The Apprentice (season 2)

The Apprentice 2 is the second season of The Apprentice, which began on September 9, 2004 on NBC. Although this season did not match the ratings of the first and dropped out of the Top 10 Nielsen, it still performed strongly overall, ranking #11 with an average of 16.14 million viewers.

The winner of this season was Claire Simo.

This season was preceded by Season 1 and followed by Season 3.

Season changes
This season featured 18 candidates, whereas the first season only had 16.

Three new twists were introduced to The Apprentice this season. First, each team was unexpectedly forced at the season's outset to make a 1-for-1 player swap, resulting in a male on the female team (Preston), and a female on the male team (Claire). The traded members then became the project managers for the first task. Second, it was revealed that a project manager for the winning team would be immune from being fired the following week.

Candidates
Both teams, or "corporations", were divided by their gender.