Ah, the theme music, the swooping shots of Canary Wharf, which imply a searing hour of business intrigue... If only The Apprentice (BBC One) lived up to its seduction: more often than not the contestants are stuck in traffic jams, behind the tinted windows of huge people cruisers, screaming abuse at each other on speaker phones about someone forgetting to pick up a vital pair of pliers. The celebrity version, in aid of Sport Relief, was full of pettiness and sniping and was utterly delicious.

There were two teams, male and female, who had to stock a “pop-up shop” on Oxford Street for a night, and get their celebrity friends along to buy the stuff on sale for charity. The losing team would face a boardroom with scowling King Gnome and his dismissive finger of doom.

The boys' team got off to such a rancorous start that it seemed to have been staged. The irritating, unfunny Hardeep Singh Kohli elected himself leader, then objected to an offhand, inoffensive remark by Kelvin MacKenzie (an odd phrase to find oneself writing) that he was behaving like Hitler annexing Poland. Lembit Opik, the LibDem MP, was elected team leader and screwed up awfully in a negotiation with the women's team over celebrity shop assistants.

Jacqueline Gold, who runs Ann Summers sex shops, negotiated so directly that the wet, wet, wet Opik said he needed to go and check in with his colleagues - painful. Then he tried to get his Cheeky Girl paramour to come to the event, and she turned him down. “You're like a Tic-Tac, you've given me a little lift,” he said, mysteriously finding a positive in this humiliating rejection.

The sisterhood wasn't exactly rocking either, as revealed when open warfare erupted between Kirstie Allsopp and Jacqueline Gold. Because Gold runs the Ann Summers retail chain she was elected team leader to oversee the planning of the women's team's outlet, and because she bosses people around about kitchens and properties, Allsopp took control of the window display.

Gold thought the red, black and gold style of the shop's name, Sugary and Spicy, was like a sex shop - and she should know. Allsopp had gone to Elton John's florist and picked up a hideous, bulbous red vase. As fractiousness hubbled and bubbled, Allsopp excused herself to go to bed to avoid a fight, then had one anyway. “You clearly don't think I'm capable of anything,” she said to Gold. “You can not control everything. This is a team.”

“Darling, please - ” purred Gold.

“Don't call me darling. I'm not your darling,” Allsopp snapped back. I may have to rewind this a few times.

Phil Tufnell laughed like Sid James whenever something went wrong. For some reason Tamara Ecclestone, daughter of Bernie(now channelling Andy Warhol) was helping the men to raise money, which she did very effectively - getting her spookylooking dad to double whatever they made. The boys lost anyway, now someone (only one!) will get fired.

There were totally pointless characters like Clare Balding, Lisa Snowdon and Nick Hancock, who tried to avoid shrapnel, and artist Gerald Scarfe and Dame Kelly Holmes were called upon to act as celebrity shop assistants. The casting alone ensured a great big smile. Louise Redknapp is emerging as a memorable contender, not just for having friends on her speed dial willing to shell out £30,000 to shop in a plasterboard grotto, but also for the quote of the show so far. Observing ponyskin handbags, she asked a shop assistant: “When you say ponyskin, you don't mean real pony?”

Wonderland's descent into mockery and self-satisfaction continues. The Curious World of Frinton-on-Sea (BBC Two) featured the by-now drearily familiar device of a posh, supercilious, condescending director (Marc Isaacs) asking supercilious, condescending and bizarrely aggressive questions to a group of people who look and act a bit odd.

He and his metropolitan peers may think it's rollickingly funny, taking the mickey out of old people looking for and not finding love, and a community up in arms about a mechanised level crossing. They may think it even cleverer to film these people slightly weirdly, droning on about nothing, and intersperse it with arty shots of empty benches and windswept verges. But my sympathies were with the woman who told him, more than once, to stop filming and get lost.

Out of the Box

After six seasons US cable channel Showtime is bringing the curtain down on the hit lesbian soap The L Word; the final series will air next year. Well, it hasn't been the same since the death of Dana (and her face subsequently appearing in a waterfall), but Cybill Shepherd pepped things up. How should it end? Bette reunited with Tina for ever? Executive producer Ilene Chakin said: “The brand and the social network community, OurChart.com, will continue to live and be a destination for lesbians everywhere and a lasting tribute to what The L Word has accomplished.”

Oh dear, Simon Cowell is “not enjoying” the current series of American Idol: “It actually reminds me of the last X Factor series we did. It's just a bit dull,” he says. Bring back Fantasia!

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