Donald Trump as he fires a contestant "The Apprentice". Click photo for larger image.

The hair.

The hand.

The Donald.

"You're fired!"

If these phrases mean nothing to you, you'd better use a lifeline (to mix TV show metaphors) and ASK somebody.

Billionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump's reality TV show "The Apprentice" is ALL the rage, pulling in an average 19.2 million viewers each week.

It's "Survivor" -- business style. Imagine going to Tribal Council in a Brooks Brothers suit and having The Donald dismiss your corporate aspirations with a cutting "You're fired!" as he simultaneously makes that swift, signature, hand-jabbing motion. (We've actually seen "the hand" only once in the boardroom -- in Week Two when The Donald sent contestant Jason Curis packing -- but it has been replayed dozens of times on NBC promos for the show.)

"Survivor" creator Mark Burnett and Trump are executive producers on "The Apprentice," so parallels between the two shows aren't surprising. Challenges = Business Tasks. Tribal Council = The Boardroom. "The tribe has spoken" = "You're fired!"

The season started with 16 already successful and amazingly photogenic business-minded people -- some with nothing more than street smarts and charisma, some with book smarts and MBAs -- vying for a year-long apprenticeship with The Donald and the $250,000 salary that comes with it.

Broken up into two teams -- Protege and Versacorp -- contestants compete each week on a business task, from selling lemonade and avant-garde art to refurbishing and renting a Brooklyn apartment. Also each week, a member of the losing team is fired, a k a sent down to the street instead of up to the suite. Right now, four contestants remain: Amy Henry, Bill Rancic, Kwame Jackson and Nick Warnock.

On a recent Thursday night in the 9th Floor TV Lounge of Litchfield Tower B, chatty University of Pittsburgh business undergrads filled three couches in U-formation around the TV.

"Let's see how bad his hair looks tonight," Kobie Pruitt, a business major with a marketing concentration, says of The Donald as strains of the O'Jays hit "For the Love of Money" signify the start of "The Apprentice." "His hair is terrible."

On this particular night, "The Apprentice" departs from its usual team-task-competition-losers-to-the-boardroom-somebody-gets-fired scenario. It's a show recapping the first 10 episodes, and that gives the students lots of fodder for side commentary.

One clip features that occasionally drowsy, somewhat neurotic and always posterior-smooching contestant Sam Solovey, calling his father for a few words of encouragement.

"If I'd called my dad saying something like that, you know what he'd say?" asks Pruitt, 18, of Long Island, N.Y. " 'Suck it up!' "

Sam bit the dust in Week Three.

In another scene, contestant Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, the argumentative drama queen darn near everyone loves to hate, castigates her colleagues for another failed task, another defeat.

"That's what bothers me about her. She keeps talking and talking [about what others did or didn't do] but not about what she's done," says George Holzwarth, 18, a business major with a finance concentration, from Montgomery, N.J. "She doesn't take any responsibility."

The group cheers as The Donald sends Omarosa -- complete with her White House credentials and cement concussion -- to the street in Week Nine. However, in a strange twist, she's slated to return to the show this week in some capacity.

Also, two contestants (instead of the usual one) are to be fired on tomorrow's show within the first 20 minutes, leading up to the season finale and naming of the winner April 15.

"It's showing part of the business world, but it's reality TV and it's hilarious," says Nina Belisari, 19, of Exton, Chester County. "I don't see many people working for a Fortune 500 company selling lemonade on the street corner."

Fans point to the stereotypical cast of characters and the bigger-than-life swagger and perpetual opulence of The Donald as the major draws of the show.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Meredyth Didier of Mt. Lebanon has liked the show "The Apprentice" so much she auditioned for the second season during a casting call in Cleveland last month. Click photo for larger image.

"You get the opportunity to see a billionaire, and he's just another human being," says George Ross, one of The Donald's no-nonsense lieutenants who monitors and critiques the teams' planning and execution of a business task. "They see him basically as a caring individual and they can relate to that. ... He intrigues people."

Ross, who in real life is executive vice president and senior counsel for The Trump Organization, says the boardroom sessions actually last about 90 minutes but are edited down to a few minutes on TV. And 16 cameras were rolling 16 hours a day in the suite and on the street, gathering film for the show.

In another scene during the recap episode, the women's team is walking down the street on a night out on the town.

"Why is her skirt so short?" says Liz Misero, 18, of Coopersburg, Lehigh County, about contestant Katrina Campins' apparel. "That's not business casual!"

Misero's observation generates chuckles from the group. But even some of the show's biggest fans think the female contestants have used their feminine wiles more on the show than they would in real life.

"There's no way you'd be tromping around in a short skirt with boots up to here," says Belisari, a business major with a concentration in marketing. "These extremes aren't what you'd usually do; a lot of companies look for conservatism."

However, she doesn't think it wrong for women to use some sex appeal in business. "They knew what their customers would be like and worked them."

Les Scales, a business major with concentrations in finance, business administration, marketing and accounting, disagreed, saying that early on in the series, the women "didn't have any integrity."

"You don't need to lower yourself to make sales," says Scales, 18, of Boardman, Ohio.

"If she's making sales, is she selling or lowering herself?" Belisari asks.

"She's lowering all of womankind," Scales replies.

"Flirting goes a long way in this world," Belisari says.

"It's not OK for anybody to lower themselves," he says. "Women complain men objectify women, but women objectify women."

In addition to sparking heated debate around the TV, "The Apprentice" also has proven fertile ground for discussions in business classes at universities nationwide.

"It's an accurate portrayal of parts of the real world," says Ray Jones, an assistant professor of business administration and business ethics at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. "In the real word, you've got to go back and work with these people the next day and can't always be Joe Backstabber and always be out for yourself."

One of Jones' students wrote a paper exploring how The Donald's personnel management style fits the classic hot-stove approach -- demanding and clearly defined expectations with swift and dire consequences for failure.

"The way the game is set up, people are compelled to take a definite short-term approach, but some of the best contestants aren't doing that," Jones says. "Amy has done a really good job. Rather than contestants trying to cut her out, she's the one they're always trying to grab and bring on their team.

"She hasn't been backstabbing people and she's been a real valuable team player, but will that play out in the end? It will be interesting."

The show has captivated everyone from preteens to seniors, surprising Ross, who expected the core audience to be 18 to 35.

"Never thought it would have as much appeal as it does," he says. "People are telling me [after each show] who should be fired or, 'You fired the wrong person.' "

Ross found the contestants very bright and quite ingenious at times, but their lack of coordination, serious thought and planning before embarking on some tasks surprised him.

Trying to sell lemonade near a smelly fish market was "definitely not the spark of genius," he says. The week Protege tried to sell avant-garde, high-priced art by Meghan Boody (art that featured bloody heads on pikes) also sticks out in his mind.

"For shock value, it was spectacular, but for sale value, not so much," Ross says. "It was inexplicable. You just couldn't do it. ... I think animals being strung up and children with prostheses -- don't think that's saleable art, and certainly nothing I'd have in my house."

Many thought folksy Troy McClain, despite his lack of a college degree, might be the ultimate victor. However, The Donald fired him last week. Of those who remain, Amy and Kwame are fan favorites to win it all.

"Kwame, he's playing the game the smartest," says Tolu Oleru, 18, a business major with a concentration in accounting, from Lanham, Md. "His team didn't win all the time, but he doesn't have distinct negative traits."

Misero believes Amy is destined for victory.

"When she came up with the advertising scheme for [the rickshaw] mission, they used past networking skills and approached past clients," Misero says.

Meredyth Didier has so enjoyed watching "The Apprentice" that she drove to Cleveland on March 27 to try out for "The Apprentice 2."

"The participants on it seem very credentialed," says Didier, a product development consultant with a Carnegie Mellon University electrical engineering degree. "I like seeing a lot of people out of their element. I like to see how they adapt."

At the audition, people were interviewed in groups of 10 and scouts for the show tried to get potential contestants to turn on each other.

"They ask you who you think isn't qualified to be there," says Didier, 28, of Mt. Lebanon. "The [interviewer] was obviously trying to see how volatile they could get you to be."

They asked what makes a good leader, who in that group of 10 would be a good leader and why each person thought he'd win "The Apprentice 2."

"In life, there are times to be modest," Didier says. "This was not that time. ... This was the time you were supposed to brag about yourself to catch the producer's eye.

"I think, especially after interviewing, that they pick people because of the way they look on TV," says Didier, author of the children's book "The Year Dinosaurs Invaded Pittsburgh." "It was a good experience, and if I get a callback that's great, but I'm not betting on it."

For more information about "The Apprentice" visit www.nbc.com/nbc/The_Apprentice.