The Apprentice - The Complete First Season

Product Details

The concept is simple. Real estate magnate Trump selects 16 players from business applicants across the nation. The grand prize? A $250,000-a-year job running one of his companies. As in producer Mark Burnett's Survivor, the contestants are then sent to an island--the island of Manhattan. In the first episode, they're introduced, then divided into two teams: the men (Versacorp) versus the women (Protégé). From this point on, they will compete in a variety of business-related challenges. The parallels to Survivor are clear, but brains will be more important than brawn--although charisma never hurts. The challenges include selling a product, managing a restaurant, and devising an advertising campaign.

At the end of each episode, the losing team is sent to the boardroom, where they meet with Trump and advisors Carolyn and George. The person considered most responsible for the loss gets to hear the immortal words: "You're fired." Although there can only be one winner, several stars would emerge during the first season: unctuous Sam, plainspoken Nick, sassy Heidi, and abrasive Omarosa. Various celebrities would also make guest appearances, such as Isaac Mizrahi, Regis Philbin, and Jessica Simpson. The success of The Apprentice would inspire a second season, as well as a host of imitators and spoofs, like Billionaire with Richard Branson and The Assistant with Andy Dick. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Reviews

(5 stars) - The Apprentice Season One
Anyone who was is a fan of The Apprentice will love this. Season One was the best. Loved watching it again. Wish that they had the other seasons on DVD, or better yet, The Celebrety Apprentice shows on DVD. This shipping was way too slow. All of the DVD's I ordered came from the same place (Amazon). I had free shipping, but it took over 10 days to get it which is ridiculous. That is my only complaint.

(5 stars) - Entertainting
The show was quite entertaining and enjoyable to watch but i was surprised really at the lack of negotiating abilities these people had or rather lacked. I'm no business whiz but i thought it strange the way they tried to "negotiate" rarely thinking outside of the box.
Why not for instance instead of going to a retailer to buy your golfclubs get direct from the manufacturer or a wholeseller and buy a dozen at a discount, then turn around and sell the 11 for face value. Maybe time constraints and other issues plagued the contestants that us viewers are not always aware of? Also, it was quite silly to see them selling bottled water by the case at little shops around new york who don't have space to house large quantities, go directly to the giant distributors and sell 20 pallets and cut the price down but make up on volume?? Any musician shopping at Guitar Center since they were a kid would have had more business negotiating skill then most of these folks, but good show never the less.

(5 stars) - good show!
Was never into this series until Celebrity Apprentice. Went back and watched this season. Interesting, up-and-coming business people. Some drams. Omarosa.

It's interesting to watch this series now, because a few years have passed and you can see what happened (or didn't happen) to all the contestants. Many have gone on to write books or otherwise have successful "media" careers, in addition to the various businesses which they have prior to the Apprentice.

As far as reality shows go, this is a pretty good one. Several good business/money lessons which can be applied to your own life.

(5 stars) - A good overview of some essential business skills
The objective of this series is to select a person - out of 16 candidates - who would be most suitable to become the apprentice and work for a year as a CEO for one of Donald Trump's companies. Half of the candidates are male, half female, some have one or two university degrees, others only a high school diploma, some are already running successful businesses, while others have barely left the school.

The candidates are divided in two teams who are given a new project to work on each week. The winning team - team that generates greater profit wins and from the losing team one person gets fired. Each episode ends with an important point that contributes to one's success in a business world. Many of those points successful people would consider to be common sense, but in spite of education and previous successes of the candidates picked for this series, many seem not to be aware of what would be truly basics. For example, in sales or in advertising it is a common sense to focus on the benefits for the client, so I was surprised when I heard people who are professional salesmen trying to sell stuff in this series by practically begging for sales saying things like "please buy this because I need money".

Initially the groups were divided in men against women, and women were winning, partly on playfulness and creativity and perhaps even more so by pushing their sexual appeal. It's true that sex sells and sex appeal works up to a certain point. People who look beautiful, appealing, sexy, charismatic may have it easier up to some point and in certain circumstances, but it is not enough for running big business, so as the male group got decimated in half and the groups were reshuffled, with each group having 2 men and six women, women slowly began to fall off. In general their main weakness seemed to be that they were getting too emotional, over-dramatic and at times hysterical - instead of focusing on business issues, they'd get wrapped in personal issues. When it comes to managing and leading other people, it helps if the leader is able first to manage his own inner states. If an aspiring leader is emotionally falling apart, and is unable to manage him or herself, how is he/she going to lead anyone?

Based on the candidates picked for this series, it seems to me that many are picked to demonstrate what will never work. There are countless self-help programs that tell people "you can be all you want to be if you just set your mind on it", but here it was obvious that people have different traits and personalities and some are naturally more suitable to be leaders and others will not make it as leaders no matter what they do. One can get education and one can get experience, but the person that comes across as a fruit cake is not going to get far.

It was also obvious that there is a perfect place under the sun for each one of us - some are better suited to run their own business, some are better suited to work for someone else in some capacity and yet others are suitable to work for large organizations and govern business and people they are in charge of. I think that this series helps viewers to assess their own strengths and weaknesses, their own talents and abilities and to work on with what they've got.

There were very few people in this series who seemed to have decent communication, negotiation and inter-personal skills and it seems most people could work on improving them. Many people in this series were deluding themselves, believing that they have the skills and traits which they do not have and thinking that if they scream louder they will convince others that indeed they have them, whereas their behavior spoke quite differently.

And in spite of their weaknesses and being truly unsuitable for the CEO position, many of the candidates in this series had their own talents and abilities that could be used effectively in other positions and in other kinds of work. Some of them do seem better suited being self-employed and running their own businesses.

All in all I have gain many new insights from watching these series and do highly recommend it to anyone interesting in running any kind of business.

(5 stars) - best of this series!
Out of all the seasons of this show, this season is the best. The concept behind the show really started out strong and Donald Trump lucked out by having such a dynamic cast of characters, many of whom have gone on to be very successful. Sadly, every season after this one has not measured up to the drama, personality classes, and spectacle that happened during this seasons.

As a bonus, there are some very good business lessons here. I feel this season is very educational.

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