Sometimes Donald Trump dismisses players with a hand motion that resembles a cobra's strike. Other times, it's just those two little words: "You're fired!"

	"The Apprentice" When: 9 p.m. Thursday on NBC. Starring: Donald Trump.

Either way, it's become this season's "The tribe has spoken!" as NBC's addictive "The Apprentice," from "Survivor" executive producer Mark Burnett, lured viewers in.

Thursday night the show has its first-season finale, an unqualified success that NBC president Jeff Zucker has called "a game changer" for the peacock network. On March 25, "The Apprentice" scored NBC's highest 18-49 demographic rating in the time period since September 2001.

Never mind that NBC can't develop a successful sitcom to save its lineup after the departure of "Friends," it's got the hottest reality show on the tube. Two more seasons of "The Apprentice" are on order, and Trump is everywhere, even in cell phone service commercials that air during his show. That sort of hype may leave the show vulnerable to a quick burnout, but NBC and Trump are happy to ride this wave until it crashes to the shore.

And what a ride it's been. The series early on introduced a crazy character, Sam Solovey, and the "evil sistah" reality show stereotype was again perpetuated, this time in the person of Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, a Youngstown, Ohio, native. (She went on to charge another contestant with using a racial epithet, which the accused denied; producers said they have no evidence of a racial epithet in any of the show's footage.)

So why is "The Apprentice" a success? One possibility: It takes the "Survivor" format and moves it from the jungle to the urban jungle, keeping all the soap opera elements -- plotting, back stabbing, maneuvering -- intact. It's "Survivor" in business suits.

"I don't think I've ever had anything like this," Trump said at an NBC press conference shortly after the show premiered. "This has become a juggernaut. The response from the Wall Street community has been unbelievable."

That creates just one problem for Trump: More people are learning more about The Donald.

"My life is like a game of poker. And they see you and they see you dealing with these people and they'll figure out your mind and they'll try to figure out your steps. ... People will be able to figure me out more easily."

Trump acknowledged that what he earns from "The Apprentice" is a pittance compared to his other businesses. He joked about what it would take to get him back for a second season.

"I'll probably ask for the same amount that all of the people are getting on 'Friends,'" he said. "If they're making a million-and-a-half dollars a show and if there's six of them, I assume I'm entitled to somewhere around that number."

Reports put his salary for the current season at $6 million over the entire run of 16 episodes. He surely got a raise for the next two rounds for the 2004-05 TV season, but it's probably not in "Friends" territory just yet.

Though Trump and NBC get the biggest windfall from "The Apprentice," the show's winner -- to be announced Thursday during a live portion of the two-hour finale -- gets to run a Trump company, a job that comes with a $250,000 annual paycheck.

Executive producer Burnett said "The Apprentice" was inspired by his tenure in the British Special Forces, which sent him on bizarre missions at the drop of a hat, such as getting the autograph of a symphony conductor. That's not too far removed from some of the "Apprentice" tasks, like selling lemonade or marketing modern art.

"If you can't figure that stuff out, what good are you going to be sent into Afghanistan or Iraq to kill Saddam Hussein?" Burnett said. "I felt that's a great test for business."

Trump said street smarts are equally important as a high IQ. The first player fired had the highest IQ in the original group of 16 contestants, but he failed at selling lemonade.

"It's not about spreadsheets and necessarily business," Burnett said. "It's showing you have the drive and initiative to do well in anything. Certainly if you do well in this, you have the chance to be trained by Trump."