The Apprentice (U.S. season 3)

The Apprentice 3 is the third season of The Apprentice. It premiered January 20, 2005 on NBC. In this season, two groups of nine were divided into book smarts (who took the name Magna Corp) and street smarts (called Net Worth) referring to those with and without a completed college education. This replaced the Battle of the Sexes concept used on The Apprentice 1 and The Apprentice 2.

This was also the last season to land in the Top 20 Nielsen ratings, ranking at #15, with an average of 13.96 million viewers.

Candidates

The Net Worth team contained four men and five women, and the Magna Corp team contained five men and four women. Trump stated that "You just have to be business-smart", no matter what kind of smarts you have. See the candidates page for specific details on the candidates. Trump also pointed out one other major difference between the two groups - those with only a high school diploma earn three times as much as the college grads. Stephanie suggested Magna for the team name. It was short for magna cum laude, which means "with great distinction" and is often used as a title for high achieving graduates. Tara suggested Net Worth.

Weekly results

     The contestant was hired and won the competition.

     The contestant won as project manager on his/her team.

     The contestant lost as project manager on his/her team.

     The contestant was brought to the final boardroom.

     The contestant was fired.

     The contestant lost as project manager and was fired.

     The contestant quit the competition.

Episodes

Week 1: Whopper 101

• Airdate: January 20, 2005
• Hosting Company: Burger King
• Project managers: Todd (Magna) and John (New Worth). Both had experience in the food industry, and were trusted by their teams to lead them to victory.
• Project: Both teams have to promote new hamburger product from Burger King and then sell it.
• Trump Monologue: Perseverance - The best people in the world are the ones that don’t stop until the deal is made, they never give, they have “no quit”.
• Results: Magna chosen Triple Cheese Angus Steak Burger while Net Worth chosen Western Angus Burger.
• Winning team: Net Worth. The team of "street smarts" specifically picked a burger that they would be able to make an effective marketing campaign out of. They were able to incorporate a Western theme in their restaurant, along with a contest for two round trip tickets to Las Vegas, that encouraged customers to buy their burger. Net Worth also had three cashiers and eight members trained for the restaurant, and were able to successfully upsell their burger.
  • Reward: Dinner with Trump at the famed Club 21 restaurant.
• Losing team: Magna
  • Reasons for loss: Magna had trained six people and only had two cashiers in their restaurant, which lead to a bad point of sale and long lines. They also had an awful promotion scheme.
  • Firing points: Danny was first singled out by Stephanie from handling the marketing strategies. But Danny defended himself against her for "selling off". With that being said, Kendra was the only one to blame Todd for his inability to control Danny as Carolyn was impresses that Kendra ganged up with Danny. When Todd brought Alex him from the Final Boardroom, Alex pointed out that he did trained two cashiers at the restaurant; which bothered Trump.
• Sent to boardroom: Todd, Alex, Danny
  • Initial boardroom: Alex was responsible for his lousy job of hiring two cashiers, while Danny was disaster from his marketing scheme, he wasn't part of this jeopardy loss.
• Fired: Todd for having no leadership ability, being unable to control his team, and for making poor delegations.
• Notes:
  • Trump was unimpressed that the college-degree graduates was beaten by the high school graduates.

Week 2: Motel 666

• Airdate: January 27, 2005
• Hosting Company: Yahoo!
• Magna project manager: Michael
• Net Worth project manager: Brian
• Project: Each team has a budget of $20,000 to renovate a motel on the Jersey Shore, then the teams must welcome the paying guests, who would rate the motel and the customer service they received through Yahoo! Local site. The winner will determined by highest rating.
• Trump Monologue: Respect Comes From Winning - Trump gives example of Vince Lombardi and explained that the only reason he got away with the things he did was because he won (Over the monologue Trump is shown playing golf with Annika Sörenstam).

• Winning team: Magna
  • Magna's score rating: 3.96
  • Reasons for victory: Magna's score for the motel's rooms and facilities were only slightly better than Net Worth's, but Danny decided to throw a pool party, which created a good atmosphere among the guests and a fantastic customer service rating. Their plans for breakfast were nearly scuppered when Verna (who was supposed to be in charge of looking after the guests) abruptly left the motel, claiming that she was too stressed to continue in the process, but Carolyn chased after her and persuaded her to return, while Bren helped to salvage the breakfast situation.
  • Reward: An evening of dinner, drinks, and cigars with businessman Steve Forbes aboard his yacht.
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Net Worth's score rating: 2.92
  • Reasons for loss: Brian's decision to spend almost the entire budget on renovating the bathrooms and building full-length wardrobes did not improve the ratings by as much as he had hoped, and the dirty rooms with bad carpeting desecrated their overall rating. Even more damaging was a massive argument between Brian and Kristen right in front of the motel and their guests; while Angie and Audrey attempted to diffuse it, Kristen refused to calm down and started yelling at the women as well.
  • Final Boardroom: No internal review - Brian immediately admitted that the defeat was wholly his fault, and said that he should be fired.
  • Fired: Brian, for wasting money on many replacement toilets, not having a set budget, being an incompetent leader, and for saying that Trump should fire him.
• Notes:
  • At the start of the boardroom, Trump told John that he was exempt from being fired, and then jokingly asked him if he'd like to waive his exemption, referencing former candidate Bradford Cohen's actions in the second episode of the previous season. John held onto the exemption however, noting that he had argued with Brian several times during the task (though unlike Kristen, John stopped doing so after the guests arrived) and would have been one of his main targets were he not exempt.
  • While questioning other members of New Worth, Angie told Chris that she was disappointed in how much he contributed to the task due to him previously boasting to the team about his experience in renovation, this caused Chris to lose his temper and yell at Angie that he did not have hands-on experience in renovation, which Angie did not find satisfactory and when questioned further by Trump, Angie said that Chris should be fired over Brian because she believed Brian had more leadership potential. This marks the first of several times that Chris loses his temper in the boardroom.
  • Although the episode made it seem like there was more debate after Brian requested his termination, Donald Trump said at that point that Brian was finished. He then questioned the other team members about issues and problems not related to Brian (mostly Kristen's disrespectful behavior towards the other team members, and Chris's lackluster contribution to the task), before picking up the thread and telling Brian to get lost.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 3: Trouble is Brewing

• Airdate: February 3, 2005
• Quit: Verna - From the second episode, it was noticeable that Verna had lost her motivation to continue on the show. After a meeting with her team, Verna then opted to resign for unspecified personal reasons. This was the first time someone left The Apprentice on their own terms without being fired (Brian had effectively quit in the previous week by saying that he deserved to be fired, but Trump still fired him in the usual manner).
• Hosting Company: Nestlé
• Magna Project Manager: Danny
• Net Worth project manager: Angie
• Trump Monologue: Lead with authority - A leader rarely leads with consensus; a leader has to be capable of thinking independently and often go against consensus.
• Project: Both teams were asked to promote Nestlé Nescafe brand.
  • The winner will chosen and judged by Nescafe executives.
• Winning team: Net Worth
  • Reasons for victory: The team decided to build their campaign around a political debate theme (tying into the presidential election that was ongoing at the time of filming) based on the merits of hot and cold coffee, creating a lot of buzz and getting across an impression of the Nestlé that its executives wanted.
  • Reward: A ride on a helicopter with a view of New York City from above.
• Losing team: Magna
  • Reasons for loss: While Magna's campaign was generally well-run, it gave no message about the product, meaning that their promotional event was essentially a street fair. Moreover, Magna spent vastly more than Net Worth, practically using up their entire budget and yet achieved inferior results to their competitors. Danny's insistence on having the entire team vote on every single major decision had severely slowed the team down in the planning stages, while Michael contributed virtually nothing to the task, causing the other Magna members to accuse him of hiding behind his immunity.
  • Sent to boardroom: Stephanie, Danny, and Michael. Trump was initially going to fire Danny without letting him bring anyone back, since no one else was directly responsible for the defeat, but allowed a final boardroom to take place after Erin and Danny accused Michael of abusing his immunity, and even asked Trump to revoke it.
• Fired: Danny, for being too polite and conciliatory while in charge and bringing Michael, who was exempt because of his win as project manager from last week, back to the boardroom in an unsuccessful attempt to get him fired anyway.
• Notes
  • This episode features the first time in Apprentice history that a contestant quit for personal reasons, namely Verna.
  • While Trump did say that he would have revoked Michael's immunity if he had committed a serious breach of the rules, he decided that laziness was not enough of a reason for Michael to lose his immunity.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 4: Soap Dopes

• Airdate: February 10, 2005
• Task sponsor: Dove and Deutsch Inc.
• Task scope: Teams are asked to create an 30-second advertising commerical for a new product from Dove: Cool Moisture Body Wash
  • For the second week in a row, the winner would be determined as judged by Dove executives.
• Magna project manager: Erin
• Net Worth project manager: Kristen
• Trump Monologue Never Settle - People settle for mediocrity because they are lazy.
• Both Magna and Net Worth failed the task—Both teams are asked to return back to the boardroom.
  • Reasons for loss of Magna: Their commercial was unairable; Bren came up with a ridiculous idea involving a woman trying to seduce a man by washing a cucumber with him (in a very sexually implicit way), only for the man to walk off with another male, which implied homosexuality and came across as "weird vegetable porn". Moreover, the soap was only featured on-screen for five seconds at the end of the advert, and no other information whatsoever was given about it.
  • Sent to boardroom (Magna): Erin, Michael, and Bren
  • Reasons for loss of Net Worth: While the soap of the product was featured much more in Net Worth's advert, Donny Deutsch disliked the fact that they had a runner applying the soap directly to his face and rubbing the soap off with a towel. While he was supposed to use water from a hydration point along with the soap, Kristen decided to just film him using the soap in order to save time. During the editing, John's punch line of their video was supposed to appear but Kristen didn't take control of the final message of the product.
  • Dramatic decision: Trump agrees with Donny Deutsch and he decided there will not be a winning team.
• Sent to boardroom (Net Worth): Kristen, Tana, and Audrey.
  • Initial boardroom: Erin's defense with Magna's team effort impressed Trump, therefore no one on Magna will be eliminated. On Net Worth, it was nothing but pointing the fingers to each other when Audrey went after Kristen's leadership ability. From Trump saying that Tana wasn't in fault from this task or in the hot seat, it was Kristen with no ability to control.
• Fired: Kristen, for not holding her team together, inability to control her team, and making a key mistake during the commercial filming (having one of the male models use the body wash in a way that was very unappealing), on top of losing the post-task boardroom defense to Erin. Trump felt that while Magna had held together well and tried their hardest to execute a very poorly conceived idea, Kristen had a good idea in her hands but completely ruined its execution, which he deemed unforgivable.
• Notes
  • This episode features the first time in Apprentice history that there are no winning team or a reward due to both teams completely failing at the task. This happened again in The Apprentice (U.S. season 8).
  • In the boardroom, Chris made several homophobic remarks when discussing Magna's advert. Trump asked Chris whether he was in fact gay himself, but Chris strongly denied that this was the case, which got an openly sceptical reaction from the other candidates.
  • After returning to the final boardroom, Trump took the unusual step of telling Erin that she was in absolutely no danger of being fired, since she had led the team well, and that she would instead be fighting to save Bren (who came up with their awful idea) and Michael (who had contributed the least to the task). On the other hand, Kristen was told in no uncertainty that she was facing dismissal, especially when Audrey and Tana admitted that they would rather see Kristen fired than Bren or Michael, despite the two men being on the opposing team.
  • While Net Worth's marathon runner commercial was a failure on The Apprentice, the same concept was used on a commercial in France for Mennen Sport.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 5: Airstream of Consciousness

• Airdate: February 17, 2005
• Sponsor: Visa USA and Airstream
• Magna project manager: Bren
• Net Worth project manager: Tana
• Project: Teams had to create their own mobile service business from Airstream. The team with the most profit wins.
• Trump Monologue Instinct Emphasizes the importance of trusting Instincts.
• Winning team: Net Worth, earning a profit of $991.
  • Reward for Winning: $20,000 shopping spree for pearls at Mikimoto.
• Losing team: Magna
  • Reasons for loss: Although they had received good things, Magna had a horrible marketing strategy. They had only earned $918.50, losing by less than $75. Michael didn't contribute much of anything to the task, while Stephanie's miserable attitude and questioning of Bren's decisions deflated Magna.
  • Sent to boardroom: Bren, Stephanie, and Michael
  • Firing verdict: When Trump asked Bren who should be fired, he selected Stephanie, which lead to a lengthy argument between the two. Michael interrupted the argument in an effort to back up Stephanie and get Bren fired, but this only served to anger Trump, who thought Michael was stupid for bringing attention to himself during an argument between two people who had made more serious mistakes in the task. Michael attempted to explain that he was just supporting what Stephanie was saying about Bren, but Trump decided he'd had enough of Michael and fired him.
  • Fired: Michael, for his poor contributions in the last three tasks, in addition to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
• Notes:
  • In this task, Jill Cremer fills in for Carolyn
  • An additional factor in Michael's firing was the fact that he twice claimed to be the same type of person as Trump; once during a camera interview, and then again in the boardroom. Trump took offense to this claim, telling Michael immediately before his firing: "You claim to be like me? The difference is, I work hard!"
  • Michael left his business card on the boardroom table for Trump after he was fired, telling Trump to contact him the next time he's in Boston, and that he owns a "very large parking lot" in town.
  • This is the last time that Net Worth won a task.

Week 6: The Writing on the Wall

• Airdate: February 24, 2005
• Sponsor: Sony Electronics and PlayStation
• Magna project manager: Alex
• Net Worth project manager: Tara
• Project: Create a graffiti tag in Harlem to promote the Sony PlayStation 2 game Gran Turismo 4.
• Trump Monologue Shut Up And Listen Trump emphasizes the importance of listening, one doesn't have to follow what others are saying but it is important to listen in order to learn.
  • The winner will determined as judged by Sony PlayStation's executives, who will base their decision on feedback from local residents.
• Winning team: Magna
  • Reasons for victory: Magna's advert was eye-catching and showcased the variety of scenery and vehicles featured in the game. It also made good use of the Sony and Gran Turismo branding, clearly communicating their message to the locals.
  • Reward for Winning: Photo shoot for individual portraits with world-famous photographer Patrick Demarchelier.
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Reasons for loss: Tara decided to focus more on creating a piece of art rather than an ad, feeling that focusing too much on the advertising aspect would be disrespectful to the Harlem community. Unfortunately, this ended up making the graffiti unrelated to the brands, and didn't tell the residents anything about the game itself, which gave them no reason to buy it.
  • Sent to boardroom: Tara, Audrey and Craig
  • Fired: Tara, for ignoring the executives' wishes and producing an inoffensive but useless final ad, missing the point that it was a marketing task, and for allowing her emotions to tie into her decision to bring Craig into the final boardroom, which didn't help her cause when Craig inexplicably insulted Audrey's being a newlywed and said she should be fired instead of Tara.
• Special notes:
  • Jill Cremer once again fills in for Carolyn in this episode.
  • Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 7: Project Putt-putt

• Airdate: March 3, 2005
• Sponsor: Golfing segment of The Trump Organization
• Hosting Company: Chelsea Piers
• Magna project manager: Stephanie
• Net Worth project manager: Audrey
• Project: To build a miniature golf course and attract the most business of sales revenue.
• Trump Monologue Play Golf Trump simply discusses his love for the sports and how it can help people come together.
• Winning team: Magna
• Reasons for win: They earned a total profit of $508.
  • Reward for Winning: Golf game with Trump and Christie Kerr.
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Reasons for loss: They lost by $204 with a total profit of $304. John was disrespectful to Audrey and maintained a blatant attitude throughout the task, which didn't go unnoticed by guest observer Ashley Cooper.
  • Sent to boardroom: Audrey, Craig, John, and Angie
  • Fired: Audrey, for having poor leadership skills, inability to control the team, losing the respect of her team, and for bringing Angie for the Final Boardroom when she didn't explain why; this lead Angie to angrily state that Audrey deserved to be eliminated.
• Special notes:
  • Ashley Cooper fills in for George Ross in this week's episode.
  • Audrey is the only person in this season to bring three people back into the boardroom. In the previous season, Trump had given the project manager a choice of bringing back two or three people, but frequently got two as a response. In this episode, after Audrey's selections, Trump said he "usually wouldn't do it", but allowed her to.
  • Chris was lambasted for chewing tobacco in his clown costume.
  • Kendra cut Net Worth off at the knees by doing exclusive promotion deals to place her flyers at many other kid-friendly establishments.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 8: Bling it On

• Airdate: March 10, 2005
• Hosting Company: FUSE TV, a cable-TV channel
• Magna project manager: Kendra
• Net Worth project manager: Chris
• Corporate shuffle: Before the project began, the project managers (Chris and Kendra) were assigned to send two people from their current team to the other side. Kendra sent Erin and Stephanie to Net Worth, while Chris shipped Tana and Craig over to Magna.
• Project: To run a charity auction where the bidders will get special attention/prizes from famous music stars.
• Trump Monologue Go Big or Go Home Trump talks about aiming for the stars, swinging for the fences.
• Winning team: Magna.
  • Reasons for Victory: While three of their five items sold for low prices, Craig and Tana were able to negotiate a pair of weeks on tour with Moby and Lil' Kim, and those two items single-handedly outgrossed Net Worth's entire line-up. Magna raised $21,654.
  • Reward for Winning: None, since this was a charity episode.
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Reasons for Loss: John took charge of the negotiations, but didn't listen to the musicians and negotiated a broadly similar set of prizes from all five of them, meaning that none of their items stood out. Net Worth raised $11,325.
  • Final Boardroom: Chris, John, and Erin
  • Fired: John, for bad negotiations, and because Trump thought he had totally fallen apart after being one of the frontrunners early in the season. John later claimed that Donald Trump expressed a wish to fire Stephanie (who had immunity from her week 7 win as project manager), but this has never been confirmed.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com
• Notes: Gene Simmons and Lil Jon, who appeared in this episode, would return as contestants in the Celebrity Apprentice.

Mid-Season Highlights: What You Didn't See...

• Airdate: March 17, 2005
• This episode featured unaired footage from the first eight weeks. Among other new details:
  • The Net Worth team struggled while learning how to use Burger King's computerized order system.
  • Kendra found a great bargain on furniture, but Michael's decision to have Bren and Danny pick it up instead of paying for delivery led them to bad-mouth him as they got lost on the winding roads of New Jersey.
  • Brian gave a post-firing interview where he declared that he did a great job on his task and Donald Trump should hire him anyway.
  • Michael and Stephanie both annoy their teammates with their poor attitudes during the Airstream task.
  • After Stephanie is cast off of Magna by Kendra, Chris asks Donald Trump if he can send her back; as everyone but Stephanie laughs heartily, Trump says no, but also that he'll remember the request.
  • Tana asks Erin, who was cut from Magna to Net Worth along with Stephanie, if Erin and Stephanie will trade bedrooms so that each set of traded competitors (Tana and Craig are the other one) can be near their new teams. Erin was angered by the request and said no.

Week 9: Pandora's Box

• Airdate: March 24, 2005
• Hosting Company: Home Depot
• Magna project manager: Craig
• Net Worth project manager: Angie
• Project: To create a short presentation/event for Home Depot.
• Trump Monologue Sell Your Ideas Trump Discusses the importance of presenting proposals and proper communication, if a great idea is not proposed adequately if will fail.
• Winning team: Magna
  • Reasons for victory: Caraig decided should simply design a box. After Craig's teammates felt his concept was mediocre with no imagination, the presentation ends up being a big draw for the children because they can finger paint, draw on boxes, and build it with their parents.
  • Reward for Winning: Taking a ride in a Zero-G jet, simulating weightlessness in space.
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Reasons for loss: Net Worth decides to build a mobile kitchen island. They had a good concept, but their presentation fell apart and it flops as Chris puts the top on upside down, and their originality short-timing presentation goes off being more than 20 minutes long. The crucial factor, in the eyes of the expert assessors, was that it is vital for a clinic to have customer involvement while Net Worth did the assembly themselves.
  • Final Boardroom: Chris, Angie, and Erin
  • Initial task: During the task of Net Worth, Erin said that she doesn't know about Home Depot. And Angie decided not having her as a presenter of the team's presentation, since she felt Erin's bad attitude.
  • Firing Verdict: Trump says Erin should have been the presenter and considers firing Angie, even though George and Carolyn advised against it. When Trump acknowledged that he usually listens to his advisors, Erin coyly asked "Do you have to?", and even winked at Trump. An offended Carolyn called it "a dumb statement", and Trump calls her a "wise guy" and then he said, "You know what Erin? You're fired!".
  • Fired: Erin, for not contributing anything during the task, attempting to flirt with Trump in the boardroom and being openly disrespectful to Carolyn and George.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 10: The Pie's the Limit

• Airdate: March 31, 2005
• Hosting Company: Domino's Pizza
• Magna project manager: Bren
• Net Worth project manager: Stephanie
• Project: To create a new pizza for Domino's Pizza, and sell it from a mobile street trailer.
• Trump Monologue Know When to Fold Trump abstractly explains to give up on ideas that might be great on the drawing board, but don't work better in practice. They should be shuttered so that you can start focuses on the next prospect. Note: The monologue was irrelevant to the task or the groups performance.
  • Magna: Tana brings out her Italian cooking knowledge and builds a nice design. Magna did well because they decided to sell to the city banks who would give them big orders. However, the team struggled to make pizzas quickly, but they managed to please the customers.
  • Net Worth: Chris and Alex sell a bunch of advanced-order pizzas to a construction site near where the task starts. Unfortunately the actual selling site the next day winds up being across town. There are so many pizzas that it takes two people to carry them on the subway. Stephanie decides to go do this personally and apologizes to the workers because she feels it is a failure of honor to have the pizzas get there late. While Stephanie is gone from the pizza making site, Chris gets in a fight with Alex, Alex asserts himself, Chris makes aggressive statements. Later on during discussion Stephanie uses the word "threat", which Alex then agrees is what happened. Stephanie tries to use all this in the boardroom to get Chris fired, but doesn't process that Alex explicitly says he won't only be targeting Chris in the Boardroom. The marketing street workers that Net Worth hires mill around and do not hit the hot spots, focusing their energies on the NYU campus which has people around at lunch but is not as busy as the business areas that Magna succeeds with.
• Winning team: Magna
  • Total profit: $653.12
  • Reward for Winning: Having breakfast with Trump in his gold-plated palace apartment.
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Total profit: $523.90
  • Sent to boardroom: Alex, Stephanie, and Chris
    • Carolyn made it clear that she wanted Chris to go because she was concerned about his volatility. However, while Trump was upset at Chris' performance, he was more concerned about Stephanie's poor leadership skills and her inability to handle difficult people. This caused Trump to fire Stephanie instead of Chris as the ability to overlook subordinates is an important task for a project manager. In addition, Alex said he would prefer to work with Chris instead of Stephanie, saying she was bad at every task and her performances were only good by comparison.
  • Fired: Stephanie, for the bad decision with the construction site delivery, having no ability to control Chris or Alex, lack of overall leadership, and lingering disdain for her efforts stemming from earlier in the season.
• Notes:
  • Alex is shifted from Magna to Net Worth in this episode.
  • Both teams use 'meatballs' as Pizza toppings since Trump said he likes meatballs.
  • Stephanie, a vegetarian, forces herself to eat the meatball pizzas and to say that she likes it to her team.
  • Carolyn was visibly unhappy with the decision to keep Chris, but agreed that Stephanie was a poor leader.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 11: Seams Stress

• Airdate: April 7, 2005
• Sponsor: American Eagle
• Magna project manager: Tana
• Net Worth project manager: Alex
• Project: To design some kind of 'high tech' modifications to clothing for American Eagle Outfitters company. Each team will have Visa Cards of five thousand dollars budget.
• Trump Monologue Let Nothing Get In Your Way Trump just says you should never give up. Note: The Monologue was irrelevant to the task, and it directly contradicted last week's monologue.
• Winning team: Magna
  • Reasons for victory: Magna does more research than Net Worth, figuting out that the gadget the market most wants is the cell phone even though when Bren and Craig brought back clothing that has been manhandled by the silkscreen shop, with paint blobs and a backwards logo on one of the items.
  • Reward for Winning: Shopping at Bergdorf Goodman
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Reasons for loss: Net Worth didn't bring a lot of details on their high tech gadgets in front of the executives. During minor of the task, Angie felt Alex assigned her too many tasks and felt she was taking too much responsibility, pointing on the checklist which gave her about 19 things to do. They also had to make a last minute change in the order when one of the models forgot his item back at the designing store, and a flustered Angie stumbled in the presentation because of this.
  • Final Boardroom: Trump requested Chris, Alex, and Angie waiting in the reception area.
    • Carolyn criticizes Chris, while Michelle criticizes Angie. Trump says that Chris and Angie have both been there six times. Trump goes on to attack Angie, while saying that Alex had done well but was brought down by the two "losers". Trump asks Angie if she "choked", to which after much hassling from Trump, she replies that she did, and then she's fired. Carolyn was visibly displeased by this, but Trump says that he doesn't like "chokers" and that he doesn't want them in his organization. In her exit interview, Angie says she wants everyone to know that she didn't "choke".
  • Fired: Angie, for stumbling during the presentation and for not being able to handle the pressure.
• Special notes:
  • Michelle Scarbrough, a Trump Organization staff attorney, filled in for George on this task.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 12: A Lonely Drive

• Airdate: April 14, 2005
• Sponsor: Pontiac and General Motors
• Magna project manager: Kendra
• Net Worth project manager: Chris
• Project: To prepare a sales brochure for the Pontiac Solstice car.
  • Magna: Magna comes up with a round brochure that looks very interesting and unique and has spaces for a CD and business cards. Its theme is the emotions that the car engenders. Pontiac is so impressed that they decide to use the brochures in their stores. However Tana and Craig go to sleep before it is done (a decision that ended up haunting Tana later on, as she openly stated she was not going to pull an all-nighter because she couldn't be fired anyway), appearing to leave Kendra to finish it all (the Finale qualified this, as it revealed that Craig did return to the task to help Kendra finish it, while Tana slumbered uninterrupted). In the presentation to Pontiac, Tana tries to unjustifiably take over speaking duties from Kendra but Kendra fends her off and the team ends up netting a good result.
  • Net Worth: Net Worth's brochure has boring writing and looks generic. The lead photograph of the car is blurred with the intention of conveying speed. In the presentation to Pontiac, Chris gets nervous and stumbles over his lines, making up new words like 'interiorally and exteriorally'.
• Winning team: Magna
  • Reward for Winning: A basketball shoot-around at Madison Square Garden with Isiah Thomas and the New York Knicks' Penny Hardaway and Jamal Crawford.
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Final Boardroom: Alex, Bren, and Chris
    • George rages on their 'fuzzy picture'. Alex says Bren's writing is boring. Bren defends his writing by saying Alex should have told him the problem sooner. Trump starts grilling Chris about why he has been in the boardroom losing so much. Chris doesn't flip out but admits that they lost. Donald asks George and Carolyn who they would fire and they both say Chris. This, and a seven week losing streak, seals Chris's fate. He starts to cry in the boardroom after he is fired (an Apprentice first). Trump calls him back to shake his hand and tell him he is a good kid and to stop chewing tobacco and watch his temper.
  • Fired: Chris, for his 7-week losing streak, his lack of ability to control his emotions, and partially because of his addiction to tobacco (despite working hard to stop throughout the season).
• Special notes:
  • Team Reassignments: Bren, from Magna to Net Worth
  • Craig and Tana leave Kendra alone to work on the Solstice advertisement and Tana cites her Immunity. George Ross would jump on this point during the final episode when Kendra and Tana were the Final 2.
  • This is the first time (outside of finales) that Trump is shown shaking the hand of a contestant in the boardroom after firing them.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 13: I Can't Believe It's Not Clutter

• Airdate: April 21, 2005
• Hosting Company: Staples
• Magna project manager: Craig
• Net Worth project manager: Alex
• Project: To design an office organizer for Staples and successfully present it to a focus group of Staples executives and managers.
  • Magna: Magna (Craig, Kendra, and Tana) creates a space-saving, efficient desk organizer (See 'Special notes' below) in spite of continued conflict between Craig and Kendra. They held face-to-face meetings with the Staples executives and a group of managers as a focus group.
  • Net Worth: Net Worth created an invention that wasted space and was awkwardly arranged. This paled in comparison to Magna's space-friendly and efficient invention, while Net Worth essentially had a second mobile desk. Alex had also decided to dispense with face-to-face meetings in order to save time, which led to Bren being unable to set up a focus group conference call.
• Winning team: Magna
  • Reward for Winning: Breakfast at the Rainbow Room with George and Carolyn
• Losing team: Net Worth
  • Final Boardroom: Alex and Bren
    • George is embarrassed at both Alex and Bren for poor invention skills, although Alex and Bren thought they had a better-looking product. The focus of this boardroom was that Alex and Bren's invention took up too much space, plus all the papers and supplies had to be placed in an awkwardly inconvenient matter. Carolyn pointed out the design/invention flaws during the boardroom. Donald, George, and Carolyn apparently were not happy with the difficulty of use arising from this "Packrat" invention idea Alex and Bren had.
    • Alex showed his killer instinct in the boardroom while Bren let slip that he does not like to take risks at all. This caught the attention of Trump; Bren was therefore fired for his inability to take risks.
  • Fired: Bren, for his unwillingness to take risks and Trump's recognition that he was simply not as business-tested as the other candidates.
• Special notes:
  • Trump stated that regardless of the outcome of this task, because the interview is entering its final stages, no further exemptions would be issued.
  • You can now purchase Magna's invention (officially dubbed and released as The Desk Apprentice) at Staples stores everywhere or through Staples Online for about $29.99 USD.
• Episode Recap on NBC.com

Week 14: Bedazzled by a Beefy T

• Airdate: April 28, 2005
• Hosting Company: Hanes
• Magna project manager: Kendra
• Net Worth project manager: Tana
• Project: To work with pop artists to design a t-shirt for Hanes celebrating their 50th anniversary, and make the most money selling the shirt.
• Winning team: Magna, in spite of Craig and Kendra continuing to clash with each other. Kendra wanted Craig to get her OK to make decisions, but Craig continuously argued against Kendra's ideas, and changed the price points on some of their shirts to a pathetic level, only to get annoyed with Kendra for telling him to keep them at the cost they'd agreed on. The team ultimately won out by exploiting their artist's existing fanbase and contacts list, selling over half of their stock.
  • Reward for Winning: Engaging in a Dogfight in two fighter planes. Kendra's plane won out over Craig's. Kendra revealed that her father had been a "Top Gun" pilot.
• Losing team: Net Worth. Tana wasted several hours travelling to and from Staten Island to buy beads and accessories to attach to their t-shirts, while Alex failed to effectively market. Though Tana did succeed in upselling the customised t-shirts, they sold them in quantities far too small to give them any real chance of victory, shifting barely a fifth of their stock.
  • Final Boardroom: Alex and Tana
  • Fired: Alex, for not contributing much to the task, his 5-week losing streak, and also for saying he had only lost once as Project Manager—Donald Trump viewed Alex's statement as dishonest because he has been a losing PM twice, although it appeared Alex was talking about the time the only other person on his team was Bren, and they hadn't defined each other in PM/supporting roles so clearly.
• Notes:
• Episode Recap from NBC.com

Week 15: The Interviews

• Task scope: Have an interview with four high-profile business executives:
  • David Brandon, Chairman & CEO of Domino's Pizza
  • Darlene Daggett, President of U.S. Commerce, QVC
  • Howard Lorber, President of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate
  • Greg Brenneman, Chairman & CEO of Burger King
• Results: All four executives agreed that they would not hire Craig, given that that answers were not specific and did not have any substance. Two of the executives stated they would hire Tana, because she had exceptional entrepreneurial skills and felt that Tana was the perfect balance of a mother, housewife, and businesswoman. They also felt that Kendra was a questionable candidate, with one of the executives calling Kendra's answers "scripted". On the contrary, the other two executives felt that Kendra was the best candidate, believing that she had amazing potential (albeit her age) and questioned Tana's ability to work in a metropolitan environment.
• Fired: Craig, for being unanimously deemed the worst by executives and for not having what it takes to be The Apprentice.

Week 16: The Games People Play & Week 17: Into the Stretch

• Airdates: May 5, 12 and 19, 2005
• Sponsors:
  • Book Smarts: PlayStation, Best Buy, and Electronic Arts Sports Division
  • Street Smarts: NYC 2012 Olympics Board/Committee with the City of New York
• Book Smarts Finalist: Kendra
• Street Smarts Finalist: Tana
• Project:
  • Book Smarts: Best Buy Fight Night Promotion.
  • Street Smarts: NYC 2012 Athlete Challenge.
• Hired: Kendra, for her 3-0 record as project manager, and for not once being called into the final boardroom by another project manager.
• Fired: Tana, for insulting her team members and not leading her team well enough, failing to coordinate the NYC 2012 event smoothly, and for falsely claiming all of the success on the Week 12 Solstice task.

• Special notes:
  • The one-on-one interviews aired on the first part of the May 5, 2005 episode.
  • The first part of the final task was aired on May 5, 2005 after Craig's firing in the middle of Episode 15.
    • During the interviews, Kendra threatened that she would "compete" with Trump if he did not hire her.
    • All interviewers unanimously recommended that Craig was not suitable for the Trump Organization.
  • Second part of this episode was the allocation of the final tasks.
    • Since Kendra and Tana started out on opposing teams, it would become the final battle of Book Smarts vs Street Smarts
  • Trump picked three previously fired candidates to serve as the employees of each finalist.
    • Employees hired:
    • Magna (a.k.a. Book Smarts Team): Michael, Danny, and Erin
    • Net Worth (a.k.a. Street Smarts Team): Brian, Chris, and Kristen
  • Although it appeared that Tana and Kendra's employees were going to discuss their employers on the finale (based on the ending to the penultimate episode), the finale went directly to the live hiring instead. It was speculated that because Tana's performance had been completely thrashed, that the producers decided not to show it. This was in light of the criticism the show received for the endless footage on the previous season were all the favor was towards Kelly Perdew, and all the negative feedback was directed towards Jennifer Massey.
  • The live finale took place in New York University
  • Before the final hiring decision was made, the two potential winning tasks were announced: the renovation of a massive mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, and a managing role with the Trump-owned Miss Universe Pageant. Kendra said she would like the renovation project because it fit with her real estate background and was not far from her home base in Florida, and Tana had also stated her preference for the Miss Universe job.
  • In addition to becoming the first female Apprentice, Kendra became the first winner to never appear in the final boardroom, along with being the first winner to stay on the original team throughout the entire interview process.
• Episode Fifteen Recap on NBC.com
• Episode Sixteen Recap on NBC.com
• Final Episode Recap on NBC.com

Additional information

• The BBC showed this series in the UK on BBC2. The first episode aired on August 30, 2006 and the series finished on October 21, 2006.
• Following the season finale, Tana appeared in commercials for the Bedazzler, the very product she insisted on obtaining in the Hanes t-shirt episode. In the commercials, The Apprentice is not referred to by name and is only referred to as "national television."[1]
• Kristen also appeared as a contestant in the 2001 Fox reality series Murder in Small Town X as a bleached-blond, wherein she was notable for having established contentious relationships with all of her fellow contestants. She was eliminated at the end of the 6th episode.
• Kendra's winning assignment involved overseeing $25 million of renovations to the aforementioned $41 million Trump property in Palm Beach, Florida. The property was recently sold to a Russian billionaire for $100 million, a drop from the initial listing of $125 million but still marking a very large profit for Trump. The billionaire said he and his family have no plans to move to Florida anytime soon.

See also

Season 1 Season 2 Season 4 Season 5 Season 6 Season 7

External links

• NBC's official website
• The Yahoo! Apprentice 3 Website with unaired footage and detailed outcomes
• The Apprentice Rules Unofficial site with a lot of information.
• Winner of season 3 Kendra Todd gives a podcast interview with Nubricks.com.

Candidate websites

• Tara Dowell
• Erin Elmore
• Audrey Evans
• Verna Felton
• Tana Goertz
• Danny Kastner
• Kristen Kirchner
• Brian McDowell
• Angie McKnight
• Stephanie Myers
• Michael Tarshi
• Kendra Todd