Following the firing of Dan Harris last week the teams competing to be Lord Sugar's "Apprentice" appeared to shy away from the dictatorial manner of Mr Harris, with varying degrees of success.

The teams had a minor shake up at the beginning of the show with the boys team "Synergy" losing Raleigh Addington who left the show after his brother was severely injured in a Taliban bomb attack while serving in Afghanistan. Addington subsequently has become the Operations Director of a charity called Tickets For Troops, it has been revealed.

This combined with Harris' departure last week left the boys team two men short of the girls team "Apollo". Lord Sugar took the decision to transfer Stella English from Apollo to Synergy in order to bring some order to the boys' chaotic performance, seen last week.

This week the teams were tasked with designing and marketing an innovative product for use on a beach holiday.

The girls, led by Laura Moore, after what seemed like an eternity, decided to go for a bookstand which can be planted into the sand, thus allowing the consumer to read without using their hands (in theory). Meanwhile the boys invented a device known as a Cüüly, which serves as a beach towel but has a pillow on the end in which drinks and other things can be stored and kept cool.

The Cüüly, despite having an awful name (it's pronounced "coolie" not "queue-li" as it looks), did actually look quite good and I can well imagine relaxing on the beach with my bottle of water being kept cool under the pillow.

By contrast the bookstand, known as the Book-eez, was badly thought out. The consumer would have to carry and assemble a mini-tent just to read their book, it would most likely blow over should a sudden gust of wind appear, you have to take the book out to turn the page (therefore negating the hands free reading it's supposed to allow) and what's more it appears to work only on sand, making it nearly useless on stony beaches.

The teams, after having a prototype product made by some designers, then had to present their product to three retailers at an airport, whoever secured the most orders would be the winner.

Stella had a minor run in with one of her boys, Chris Bates, for his "monotonous" sales pitch. Chris was sure he could do anything if he put his mind to it, but went on to give his monotonous sales pitch. So with his monotonous voice and with no excitement at all, he declared, "the age of the beach towel is dead" (they have not yet heard this in Bournemouth, Bognor or Brighton).

Stella was also asked to "take on for the team" by dressing in a bikini chosen by the boys for the marketing materials. Their motives however seemed to be a little suspect when they started asking for a bikini with "tassles". In the end Stella wore something much more modest and preserved her dignity considerably more than the boys seemed to be hoping.

It was a civilised disagreement compared to the girl's team, which was plagued with infighting and managed to reduce Laura to tears at one point. Joanna Riley, team leader from last week and the "brains" behind the Book-eeze, proved especially difficult to manage and found herself in constant conflict with much of her team.

When the teams got to the boardroom it was revealed that the boys had secured just one order for a hundred units. However it was enough to beat the girls who did not receive a single order, thanks in part to their decision to refuse an exclusivity offer that could have paved the way to an offer of unknown size.

Laura, having led the team to defeat brought Joanna and Joy Stefanicki into the boardroom after the whole girls team once again descended into anarchy in the boardroom. Lord Sugar's new aide Karen Brady was not impressed, calling their conduct "outrageous" and a poor example to aspiring businesswomen.

Lord Sugar was displeased with Joanna's conduct, and also with Laura for managing to lead a team that failed to get a single order. In the end however he fired Joy for committing the "cardinal sin of business" of "not pulling your weight".

So it was goodbye to Joy, a warning for Joanna and a stella performance from Stella.