The Apprentice (American season 5)


The Apprentice 5 is the fifth season of The Apprentice, with Donald Trump as the executive producer and host. Applications were available online and filming occurred in the fall of 2005. Sean Yazbeck was named the winner and hired by Donald Trump as the new Apprentice during the season finale. Lee Bienstock, the runner-up to Yazbeck, proved to be very competitive and was hired outside of television a few months later.
This season of the show was the first to not rank in the Top 50 according to Nielsen ratings and the first to garner less than 10 million viewers on average; it ranked #51 with an average of 9.73 million viewers. This was the last season to have George H. Ross and Carolyn Kepcher as main boardroom judges, although Ross's role was largely taken over by Bill Rancic in this season. The show moved to Los Angeles, California the following season and Donald Trump's children became the most prominent judges after him.
The Apprentice 5 on Monday February 27, 2006, right after the new hit game show Deal or No Deal. NBC, facing a ratings slump, opted to put future seasons of the show on Monday nights. The network hoped to build the show's audience by making this move, as the program had witnessed a fairly substantial erosion in ratings since The Apprentice 1. However, the show faced tough competition with the Fox's fifth season of 24. The finale for The Apprentice 5 took place in Los Angeles on June 5, 2006. Season five's finale was the lowest rated ever, down 23% from season four and down 28% from season three's final episode.
The Apprentice 5 marked the debut of Donald Trump's children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. as boardroom judges when either George and/or Carolyn were unavailable. Jack McConnell, the First Minister of Scotland, makes an appearance in one of the episodes.
For the first time in Apprentice history, all episodes of this season could be obtained at iTunes for indefinite viewing after the episode has aired.

Candidates

This is the first season where not all of the candidates were exclusively American; this season contained cast members that were originally from Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom.
Team 1Team 2
Gold RushSynergy

CandidateBackgroundOriginal teamAgeHometownResult
Sean YazbeckRecruitment consultantSynergy33London, EnglandHired by Trump
Lee BienstockBusiness analystGold Rush22Brooklyn, New YorkFired in the season finale
Allie JablonMedical sales managerSynergy30Columbia, South Carolina10Fired in week 13
Roxanne WilsonAppellate attorneySynergy26Austin, Texas10Fired in week 13
Tammy TrentaWealth managerSynergy33Edison, New Jersey10Fired in week 12
Michael LaunganiManagement consultantSynergy29Chicago, Illinois10Fired in week 11
Tarek SaabHi-tech managerGold Rush27New Bedford, Massachusetts10Fired in week 10
Charmaine HuntReal estate consultantGold Rush27Nashville, Tennessee10Fired in week 10
Andrea LakeSticker company ownerSynergy31San Diego, California10Fired in week 9
Leslie BourgeoisRealtorGold Rush28Houma, Louisiana10Fired in week 8
Lenny VeltmanTrading company ownerGold Rush37Tashkent, Uzbekistan10Fired in week 7
Bryce GahaganHome builderGold Rush28Kansas City, Missouri10Fired in week 6
Dan BrodyClothing company ownerGold Rush31Miami, Florida10Fired in week 5
Brent BuckmanAttorneySynergy30Fort Lauderdale, Florida10Fired in week 4
Theresa BoutrossPsychotherapistGold Rush36Barrington, Illinois10Fired in week 3
Jose "Pepi" DiazAttorneySynergy25Miami, Florida10Fired in week 2
Stacy SchneiderCriminal defense attorneySynergy38New York, New York10Fired in week 2
Summer ZervosRestaurant ownerGold Rush30Huntington Beach, California10Fired in week 1

Team selections

As with the previous season of the show, Trump hand-picked the candidates. Furthermore, Trump personally selected Tarek and Allie to be the very first project managers and to draft their own teams before the first task is issued. This is the first time in the history of The Apprentice that the teams were not formed by a certain set of characteristics, such as gender or educational status.
Because this process was conducted after only preliminary introductions, some reasoning for certain selections had been somewhat arbitrary—such as Tarek picking Dan because he was a father, or Allie picking Tammy because she had the qualities of "a real tiger". For the first time since the original season of the show, the successful project managers would not exempt from firing the next week, therefore everyone had to do a satisfactory job in order to be safe.
Using alternate selections, one at a time, both of them picked their respective teams in the following order:
SynergyGold Rush
PMAllieTarek
1TammyDan
2AndreaBryce
3MichaelCharmaine
4SeanLeslie
5RoxanneTheresa
6StacyLee
7PepiSummer
8BrentLenny

Weekly results

Episodes

Week 1: Summer of Sam's Club

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