Apprentice Week 3 recap: No-one can quite believe there's such a thing as a £5 donut. And there isn't.

The Apprentice hits week 3. We’re a quarter of the way through The Process, and certain things are becoming apparent.

For example, Frank really isn’t cut out for this game. He has looked on the brink of tears every time we’ve seen him, poor lamb, and after last week’s ignominious defeat he now says he ‘needs to prove himself.’

Mate. Proving yourself is what the show is all about.

Speaking of people who are tempting fate, Jackie hopes the teams won’t be shuffled after Team Fractious have ‘finally found their mojo’ after two weeks.

Guess what happens next.

Summoned, for no immediately obvious reason, to a dawn meeting in an multi-purpose events venue that used to be a mill, the teams are broken up and recombined into more gender-diverse groupings. Which, in a gesture sure to delight all those people who have been asking about team names for the past fortnight, now have names.

They’re not quite as apt as the ones I made up, but then I’m not part of The Apprentice’s highly selective Process.

At last: Team names

After a brief flirtation with ‘imperium’ and ‘impetus’ – which does sound a bit like ‘impotence,’ sorry Kayode – the first team settles on Camilla’s suggestion: Typhoon.

Jackie suggests ‘Collaborative’ for the other team, which doesn’t really sound like the name of anything but as the ‘Fashionable Donut’ task progresses appears to be more and more prophetic as project manager Tom believes in ruling by consensus.

It continues to be Camilla’s week over on Team Typhoon as she scores the Project Manager job, much to Sabrina’s discomfiture.

And Sabrina’s dissatisfaction only grows when her suggested donut theme is also cast aside in favour of ‘British Donuts.’ Which, if you’re not a donut connoisseur, are the same as ordinary donuts, but with a biscuit balanced on top.

Tom: pleasant, easygoing – definitely not Apprentice material

Karren doesn’t much care for Tom’s easygoing management style, and nor (we discover later) does Rick. But of all of The Apprentice candidates, Tom seems like the only one that you could actually work for.

Kayode has some ground-breaking insights on donuts. Apparently, according to him, they should ‘look nice’ and uh, ‘taste nice.’

Jasmine immediately sets out to prove him wrong by squirting hot sauce all over hers. Frank thinks they should be called ‘Fire in the Hole.’ Which is more brilliant than he knows.

Jackie’s attempt to ingratiate herself with the boss of Beach Blanket Babylon slides into a toe-curling faux pas, but that’s soon overshadowed by Kurran’s utterly hopeless attempt at pitching.

Please, Kurran, never pitch anything again.

Why did no-one listen to Sabrina?

When the teams actually get to making their £5-a-pop ‘premium donuts’ Sabrina upsets everyone by asking them not to make donuts that look catastrophically awful.

She is of course immediately corrected. They’re not amateurish and unappetising. They’re ‘artisan.’

Daniel expands on that theme later when an unimpressed customer rejects a batch of donuts that look as if they’ve been set on fire and put out with a dirty hammer:

“I know that there are inconsistencies but the inconsistencies are really consistent.”

Right-ho.

Both teams have a pretty rough ride with their corporate clients. Tom in particular was completely crushed at Beach Blanket Babylon but seemed paradoxically delighted by the experience.

There’s a manic spree of bargaining and price-dropping from both teams. No-one seems to have much of a grip on how much money they’re actually making.

Meanwhile, it’s the ‘Only Fools & Horses’ interlude…

Meanwhile, the sub-teams are engaging in the traditional Apprentice ‘flogging rubbish in the street’ events. Kayode brings the full force of his not inconsiderable charm to bear on the task. At one point he meets a couple of foreign chaps. He asks them where they’re from. When one replies “I’m from Germany” Kayode, quick as a whip, asks “Sprechen-Sie Deutsch?”

How much would you have paid to hear the bloke answer “Nein.” ?

Probably more than Kayode was going to net trying to flog half-wrecked donuts at £3.50 a go.

And where were these language skills of his hiding during last week’s ‘educational comic’ task anyway?

The frantic last-minute selling was edited down to a frenzied montage because there was a lot of this week’s episode devoted to a particularly combative Boardroom section.

Off-camera, Kurran had broken his arm in some ‘all boys together’ hijinks and Lord Sugar had clearly got wind of it and woken his pun-writing team up early to make sure he was amply supplied.

Still, outside the boardroom everyone’s still busy laughing at the idea of a £5 donut.

Is this just the beginning?

Tom’s main and sub teams – Team Collaborative, remember? – became embroiled in a long, argumentative series of recriminations. Jasmine was particularly combative, while Frank cut an increasingly tragic figure.

In the end, even though it must have been tempting to point The Stubby Finger Of Fate at Jasmine just so he didn’t have to hear her attempting to say ‘decision’ ever again, Sir Alan sent poor Frank home.

Gamely, in the cab, Frank averred “This is just the beginning for me.”

And then the show ended.