The Apprentice 4 is the fourth season of The Apprentice, with Donald Trump as the executive producer and host. The show was aired on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. on NBC and started September 22, 2005. This was the first season of the show not to place in the Top 20 Nielsen Ratings; it averaged #38 with 11.01 million viewers. Starting with this season, frequent boardroom adviser George H. Ross began to lessen his involvement with the show, with The Apprentice first season winner Bill Rancic effectively sharing the role with him throughout this and the following season.

Candidates

Unhappy with both the choice of candidates and the "street smarts" vs. "book smarts" premise from the preceding season, Trump went to the auditions and hand-picked 17 of the 18 candidates in season 4. In addition to candidate handpicking, Trump decided to go back to the premise of men versus women (there was eventually corporate restructuring). The all-women team named their corporation Capital Edge while the all-men team named their corporation Excel. Recalling how some of the contestants in season 3 such as Michael Tarshi and Tana Goertz abused their exemptions from getting fired by choosing to be lazy instead of continuing to work hard on the tasks they were given, Trump made a new rule for exemptions in this season. The winning project manager, throughout the season, may be exempt from firing for the following week only if the majority of the other members in their team believed he/she did a satisfactory job. In the previous two seasons, the winning project manager would automatically be exempt from firing. The season had 3 episodes end with multiple firings, 2 of them were double firings, and one was a quadruple firing.

Weekly results

Episodes

Week 1: Let's Get Physical

Week 2: There's No Little "i" in Team

Week 3: Something Old, Something New

Week 4: Ice Cream of Genie

Week 5: Lost in Space

Week 6: Take Me Out to the Boardroom

Week 7: Back to School

Week 8: Store Wars

Week 9: One Hit Blunder

Week 10: Shaniagans

Week 11: To Lead or Not to Lead

Week 12: The Final Showdown

Week 13: Decision Time

At Randal's recommendation, Trump rescinded what could have been the first multiple-hiring and a US Apprentice first. Throughout the following week, many were critical of Randal's decision. In an interview with Larry King, Randal defended his decision and said he had no objection to Trump hiring Rebecca at a later date.