost everything better but have FAILED because they didn't shove the tissues box in the viewers' faces. They are devastated!

Lucinda also looks unhappy, maybe because she feels her whinging now makes her look bad. But she cheers up on a free shopping trip by trying on a very nice silver dress which looks great on her. The others just can't get over how they lost and Raef says they should all just kill themselves in joint responsibility, or something. But the minute they get back into the boardroom, Michael immediately and predictably turns weasel, whining that he was brilliant and the crap stuff wasn't his idea. Raef is visibly heartbroken. Did it all mean nothing, that time they danced in Havana and then walked home at Their Time Of Day? What about when they said They'd Do Anything for each other? Where, he wonders, Is Love? Sue Me, shrugs Michael.

SirAlan falls for it, or just thinks Raef is too gay, and sacks him! Michael lives to weasel another day and goes home moaning about how painful it's all been for him. Not as painful as I'd like things to be for him.