Tasks were centered on Stewart's areas of expertise: media, culinary arts, entertaining, decorating, crafts, design, merchandising, and style.

Several segments featuring Stewart were filmed at her home in Bedford, New York because at the time, she was serving the five-month house arrest portion of her ImClone scandal conviction.

There have been numerous rumors thrown out as to why the show failed, including: "too much" Martha Stewart (her Martha daytime program and this prime time program), confusion between this version and Trump's version which airs the day after (on Thursday nights), apathy over reality shows in general, NBC's declining fortunes, fatigue with the Apprentice franchise itself, and weak casting, although some felt the cast was superior to Apprentice 4, which ran concurrently.

Within a few years of the end of the series, three of the top runners-up (Bethenny, Marcela, and Leslie) were participating in other television ventures, with second-place finisher Bethenny Frankel parlaying her fame from the inaugural cast The Real Housewives of New York City into further reality shows, television hosting, books, and a successful business, Skinnygirl Cocktails.

Fourth-place finisher Ryan Danz appeared on the 21st season of The Amazing Race alongside his girlfriend Abbie Ginsberg.