I'm not sure where to start. It's been five weeks. I did a review of week one, complete with (partial) contestant analysis, and then failed to continue to do so for many reasons. OK, ok... OK. Let's start with who's gone:

Week 1 saw the departure of Craig Butler. His team failed to sell as many ice creams as girls' team. End of.

Week 2: It was the turn of Donal 'YOU DIDN'T TEACH ME THAT, I LEARNED THAT MYSELF' Proctor to mumble 'thank you for the opportunity'. He went because the boy's team made a billboard for a business phone that only featured three girddles taking a photo of themselves. He didn't deserve to go, simply because he was the one person who pointed this minor detail out to the individual shooting the ad -  Brendan. Then again, Donal did deserve to go, because he generally gave everyone within a two foot radius of him the willies.

Week 3: Blinky McGinty # 2 was then fired (Donal being BMcG number one). Setanta was never going to amount to much, which is probably why he threw whatever weight he had around, demanding cakes, Rubik's Cubes and the silencing of Geraldine.

Week 4: Finally, a women let herself down, and no better giddle than Jennifer 'people tink I'm a dumb blonde, burrahmnoh' Quinn. She largely spent her stint as PM (that's lingo for project manager, keep up), picking up soft furnishings for the house the rest of her team (with the exception of her shopping aid, Ruth O'Dowd) were refurbishing with the power of paint brushes. As a result, the house wasn't attractive to renters, and her and her strangely dead eyes were shown the door. Jennifer was given the perfect opportunity by Boardroom Bill to land Brendan in it (he knew way more about refurbishing - given his dad's in construction - but didn't put himself forward as PM because, in short, he wanted her to fail). Instead, when asked who she thought Bill should fire, she said Aoiffe (AKA mutant meerkat features) because she gave her jip over the phone (which comprised of "What are you still doing in B 'n Q, like. It's half threeeeee like, I'm painting the entiiiiire house by myself, like and it's half threeeee like. I need suppooooooort, like.") Then, just to show how much she had it in for the demented Disney woodland creature, Jen said in her departing car: "Brendan and Aoiffe are having a relationship. But they both have partners, so I would call that an affair..."

So, now we're up to week five, last night's show. Their task was to create a 30 second advert for the Meteor To Go dongle (wee internet doohickey). Here's a rundown of what happened (and what the contestants might consider doing with themselves at a future date)

Team Cu Chulainn:

1) Aoiffe was project manager. She blinked a lot and stuck her oar into Lucinda's directing a fair bit. If she weren't a 'Marketing/Business Development Executive' she could audition for the human reenactment of Bambi. She should avoid giving Corkonian dialect lessons.

2) Lucinda was the director. She didn't know what 'cut' or 'wrap' meant, but she knew how to yell ACTION. Given last week's statement regarding getting some help to clean their assigned refurbishment houses - "I'd look for some immigrant, or something... *squirms* Can we take that one back out of the camera?" - she should clearly become a champion of asylum seekers instead of wasting her time as a Telecommunications Online Manager.

3) Stephen sat there like the MD while both Aoiffe and Brendan pitched themselves for the role of PM. As Bill put it: "I understand you were taking CVs for project manager." As Stephen is an MD of a fitness company called The Wedding Trainer (helping people to change their body type for their wedding day), he's on the right track.

4) Brendan was superfluous. He bitched and moaned about all the ideas, probably miffed that his alleged love interest had commandeered the PM position off him - on the ONE week he wanted it, as well. Again, to quote Bill, he had a face 'like a dog with a mouthful of wasps'. Brendan's currently a Commercial Director. He should perhaps attempt a world record to see how many 'Yes Bill's one can fit into a sentence. His best quote to date comes from last week's episode, when he said: 'The house looks like a mongoloid.'

5) Ruth… I can't remember what Ruth did during the task. She said something pertinent when Cu Chulainn were making the presentation to Meteor. That was about it. Ruth is a Marketing Manager by trade. She can carry on being one for all we care.

Team Platinum

1) Maria was Platinum's project manager. She thought she would be a good project manager considering she repeated bleated she's been managing a team of people for ten years as part of her role as Financial Products Manager in Canada Life. She didn't do a good job managing people this time, however: She put Steven and Sam together (who hate each other) and Geraldine and Breffney together (who luuurve each other). Given last night's presentation, she should consider a career as a programme narrator for the blind.

2) Steven was appointed the director, whereupon he put on his Nazi pants. If he weren't a Senior Business Development Manager, he could always try his hand at a role that involved RIGOROUSLY sticking to storyboards.

3) Samantha was made some 'creative type' to satisfy her urge to be creative at all costs. Instead of singing (although there was a few stirring bars of a wee ditty that went "It's the Meteor Fun Run here today, nah nah nah nah naaah nah naaaaah"), she occupied herself by undermining everything Steve was doing. The more vocal she got, the less Steve listened - which was to his detriment, as Brian 'the hair' Purcell noted that a few good ideas slipped by. Sam should never stop being a secondary school music teacher.

4) Geraldine was made Sub PM, which meant she got to lord it over her lorve interest, Breffney, while they were both confined to the back of a car for two hours. The journey was part of their task to find a location for their 'Fun Run' themed TV ad. This also meant that an array of novelty costumes, involving an assortment of oversized foam headgear (mainly of the animal variety), was required (Aoiffe would've been in heaven). As well as sticking her bonce out the car window wearing a fluffy pig head, Geraldine made several pit stops to find a place to wee, and scouted out a location where half the novelty animals could've wound up as road kill. Geraldine is an Accounts Manager for a beautician's by trade but, in addition to that, she could become a make up artist for any films that required a lot of rouge, and eyebrows plucked into a perma-state of surprise.

5) Breffney. We've saved the best 'til last. Maria didn't entrust any role to Breffney. Maria had asked him to prepare the pitch, which took him three hours of research. Maria then took the pitching duties off him, (for fear he'd mispronounce the team name again?). Here's the conversation between himself and Bill in the boardroom:
Bill: "here's all that information, three hours worth?"
Bref: "It was in my brain waiting to come out this morning, but I didn't get a chance.... Maria was to direct questions to us during the pitch, but that didn't happen. I was basically standing there like a model."
That's Breffney pictured up the top left, there. Enough said.
 

Speaking of Platinum's pitch, it was that which let them down, for Meteor thought their Fun Run advert was better executed than Cu Chulainn's 'Priest uses the internet, shocker' themed effort. Between Maria painstakingly narrating the advert's content before it was even shown, to Sam correcting Steven at every opportunity, Meteor thought "this isn't a team united" and gave them the lower score.

Maria, being the honest and forthright individual that she is, brought Steve and Sam back into the boardroom with her, as it was essentially their tension that lost them the task. She now regrets not bringing in the obvious. Mr. Blue Steel himself, the punting impresario from Harvard, 'I could be a ham sandwich sitting in the corner', tripping the steps fantastic - Breffney Morgan.

This left Maria a sitting duck. You'd be am eejit to fire Steve; he's often the voice of reason, AND the man can lay carpet on demand, for God's sake. And Bill couldn't fire Sam as she was (according to Bill) being "bullied by Steve", and had clearly been victimised enough. She also sings on cue and is therefore a talking point. The only viable option was to fire Maria. Good ole, not going to rock any boats, steady as she goes, Maria.

To quote the lady herself in today's Irish Daily Mail: "I do realise it's a TV programme and I'm not a controversial in any way, shape or form, and Sam was. From that perspective it doesn't surprise me that she's still there. That is a bit disappointing. I did go into this process with an open mind. I felt it was an opportunity for the best candidate to get the job. And the best candidates are not still in the process. Craig should still be there and I should definitely still be there (Craig was last seen, by me, replenishing the shelves of Spar at the Jervis Street Luas stop with chocolate bars last Friday). To sack me over the likes of Sam was horrendous. I don't want to work for someone like that. I didn't pick up any huge pearls of wisdom from him (Bill) in the boardroom. Was I sitting there thinking he was going to inspire me as a boss? No, I wasn't. Maybe that's one of the reason I didn't fight harder to stay in the boardroom."

You can read (a rather shorter) review of next week's show - which involves pigeons, pearls, miniature t-shirts and "little brown bits of chocolate that look like poo" - next Tuesday. 

In the meantime, we'll leave you with this question: