The show I’m most looking forward to this week, by some distance, is The Restaurant (BBC Two, Wednesday, 22 October, 8pm). The show has already been stupidly good, engrossing, fascinating and above all else, entertaining. As we close in to the final, with only three couples remaining, minute detail is now paramount, as success relies not only on business nous, but the ability to handle everything thrown at you, while still making food that will do Raymond Blanc justice. No small beer eh? To throw a spanner into the works, please be standing for ‘the tricky customer’…

Over the weeks, the couples have either made life difficult for themselves by being hopeless (I’m looking at the cold Mexican buffet in the corner there) or by having people do it for them. Remember Tim and Lindsie dealing with the Biggest Moron on the Face of the Earth? Well, this week is going to eclipse all those ruffled feathers and some.

Raymond, the bugger that he is, has decided to invite back the least satisfied customers from the couples’ previous weeks of service, as well as new customers that require very special care. This means a restaurant full of people moaning about their food and others with special food needs that would make a New York deli worker weep.

Naturally, this will mean a level of stress that these contestants haven’t seen before. In a rare whinge from me about this show, I’m not sure that this particular challenge relates to the food game all that much. I mean, I understand getting a few customers that are ‘awkward’, but a place consisting entirely of these people? Either way, it’s bound to make for great telly, and I’ll invariably be rolling around on the floor talking in tongues having no clue who is going to win The Best Thing on Telly.