The Apprentice 1

From Free net encyclopedia

{{Infobox Television The Apprentice | season_name = The Apprentice 1 | caption = The Apprentice 1 | image = Nbc apprentice2 key art.jpeg | first_aired = January 2004 | last_aired = May 2004 | filming_started = Unknown | filming_completed = Unknown | location = New York City, New York | winner = Bill Rancic | number_candidates = 16 | number_episodes = 15 | previous_season = | next_season = The Apprentice 2 | teams = Versacorp and Protégé }} The first season of The Apprentice aired on NBC in the winter and spring of 2004.

Contents

[edit]

About the Season

Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 had Real Estate Magnate Donald Trump as the show's executive producer and host.

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, located on the fourth floor. Elimination took the form of one contestant being "fired" by Trump at the conclusion of each week's episode. Filming the entire season took three months.

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 (allowed to go back up to the suite, because they were safe to stay for the next round), 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.

[edit]

Candidates

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Image:Nbc apprentice1 cast a la The Brady Bunch.jpeg Since The Apprentice is essentially a job interview, the contestants are referred to as "candidates":

[edit]

Weekly summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
[edit]

Week 1: "Meet the Billionaire"

  • Air date: January 8
  • 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 Fish Market area, 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.
  • Losing Team/PM: Versacorp/Troy
  • Boardroom Nominees: David, Sam
  • Who gets fired: David, for not showing Trump anything as leader or follower.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Week 2: "Sex, Lies and Altitude"

  • Air date: January 15
  • 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.
  • Losing Team/PM: Versacorp/Jason
  • Boardroom Nominees: Nick, Sam
  • Who Gets Fired: Jason, for not meeting with the client at the start of the task. Trump felt that the decision was tough but had no choice but to fire Jason since it is really important to meet up with the client in the business world. Since Jason didn't meet up with the client and Trump apparently liked Jason, Jason had to go since to Trump, what is called "a firing mistake" was made.
  • 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
[edit]

Week 3: "Respect"

  • 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)
  • Reward: Dinner at the 21 Club restaurant.
  • 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.
  • Losing Team/PM: Versacorp/Sam
  • Boardroom Nominees: Bowie, Kwame
  • Who Gets Fired: Sam, in the "easiest decision yet", according to Trump and his associates. Trump says his trademark dismissal quote, "You're fired!" to Sam four times and for good reason—Sam's leadership was considered to be too weak.
  • Dramatic tension: Ereka and Omarosa get into a fight in the last episode, and it continues in this episode, and Katrina stepped in and tried to make them reconcile, but it didn't work.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Week 4: "Ethics Schmethics"

  • 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.
  • Losing Team/PM: Versacorp/Kwame
  • Boardroom Nominees: Bowie, Nick
  • Who gets fired: Bowie, mostly by process of elimination. Bowie's firing is one of the rare instances which Trump elected to fire someone through an elimination process.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Week 5: Flea Market

  • Air date: February 5
  • The teams are reorganized by "corporate restructuring", 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.
  • Winner:Versacorp
  • Losing Team/PM: Protégé/Kristi
  • Boardroom Nominees: Heidi, Omarosa
  • Who gets fired: Kristi, for not defending herself.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
  • Donald Trump warns the new teams sex appeal won't cut it in the real world in reorganising the teams.
  • The members of Protégé lost $183 on this task.
[edit]

Week 6: Donation Auction

[edit]

Week 7: "Dupe- Lex"

  • Air date: February 19
  • Task: The teams restore and rent out apartments. Omarosa received a bump on the head by a falling piece of plaster. Heidi finds out her mother has cancer.
  • Losing Team/PM: Versacorp/Katrina
  • Boardroom Nominees: Bill, Tammy
  • Who gets fired: Tammy, for being disloyal to her team.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Week 8: Trump Ice

  • Air date: February 26
  • Task: Both teams sell bottled water (called "Trump Ice") with Donald Trump's photo on each bottle.
  • Losing Team/PM: Versacorp/Ereka
  • Boardroom Nominees: Bill, Nick
  • Who gets fired: Ereka, for letting her emotions influence her decision-making (she let her friend Katrina go back up to the suite so she could fight in the boardroom against Bill).
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Week 9: "DNA, Heads and the Undead Kitty"

  • Air date: March 4
  • Task: The teams sell art. Versacorp picks a surrealist artist named Meghan Boody. Protégé Corporation sticks with a more mainstream artist named Andrei Petrov, who specializes in abstract art paintings.
  • Losing Team/PM: Protégé/Kwame
  • Boardroom Nominees: Heidi, Omarosa
  • Who gets fired: Omarosa, for making too many excuses.
    • Trump's comments about Omarosa: Trump apparently is fed up with Omarosa's horde of excuses and felt that the team would perform better without Omarosa.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Week 10: "Wheeling and Dealing"

  • 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.
  • Losing Team/PM: Protégé/Troy
  • Boardroom Nominee: Heidi
  • 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
[edit]

Week 11: "A Look Back"

  • Air date: March 18
  • Recap of first ten weeks, along with previously unaired footage.
  • No new task, no firing.
  • This episode was added because NBC did not want the show to compete against CBS' coverage of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship first round games, knowing how the ratings of the tournament, would be too hard to compete against because of the heavily regionalised coverage of the tournament. Likewise, Mark Burnett Productions refuses to let The Apprentice compete head-to-head against CBS' Survivor, which is also a Mark Burnett production.
[edit]

Week 12: "Circus, Circus"

  • 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.
  • Losing Team/PM: Versacorp/Amy
  • Boardroom Nominee: Katrina
  • 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
[edit]

Week 13: "The Price is Height"

  • 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 Trump's Mar-A-Lago private club in Palm Beach, Florida
  • During the boardroom, Bill, Kwame, and Troy were asked about their education. Troy only held a high school diploma, while Kwame held a Masters degree from Harvard, and Bill has a college degree from Loyola University (Chicago), both schools The Donald knew well. Troy would fire Kwame, so Bill was not nominated onto the Boardroom. Troy and Kwame would face the final wrath of The Donald after The Donald took time to review the performance of the Boardroom Nominees.
  • Losing Team/PM: Protégé/Troy
  • Sent to Boardroom: Kwame, and Troy
  • Who gets fired: Troy, for being a loose cannon
[edit]

Week 14: "Down to The Wire"

  • Air date: April 8
  • Last episode before April 15 live finale
  • The final four candidates face demanding interviews with four Trump advisors.
  • Nick got fired first because he was a respected sales representative, but he lacked leadership. This caused The Donald to seal Nick's fate. Amy later on got fired because not too many people respected Amy and The Donald's advisors had nothing but negative comments about her.
  • Bill and Kwame are the finalists.
  • 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.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Week 15: "Season Finale"

Image:Nbc today the apprentice 1 cast.jpeg

  • 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.
  • Who is hired: Bill, because Trump thought Bill did a very good job and Carolyn had nothing but positive comments about Bill. 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.
  • Who gets fired: Kwame, because Omarosa lied to Kwame twice and for his failure for not "re-firing" Omarosa for those lies.
    • Trump's comments about Kwame's flaws: Trump was aghast when he found out that Kwame didn't fire Omarosa for excessive false testimony and wanted to know why Kwame didn't re-fire Omarosa.
  • Part of this episode is taped a the same time as the Newlyweds 1st season finale. Only footage with Donald Trump introducing Jessica at the concert is seen, as footage featuring Kwame and his team had to be removed so everything would remain a secret until the first part of The Apprentice final task would air.
  • Episode recap from NBC.com
[edit]

Trivia

  • Ereka Vetrini was the co-host of The Tony Danza Show for the first season.
  • In 2005's "Hottest Girls in Reality Shows" calendar, Katrina Campins appeared and posed like a supermodel with several New York City towers in the background of her swimsuit picture.
  • Bill Rancic was only 4-9 and Kwame Jackson was 3-10 in the 13 weeks. It is the only time in Apprentice history where the Final Two each had a losing record in all of the episodes throughout the season, because of all of the switching of members of teams.
[edit]

External links

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/The_Apprentice_1"