Episode 1: Three strikes, you're out.

The sixteen possible contestants all gathered in one spot, waiting to be sorted into their appropriate teams.

Randomly, I sorted the sixteen of the contestants into their appropriate teams. With a roll of a dice, the number one would sent them to team 1, and the number two would send them to team 2.

Kim was sent to team 1, as well as Daniel, Nina, Kevin, Philip, and Andrew.
Chris, Kris, Joshua, Scott, Kelley, Regina, Alex and Dan were went to team 2. By default, Mike and Krista were to be placed on Team 1.

As both team's first unofficial task, they were both asked to create a Team Name and elect a Project Manager. While Team 2 had a hard time deciding, Team 1 was doing very well. Throwing out Nina's suggestion of "Neo Protege" (New Protege in Latin), most of team one agreed that if a Protege member lost on the real Apprentice show, they would look stupid. Suggesting a word synonymous with the word 'intelligent', Krista suggested 'Astute Inc.', and the name stuck.

Team 2 could only wish to be half as successful as Team 1 with naming their team. None of them really agreed on a team name, and ultimately, the decision was made by Regina, and ultimately, 'Team Shock and Awe' was born. Along with the team name decision, Regina sent in the first Project Manager for the task. Joshua.

Team 1 was discussing who it would be, and Krista and Andrew made an agreement that if Krista Project Managered task 1, then Andrew would do task 2. Without talking about it with Nina, who wanted to be Project Manager as well, Team 1's PM was to be Krista for the first task.

Before the task began, it was announced that Alex was officially announcing his resignation from the game. A replacement was brought in for him -- Dan M.

Krista and Joshua had been friends -- so it would be interesting to see how the task played out, and seeing both of their different strategies.

I gave the two project managers their first task. They were to make a shopping list, for an apartment with the following seven rooms; A bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, a master bath, a bathroom, and one miscellaneous, which included hallways. The minimum amount of items for the task would be ten items, and the challenge would be divided into three parts.

The first third of the challenge would be based around the point system. For having the 10 minimum amount of items, 10 points would be rewarded. For every extra item they had, an extra 5 points would be given. For not going over the $3,000 limit for every room, 10 points would be awarded. If the $3,000 per room limit was exceeded, 10 points would be taken off the score.

The second third would be the total, combined total (in $) that all 7 of the rooms had.

The last third would be on Ryan, the assistant for team 1, and Naomi, the assistant for team 2. They would both judge the teams on a theme -- and whether or not every object held true to that theme.

Krista's strategy (and Joshua's alike) was to assign rooms to people, and have them send in their objects later on. Although Krista left out some people, and completed the task quickly, Joshua assigned rooms to even the people who were not there at the start of the task. At the beginning of the task, Krista focused on famous things that had the number "seven" in them. She started out with suggesting the Wonders of the World, but everyone told her it would be far too difficult. It would be VERY impressive, but VERY difficult by the same token. So, she settled with the seven continents, assigning a different continent to each room.

Team Shock and Awe didn't do so well with the theme. Being very simplistic, or so I thought, anyway, they quickly settled with a base theme. Japan. They were to do an ornate, Japanese, oriental theme.

When the time came for object submission, Krista quickly realized that Nina had not yet sent in her item list. So, a half an hour before the task was completed, Krista worked on completing the remaining room for her team, and did a fairly good job in doing so.

After both teams submitted, it was time to see who had won, and who would be seeing me in the boardroom.

Astute Inc.'s theme had been the 7 continents. They had spent $11,181.30 total, and had a total of 415 points. Here's what Ryan said about their theme: "Well, Team 1 did an excellent job when it came to the theme. Krista went right down to work, and automatically jotted off ideas, focusing on the base number of '7', which was a stroke of pure genius, in my opinion. Deciding that the Wonders of the World would be too hard, Astute Inc. decided to go with the seven continents, knowing it would be easier. Although a lot of the items they bought were very pricey, all in all, Astute Inc. did a good job in this category.

I would say the management on the team was great, the team liked each other and worked with each other very well, and they performed like a true team would. They were true to the theme with all of their items, so this score has to be high.

42/50".

Team Shock and Awe did amazingly better when it came to money management and object seeking. They spent a total of $10,232.29, and earned a total of 485 points. They, excusing my French, completely raped Astute Inc. in that category. But it was obvious to me which team worked better together. Here's what Naomi said about Team Shock and Awe's theme: "Honestly, Team 2 wasn't all that organized to begin with. It seemed like a lot of them had trouble with certain things -- and at first, they had a theme, and then someone else would change it. They did good, all in all, but their organization was horrendous. They didn't plan all that well, if they planned at all. I could tell some of the teammates were getting frustrated with the task and not knowing what to do for it.

I would actually rate this team rather low based on the theme. It was switchy, not everyone was sure about it. And you've all heard it before -- why are you going to back something up if you don't believe it will work?

28/50."

So, although Astute Inc. had 1/3 of the challenge won, Team Shock and Awe's money management and deal grabbing had payed off. They had used eBay for most of the items, and were very cheap in spending money. They showed poor teamwork, but they didn't leave any members out. It was obvious that Krista and Joshua had completely different leadership abilities, but Joshua's had led Team Shock and Awe to victory. Krista had led her team to the boardroom.

At the boardroom, Krista was asked to take two other people with her, sending five people back to safety. Krista hesitated, thinking over every possible person. The only people who didn't attend or help in the task at one point or another were Kim and Andrew -- but that wasn't their fault. It was Krista's fault. She remembered who didn't do their part -- Nina. That was her first choice. The whole team had been tired of Nina, and many of them thought that Nina was a weakness to the team. A lot of them didn't respect her, and the mass opinion of the group was, why would you keep a teammate you don't respect? And I agree.

Krista juggled with the decision of nominee number two. Quickly, she came up with Mike. Her reasoning was simple. "I doubt he'll be fired. And I'd rather me or Nina be fired than anyone else on the team at this point."

Enraged by Krista's decision, Mike was set that he would go completely against Krista in the boardroom. I liked how this game was going to turn out.

However, it would be Nina's absence from the game that would ultimately force myself, Naomi and Ryan that we would Fire Nina first, without even holding a boardroom meeting. Nina hadn't been online in a few days, and she hadn't replied to any of our notifications. So, after one final warning, it was unanimous. Nina would be the first contestant to be fired.

Only fifteen are left -- stay tuned next week, to see who's fired next.