Following up from my pre-Apprentice excitement post about long time pal of mine and now Apprentice candidate, Ross Fretten, I’ve decided I’m simply still too excited to not write more about his Apprentice journey. Therefore, I’ve created this! ROSS WATCH. I’ll be providing a few notes and snaps of each episode (from my TV, I am a professional) as it goes just to sate my need to type.

Of course, for updates from the man himself, follow his Twitter and Facebook page – tags at the end of this post. I’m not going to write out the whole episodes but there will be some *spoilers*.

Episode 1 – 4/10/2017- Selling Burgers:

Ross is mainly in stealth mode, or was edited that way. He did mention that he wanted to sit back and let his fellow candidates dig their own graves, so I’m thinking this was a bit of that for the first week. Working out who is who, letting the largely alpha male sorts be boisterous and make a mess. From stalking the twittersphere I can see he is already catching the eye of a lot of viewers despite the minimal screen time – I knew he would be a CRUSH for many!

Episode 2 – 11/10/2017- Fancy Hotel Room Design:

Ross is Project Manager! I laughed for most of the episode, very pleased that they didn’t edit out Ross’ personality and ‘no time for your shit’ ways. An early quote I especially enjoyed were his “do you want to touch each other? High 5?” after the team roles had been decided – Ross isn’t one for the standard ‘macho’ lads type behaviour and the fake cheesy celebrations so I was really happy to see he put that out there, also displaying a bit of his ‘weird’ and something I also relate to.

After Jeff kept butting in, seemingly tried to take over management then suggested either an Elton John or Tim Henman themed room, Ross whammed out a brilliant shut down of “let’s just quash that immediately” . LOLSSSS.  When shopping for items he brought out a great bit of classic Ross, saying “it also screams NO…I think it’s disgusting” after Jeff suggesting they buy a big plastic Queen’s Guard for the room.  His bargaining on suitcases cracked me up, telling the shop worker they were “light and cheap“, basically that he wants them but doesn’t want to pay for the toot…. Sajan had to leap in with some flattery about the items, perhaps showing that Ross’ honesty sometimes isn’t the best policy when you want something from someone or for them to do you a favour.

Finally, twitter has been going pretty nuts over both Ross’ dashing face, but also his boardroom shutdown of Alan Sir Lord Sugar…. he was asked a question and Ross was trying to explain, but (as per the usual boardroom interactions) Alan Sir Lord Sugar interrupts before letting the candidates finish. Ross stepped in and said “I’m trying to actually explain, preferably, not to be rude, but uninterrupted would be really helpful just so I can get something across.” bahaha!! You go, boyfriend! Telling Alan Sir Lord Sugar to pipe the eff down and surviving…. Loved it.

To tide you over for a week, check out Ross’  Leadership Top Tips over on instagram.

Episode 3 – 18/10/2017 – Robots:

Following last week’s Project Manager glory (despite losing), Ross is back as a general team bod.  This week Vitality was led by PM Michaela – still not sure on those double nose bridge glasses, soz. Michaela assigned Ross to be part of the Robot product team who made group decisions on the target market (over 60s..hmm), the robot name “JEFFRii” and functionality. He did an enjoyable job of pointing out that a yoga pose from James (who is, I believe, into fitness  so maybe should know better) isn’t “technically yoga”.

Other than that, Ross was left to pitch the robot to the shops, displaying his *ahem* glorious acting skills when interacting with the product. The other half of the team decided to change the name of the bot to “SiiMON” without telling the product team, then provided a pitch board with a “you’re/your” classic annoying grammatical error on it…. a difficult case of hide the board then try and save face when pitching.  Ignoring the board I thought the pitch was a lot better than Graphene’s, which was littered with the ladies talking over one another, and their robot fell over.  Despite the better presentation and seemingly keen attitude, no sales were made to the retailers from the robot. Maybe it was the board? Personally I hate it when businesses make mistakes like that so maybe it factored in. Well done anyway, Fretten… Losing team again, but no boardroom for you. The internet is still in Ross *heart eyes* mode and the bookies are even on his side!

Episode 4 – 25/10/2017 – Stadium Sales:

Hearing the topic of this week’s episode of the Apprentice made me do a little ‘lol’ (but inside, thanks to my generally introverted laughing style) as I wouldn’t really call Ross a sportsman, aside from his Formula 1 love. However, the task was to provide a VIP Box experience for their “client” – not sure who this was and I’m too common to ever experience such a thing myself.

Yet again, team Vitality borrowed another female and Andrew took the role as PM. He did a lot of bellowing, roaring and fist pumping… not sure why, but in the time I’ve had on this planet I’ve found that some men just do this naturally and they’re often over compensating. Unsure if this is Andrew’s bag but time will tell! It puts me off of a person anyway.. then slating women’s football was really not the thing to do especially as in the last FIFA world cup the women’s England team came 3rd and the men’s went out at the group stages.. for the UEFA cup the women’s team got to the semi-finals and the men’s came 12th of 24 teams playing. Sorry for the stats, but I loathe women’s sport being seen as inferior when women often do better than the male equivalent teams. This may come from Sarah Taylor being in my family and she is a fab cricketer for the England team. Suck it and remove your sexist opinions. Ahem. #sorrynotsorry

Ross’ part in this week’s episode seemed to be primarily showing us his face without glasses, and then secondarily related to selling popcorn (I hear he sold either highest or 2nd highest there) and leading the meeting in terms of costings with the client. The costings chats ended up with the client fee going from about £6k to under £2k very quickly and as money was a downfall in Episode 2, I think this may be a possible danger point for Ross if we get repeats. His airtime was pretty low aside from the cost chat so his sales were edited down in screen time, focusing more on team Graphene who were flapping about.

Vitality ended up winning – I wasn’t thinking they would after some trip ups… 1) no drinks for a pregnant guest 2) running out of sparkles after about 15 minutes 3) Harrison singing as the entertainment (well done, though) 4) putting WOTSITS in bowls out as VIP snacks. In contrast to the roaring PM, the internet seemed to enjoy Ross’ toned down version of celebration – basically no reaction. Introverts unite!

Graphene PM Siobhan bought Elizabeth and Joanna back into the boardroom and Siobhan, being in events herself, got the axe. IMHO she was the right one to go and I actually didn’t mind Elizabeth this time… she’s been a bit of a comedy character so far but the women’s team just is generally a hot mess organisationally and the speaking over one another is grinding my gears. I’ll look forward to when the teams are more mixed and how the men deal with that…

Over and out for now, I’m garbling. Anyway, GO ROSS!

Episode 5 – 1/11/2017 – Lord Sugar’s Birthday:

Heaven’s to Betsy!! Ross was fired! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. My soul has left my body and an update will be up tomorrow. For now, let’s pray to Will Ferrell for mercy.

Update: I’ve slept on the tragic (Apprentice only, not corpsey) loss of my dear friend Ross Fretten and am now at peace with the void the televisual world has been left with.  Luckily I get to experience Mr Fretten in person anyway as a pal but it was a shame he was fired this week, however nicely and respectfully it was done.

So what was the task? WHAT HAPPENED? Well Lord Sir Knight Alan Sugar Alan Sugar had his 70th birthday this year and he likes to have lots of presents, so he sent the teams off to gather 9 objects around London. Frequently when I scroll through twitter during this kind of task, the general public ask “they have phones, why don’t they just look it up!?”..well guys and gals, it’s because they don’t have the internet you wallies! If they did it would remove most of the challenge and the show would be the teams scrolling through Google searches rather than attempting to use initiative and seek out things in the *real world*.

This week, Ross started off the show as the “topless male candidate picking up the phone” which no doubt made several of you pass out or have to reach for a fan to cool down.  Proper task-wise, he was part of Sajan’s team (still Vitality) and although he had some valid comments throughout the task, he wasn’t given any (or didn’t take the opportunity to get involved in any) bartering pitches, which was probably good if you think back to his suitcase buying conversation tactics in Episode 2. He did point out that the team shouldn’t buy the hankie without it being embroidered from the same place for cost purposes (and time) – valid.  Nobody seemed to know what a Scarlet Doeskin was but Ross provided us with the eloquent quote of “Do you wear a doeskin type attire to get Lorded?”, which actually turned out to be very close – tis indeed a robe Lords wear in the Houses of Parliament!

Despite the sub team, led by Harrison, cocking things up and spending a lot of wasted time trying to get an Amstrad computer from the same place as Graphene – only to be pipped to the post – team Vitality were missing 3 items from the list. Both teams were due to meet near Big Ben before it bonged it’s bong for 7pm and Graphene made their deadline.. just. However although Vitality were an hour late they did obtain all the items… back in the boardroom, unfortunately the tardiness penalty was swamped by the cost added on to Graphene for their 3 missing items. That shoved Graphene into the loser section yet again… which included our fair maiden Ross.

Personally I think the sub team were to blame for the loss of the task, but Ross’ lack of action this week got him the boot after Sajan dragged both Ross and Harrison into the boardroom.  I think Harrison does seem quite a focus of the show and has featured in each episode quite a bit so I knew he wouldn’t be going and the number of shots of Ross in the boardroom pre-firing made me nervy! Although Sir Alan Lord Sugar Alan Sir was kind to Ross when he fired him, using the words respectfully and wishing him the best, my reaction was still NAHOOOO… as you can see from my live reaction here:

So what’s next? Ross is looking at crowd-funding his dog-focussed app, Kibble (links below) so please do follow him on social media to keep up to date with what he’s doing.

I’ll still tune into the series but my thrilling commentary ends here. Well done Fretten, I’m super proud of how you did and even getting a space on the show and beating all the other hopefuls in the first place. I know the app will do well and this will not be the last the world sees of Ross A Fretten! Mooowahahaha….

Forever #TEAMROSS! I’ll leave you with this array of photos to print out and laminate at your leisure.

The Apprentice, You’re Fired:

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