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The Apprentice (American TV series) season 1

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Poster for The Apprentice 1
Poster for The Apprentice 1

The first season of The Apprentice aired on NBC in the winter and spring of 2004.

About the Season

The season started with 16 contestants, eight men and eight women from around the United States. Each had been successful in various enterprises, including real estate, restaurant management, political consulting, and sales. During the show, the contestants lived communally in a suite at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Elimination took the form of one contestant being "fired" by Trump at the conclusion of each week's episode.

The contestants were originally divided into two "corporations" by gender. The men choose to name their company "Versacorp", and the women choose to name their company "Protégé Corporation".

Each week, Trump assigned the teams a task. Each team selected a "project manager" to lead them in the week's assigned task. The winning team received a reward, while the losing team faced a boardroom showdown with Trump and two of his associates in order to determine which team member would be fired.

Elimination proceeded in two stages. In the first stage, Trump confronted the losing team and required the week's project manager to select two additional team members which the project manager believed were most responsible for the loss.

The rest of the team was dismissed, and the project manager and the two other selected members faced a final confrontation several minutes later in which Trump fired one of the three. Trump is now well known for his catch phrase "You're Fired!", which he reportedly will trademark.

Candidates

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File:Nbc apprentice1 cast a la The Brady Bunch.jpeg
The candidates from The Apprentice 1, along with Donald Trump:
Omarosa, Bill, Sam, Kristi,
Ereka, Kwame, Heidi, Bowie,
Troy, David, Nick, Jessie,
Katrina, Amy,
Jason, Tammy

Since The Apprentice is essentially a job interview, the contestants are referred to as "candidates". Alphabetically, they are:

Weekly summary

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Week 1: Lemonade Empire

  • Air date: January 7
  • Task: Starting with seed money, purchase supplies and sell lemonade on the streets of New York.
  • Result: The men choose to sell in the Fulton Street Fish Market, whereas the women stay in Midtown and use the promises of kisses to sell lemonade for five dollars a glass.
  • Winner: Protégé Corporation (women), by 3-1 margin of earnings.
  • Trump's comments: The men are excoriated for choosing a horrible location.
  • Dramatic tension: Sam, one of the members of Versacorp, begins to get on the other's nerves by his crazy antics, including fruitlessly trying to sell a single glass of lemonade for $1,000.
  • Who gets fired: David, for not showing Trump anything as leader or follower.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 2: Madison Avenue Pitch

  • Air date: January 14
  • Task: Both teams are to design an advertising campaign to sell private jet service, which they must pitch to the owner of the company.
  • Result: The men design a functional campaign with photos of the cockpit and a passengers designed to illustrate the utility and convenience of the service. The women design a campaign showing depicting parts of the aircraft in black and white artistic shots with sexual overtones and pitch it to the owner wearing flight attendant outfits.
  • Winner: Protégé Corporation (women)
  • Trump's comments: Trump is aghast that Jason, the Versacorp project manager, did not meet with company's owner at the beginning and thereby learn that he wanted a flashier campaign.
  • Who Gets Fired: Jason, for failing to meet with client
  • Dramatic tension: Sam further aggravates his team members and is excoriated for taking a nap on the floor during the afternoon.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 3: Negotiation 101

  • Air date: January 22
  • Task: The teams are given a scavenger list of items which they are required to purchase during the day at the lowest possible total price.
  • What happens: In a "put up or shut up" maneuver, Sam is appointed project manager by the men. He splits the men into two teams, with him and two others staying back at the suite to perform reconnaissance by phone and over the web. The women split into two groups, each of which goes into the city. Sam, believing that it is important to purchase the gold bar early in the day, directs the men away from other tasks to purchase it, but they are unable to buy it with any discount.
  • Winner: Protégé Corporation (women)
  • Trump's comments: Trump is disgusted at the men's failure for the third week in a row and Sam's incompetence, especially in regard to the decision to send his team members away from other tasks to buy the gold bar, which would have a very small discount compared to the other items on the list.
  • Who Gets Fired: Sam, in the "easiest decision yet", according to Trump and his associates.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 4: Planet Hollywood

  • Air date: January 29
  • Task: The teams are required to collectively manage the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Times Square on successive evenings, with the performance judged by the increase in profits over the same day the previous year.
  • What happens: The women go first, and choose to focus on increasing alcohol sales. On the next night, the men keep several of their members on the sidewalk hawking coupons and sell basketballs autographed by Kwame, who is African American, with the tacit assumption that he is a basketball star (although never stating so). Nick gets disgusted at the ploy and is attacked by his teammates and Trump for his lack of enthusiasm.
  • Winner: Protégé Corporation (women)
  • Trump's comments: Increasing alcohol sales was the key, which the men missed.
  • Who gets fired: Bowie, mostly by process of elimination.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 5: Flea Market

  • Air date: February 5
  • The teams are reorganized by "merger", with the names retained but now mixed by sex.
  • Task: Starting with seed money, the teams are required to purchase items and sell them at the greatest profit return at an open-air flea market.
  • Who gets fired: Kristi, for not defending herself.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 6: Donation Auction

Week 7: Apartment Renovation

  • Air date: February 19
  • Task: The teams restore and rent out apartments. Omarosa get a bump on the head done by plaster. Heidi finds out her mother has cancer.
  • Who gets fired: Tammy, for being disloyal to her team.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 8: Trump Ice

  • Air date: March 4
  • Task: The teams sell art. Versacorp picks an provocative artist while Protégé Corporation sticks with a more mainstream artist.
  • Who gets fired: Omarosa, for making too many excuses.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 10: Take Over

  • Air date: March 11
  • Task: The teams take over a pedicab shift. Protégé Corporation sells prepaid punch cards. Versacorp sells advertising on the rickshaws that they ride. Amy uses previous contacts made in the game to quickly amass a large amount of advertising commitments. Kwame spends much of the afternoon as a driver but without being able to land a single fare. After one of the ads (for a restaurant) is found to have fallen off one of Versacorp's pedicabs, Nick angers his teammates by going back to the restaurant owner and returing the full amount paid. When Troy sees the Versacorp's pedicab advertising, he realizes Protégé is sunk and in a rare moment of humility states, "It was a great idea. I didn't have it." With the Protégé team's chances sunk, Heidi begins swearing under her breath at passersby when she is unable to convince them to buy rides.
  • Who gets fired: Heidi, for not doing her best in each task and for "not having her head in the game", according to Trump.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Special "Recap" Episode

  • Air date: March 18
  • Recap of first ten weeks, along with previously unaired footage.
  • No new task, no firing.

Week 11: Casino Game Promotion

  • Air date: March 25
  • "Corporate Reshuffle": Having faced losses in the last two tasks, Protégé Corporation is down to two candidates against four on Versacorp. As in the past when the teams have become overly uneven, Trump has the smaller team choose a player from the winning team. Kwame and Troy select Bill, breaking with the "tradition" of picking Amy. Versacorp now consists of Amy, Katrina and Nick.
  • Task: The teams head to Atlantic City, New Jersey where they will be responsible for registering gamblers at the Trump Taj Mahal Resort and Casino. The team whose registered gamblers wager the most money wins.
  • Winner: Protégé Corporation
  • Prize; The winners had an evening in the best suite in the hotel, along with $1,000 each to gamble.
  • Who gets fired: Katrina, by default. The team members all performed poorly. Given past results, Trump decided that Amy was the better leader and that Katrina should be fired.
  • Trivia: This is the first time Amy has been on a losing team, breaking her ten-week streak.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 12: PH Brokers

  • Air date: April 1
  • Task: Rent a penthouse at Trump World Tower for no less than $20,000 for one night
  • Winner: Versacorp (Nick and Amy)
  • Prize: Flight and lunch to Marelago private club in Palm Beach, Florida
  • Who gets fired: Troy, for being a loose cannon
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 13: Down to The Wire

  • Air date: April 8
  • Last episode before April 15 live finale
  • The final four candidated face demanding interviews with four Trump advisors.
  • Amy and Nick are fired. Only Bill and Kwame remain.
  • The last six fired candidates return to be "employees" of Bill and Kwame for the final task. Bill chooses Amy, Katrina and Nick for his staff; Kwame selects Heidi, Omarosa and Troy.
  • For the final task, Bill and Kwame will each have to oversee a major event. Bill is assigned a golf tournament at Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Kwame gets a Jessica Simpson concert at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
  • Omarosa does not fulfill her duties, and Jessica Simpson ends up being lost. It appears that Omarosa is trying to sabotage Kwame.
  • To be continued next week...
  • Episode recap from NBC.com

Week 14: The Live Finale

File:Nbc today the apprentice 1 cast.jpeg
Final two and Trump on the Today show
  • Air Date: April 15
  • Jessica Simpson booked her own transporation, without informing Kwame, and arrived at the hotel safely with her band. At the golf tournament, Bill lost track of some of the inventory.
  • Omarosa broke orders and took Jessica Simpson away when she was supposed to meet with Donald Trump. Trump gets impatient as Kwame is unable to locate Ms. Simpson.
  • Omarosa continues to make attacks concerning Kwame's handling of the Jessica Simpson concert.
  • Both tasks are successful. Trump introduced Simpson at her concert, and donated $25,000 to Operation Smile, an organization which Simpson sponsors.
  • Bill wins. He gets to choose from two jobs, and has only three minutes to decide. He selects the project of overseeing the building of Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Illinois, on the site of the present Chicago Sun-Times Building. The other option he had was to oversee and manage a new Trump National Golf Course and resort in Los Angeles.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
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