POOR Badger and Barney. Restaurant of the week last week, seemingly not the bonkers duo we first expected, and then – disaster.

It was the cups that did it, the polethyrene straw which broke the former army man’s back. They were too big.

This week’s challenge was to cook and sell local, seasonal food at a farmer’s market. All the couples struggled (except Nathan and Chris, who ruined all their good work by picking garlic from the side of the main road.) But it was Barney and Badger who made you just want to hug them. Poor Barney. He wanted pea soup, but the organic supermarket didn’t have local peas.

Then he thought chicken soup. But the chicken wasn’t local either.

Then he wanted beetroot soup. But being organic, the beetroot was from Norway.

Then he plumped for carrot soup. But the carrots - yes, you’ve guessed it - weren’t local either. (Moral of this story? Don’t buy organic if you care about food miles.) Anyway, Badger’s face during all this was a picture. “He’ll be all right” he kept reassuring the camera, as Barney paced relentlessly behind him.

As it happened, Barney was all right, opting for tomato soup. But Badger – well, one look at his mis-ordered, oversized cups and it all went a bit haywire. He wasn’t doing the farmer’s market.

One can only assume his military penchant for precision couldn’t bear the thought of serving small portions of soup in large cups. What he said, though, was that he’d realised he couldn’t cope without his army comrades.

The idea that there was something to be scared of at a Bristol farmer’s market - although it didn’t look much like a real market, more an alley the producers had commandeered for their cut-price challenge – might sound laughable. But in reality, Badger’s swift unravelling was one of the saddest things I’ve seen on telly for a long time.

He rallied round to do the evening service. Shone, even. Where Nathan was being unspeakably rude to his customers, Badger was every inch the genial host.

As for Barney, his eagerness to please the great Raymond with his sauces and his rabbit dishes was so endearing it wiped out the memory of his previous endeavours.

But when it came down it, poor old institutionalised Badger couldn’t handle life in the real world. Given the chance, and some confidence, Barney and Badger could have been winners of this competition.

The fact that Badger was too scared to take such a life-changing opportunity revealed a downside to army life most of us never get to see.