Before Celebrity Apprentice (the Apprentice that nobody watched) there was The Apprentice, a show the chronicled sixteen business savvy men and women, hoping to gain a one-year contract to head one of Donald Trump’s companies. Two teams fought head to head each week in competitions that tested the contestant’s business skills. Week after week, we watched as Donald pointed his finger at one unlucky contender and yelled, “You’re Fired!” The contestant would then proceed to cry with disappointment, yell in anger at a cast member that didn’t have their back, or simply have no comment as they took to the back seat of a NYC taxi. The cycle continued until the live boardroom, where the last two contestants fought head-to-head to hear the final words, “You’re Hired!”-Kate Rogan

How Trump Decides Whom to Fire
If we knew that, we'd own a lot of casinos by now. Seriously, it seems to vary. Some weeks, someone is so thoroughly inept that there's no choice but to fire that person. Some weeks, someone screws up so badly in the boardroom meeting itself that his ticket is punched just for that. Sometimes, someone's performance over a period longer than just that episode seems to figure into the decision. And sometimes, Trump just seems to be amusing his own rich and powerful ass.

The Boardroom
The losing team goes to the boardroom to face Donald Trump and his two Viceroys for the week. There, each member of the team minimizes his or her own role in losing the task and maximizes everyone else's. Finally, the person who the team chose to be the "project manager" for the task has to choose two other people to hang around with him or her and be up for firing. The rest of the team is dismissed, and then these final three defend themselves some more, and then Trump waves his hand and says, "You're fired," and it's much more brilliant than it should be.

David: He was some kind of medical/money guy, and he was booted the first week for being smug, irritating, and not smart enough not to chase potential lemonade consumers down the sidewalk.

Jason: Jason was some kind of low-income housing wunderkind, fired the second week for thinking that when you prepare an ad campaign, the last thing you want to do is actually talk to the client.

Sam: Oh, Sam. We miss Sam, because he was insane. And when we say "insane," we are saying "insane." There were a lot of good reasons to fire him; Trump eventually went for several of them.

Bowie: He was sweet, and kinda funny, and his last name was "Hogg," but all these neat qualities could not make up for an underwhelming performance that culminated in lackluster t-shirt sales at Planet Hollywood. Gawd, as if he could be blamed.

Kristi: She is some sort of raw food entrepreneur in her daily life, and she was surprisingly not annoying for the five episodes she survived, but failure to defend herself in the boardroom was her undoing.

Jessie: She had a wretched Wisconsin accent and a baby voice to match. It was hard to tell whether she was snakelike or not, but her failure to stick up for herself when Omarosa punked her made Trump queasy, and he dumped her.

Tammy: Whether she was directing semi-pornographic photo shoots or telling Carson Daly he wasn't a celebrity, Tammy was always interesting. But when "interesting" crossed over into "crazy," it was time for her to go.

Heidi: Despite probably being the least conventionally attractive of the women, Heidi is the most famous for sexing it up for the team. She has a tendency to lean strategically, so if you don't want to see down her shirt, you'd better cover your eyes.

Omarosa: She's annoying. She's smug. She's self-important. She never does anything of substance, and yet she walks around like someone appointed her Princess of Everything. Call her the villainess, call her "Assorama," call her the resident bitch -- it's all quite accurate.

Amy: Compared to the other women, Amy really isn't all that bad. That's probably the most complimentary thing you can say about her. She seems bright enough.

Ereka: Once Omarosa's nemesis, Ereka now seems to have settled into irrelevance, for the most part. She sits around with Katrina, her bitchy stepsister, and discusses how much all the other girls aren't as pretty as she is, figuratively speaking.

Katrina: A stunning mix of self-righteousness and a ten-pound bag of snooty, Katrina wants you to know that she is a good person. And you are not. Or at least, you are not as good as she is. If you beat her at anything, she is likely to conclude that you are an especially bad person.

Kwame: A relatively quiet MBA, Kwame tends to keep his head when those around him are losing theirs. He survives week after week by rarely standing out for poor performance and rarely making anyone angry enough to want to bring him to the Boardroom.

Troy: Just a country boy from the great Northwest, Troy is the old-fashioned used car salesman you can barely bring yourself to even be angry at. He's got some interesting notions about playing fair, but he's entirely without malice about it.

Nick: Oh, Nick. At first, Nick seemed cute, and then he seemed obnoxious, and then he settled into a kind of low-level sketchiness that sets the teeth on edge, even as he does less irritating things than many of the other candidates.

Bill: Bill sells cigars. Bill is dreamy. He's even smart. Oh, Bill.

Wes: He was hot, in that Fine Young Financier kind of way, but it was hard to tell whether he had anything to offer. Well, anything else.

Jennifer M.: Although she started out looking like she might not be too bad, by the time she wound up in second place, she had been outed as a backstabbing shirker. Not good news.

Raj: He was a kind of self-consciously pompous Tucker-Carlson-esque fop. He was relatively good-humored about it, but he really needs to calm down.

Kelly: He (yes, we said "he") was a military guy. Disciplined and pushy, he made his way to the finals and ultimately the big victory by being less obnoxious than most of his compatriots.

Maria: Her twitchy, weird, neurotic demeanor was matched by her overly studied wardrobe. The blinking will go down in history.

Kevin: He didn't care for nonsense, wasn't afraid to call out his teammates, and looked very nice when answering the phone shirtless. Dude, we don't write the news, we just report it.

Pamela: A tall drink of water with an impressive ability to tell idiots to shut up, Pamela's days were numbered from the beginning. When she steamrolled her team in slightly the wrong direction, Donald Trump -- apparently still not very good at dealing with intelligent, noisy women -- kicked her to the curb.

Chris: We at TWoP had a certain affinity for Chris as a result of his admission that he hates the public. Other than that, and the fact that he thinks cars need their gas changed, there wasn't much to him.

Stacy: Ew. Ew, ew, ew. She was the little short one, which really had nothing to do with anything, but was the easiest way to identify her. She also was the one who, in any given week, was most likely to be found complaining that someone else had done something extremely immoral or unethical that, surprisingly enough, meant that that person, and not Stacy herself, must be fired.

John: Bland, pretty, and not much of a talker, John did a good job flirting with some restaurant customers, but blew it on the clothing-design task and was sent home.

Elizabeth: We really wished she would stop crying and taking everything so much to heart, because it seemed like she might be a relatively decent person.

Andy: Harvard recently spit out this youngster who probably needed a few years to mature in order to avoid either screwing up gratuitously or having a woman who doesn't appreciate his lip whap him in the jaw.

Ivana: No, not that Ivana. This one was irritating, self-righteous, and perhaps the worst abuser of business-speak in a very bad crop. Ew. And that was before she flashed her underwear for money.

Stacie: A Harlem Subway owner with a knack for putting people off, Stacie was banished after the rest of the women implied that she was crazy. Yeah, we don't know, either.

Sandy: Bridal shop owner and overdresser, she had a high-school voice and a high-school delivery to go with it. Still, the rest of the women were so irritating that she probably wound up as the least objectionable of them.

Jennifer C.: Jennifer never got over her dislike of Stacy, for which we really can't blame her, but after she let her personal friendships get in the way of her Boardroom strategy, she was invited to take a hike.

Rob: We barely remember him. He was the first to go. Something about parking tickets? Yeah, we forget.

Bradford: Bradford pissed off Donald Trump by throwing a gift of immunity from firing back in his face. Trump thought it would be really cool to fire a guy in that situation, so he did. You can analyze it more, but that's basically it.

Third-season contestants were divided at the opening of the season into "Street Smarts" and "Book Smarts" teams.

"Street Smarts" included Angie (skunk hair, big energy); Audrey (memorably discussed ass sensitivity); Brian (That Short Guy); Chris (unpredictably spazzes out at random moments); Craig (doesn't talk, earns great love for it); John (competent, charming, a misfit); Kristen (hollering bitch); Tana (should switch to decaf); and Tara (refreshingly normal, all things considered).

"Book Smarts" included Alex (nerdy, natty, hard to pin down); Bren (surprisingly charming for a lawyer); Danny (guitar-playing nimrod); Erin (Morticia Addams hair, but other than that, kind of likable); Kendra (another stealth competent person); Michael (disgusting former Chipster); Stephanie (sketchy but potentially capable); Todd (who?); and Verna (out to prove that quitting isn't just for Jenna Morasca).

Melissa and Chris were fired in the first two episodes, Melissa because she was an insane, kind-of-racist harpy with a talking disorder, and Chris because he couldn't effectively control Markus. This became a theme.

Jen W. and Toral fell in the weeks to follow. Jen W. was a pointless, boring woman with no discernable skills, and Toral was an abrasive, arrogant woman with...no discernable skills.

Kristi was sent packing immediately thereafter, for being an abrasive, bossy freak with few social skills. She was a favorite of mine.

As was Josh, also known mostly for his constant bitching. Josh, Jen M. (codename: "Jenthura"), notable for her crazy amount of hairdo and adorable giggles; Mark, known mostly for being a really nice guy with a bad sense of design; and James, known mostly for his dimples and baseball obsession, all ended up taking the longest cab ride in history, as the subjects of a Four-Person Firing First.

Markus left the next week, despite his inability to do basic things and omni-allergenic personality. He left with little fanfare but what he provided -- babbling to the end -- for himself.

Brian and Marshawn were sent packing thereafter, Brian for his freakish lack of time management skills and Marshawn for her last-minute inability to step up to the plate. ("Stepping up to the plate" became the new "oxygen" this season.)

Clay and Adam, the Ebony and Ivory of adult sexuality, went home over the next two weeks, Clay because he was a ridiculous drama freak and Trump hated him -- and was not alone in that -- and then Adam because he tried to make horses into billboards for Shania Twain's new fragrance. It didn't go well.

This left the Final Four, three of whom were worthwhile. On one side, Alla: brilliant, heartless, with a trail of bodies in her wake; and Felisha, her lapdog. Once they were gone, both at once, the rich pageantry of the Final Showdown could begin.

On one side: Rebecca, a beautiful and ninja-intense financial journalist with intelligence, drive and mad Boardroom skills. In the other corner: Randal, a multiple-degreed scion of higher education with serious experience under his belt.

Summer, Pepi, and Stacy were gone so fast nobody remembers them. The first was a walking, talking moron with a heart of gold, and the latter two were nonentities with poor leadership skills. Theresa was a psychotherapist with a low freakout threshold. Brent was the saddest thing ever to eat six bagels at once, and left only after causing major stress and embarrassment in everyone that had to deal with him. And after his teammates tried to feed him to a shark.

Next, hottie Dan and psycho Bryce basically asked to be fired, a week apart. Lenny was a crass, grotty Russian charmer who offended everyone he ever spoke to. Leslie may or may not have been involved in Season Five of The Apprentice. Andrea was a brilliant businesswoman with a low threshold for humanity.

Charmaine and Tarek were fired well before their time, after a poorly managed task which took place in their spiritual home, the hair salon. Michael was possibly a Cylon, fired after a breakdown in his circuitry caused him to brutally mismanage every responsibility he was handed. Tammy, Sean's beloved, was fired due to Allie and Roxanne's Mean Girling antics at a Wal-Mart; the gruesome twosome followed the next week. This left Sean and Lee, the least intriguing and most irritating final two in the show's history.

Season 1
At the live finale, Bill eked out the victory over Kwame, and took a job in Chicago overseeing the construction of one of Trump's monstrosities.

Season 2
Because no one liked Jen and Kelly was from the military, Kelly pulled out the victory. But nobody really liked him, either.

Season 3
Kendra beat a badly overmatched Tana, who turned freaky in the last couple of episodes and badmouthed her team.

Season 4
Good question! Randal won technically, but it was clear Trump was spoiling for a double-hire with Rebecca, to match all the multiple firings that made this season such a rousing critical and ratings success story. Randal turned him down, and became the sole Apprentice.

Season 5
Sean, we think. Way too banal to remember, either way.