One of my favorite midseason replacements last year was Shark Tank, a reality TV show in which wannabe entrepreneurs lobby for financial backing from five self-made multimillionaire tycoons. The tycoons, from varied industries (real estate, tech, fashion), if they're interested in the project, offer to write a check for a large sum of money in exchange for a percentage of the business.
Shark Tank is back. ABC has launched a second season of it, which began last night (normally it'll air on Friday nights, apparently replacing Supernanny). I missed the first half, because I was watching Family Guy and didn't know it was on. But the second half was a good time.
One thing I like is that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is one of the new sharks, replacing Kevin Harrington, an informercial guru who was boring and never bid on any projects. According to the trailers Jeff Foxworthy will also be a replacement on certain episodes, which seems a little weird to me, though he is rich and you could argue he's an expert on the comedy/entertainment brand.
The other four sharks -- tech moguls Robert Herjavek and Kevin O'Leary, real estate tycoon Barbara Corcoran and FUBU founder Daymond John -- are back and entertaining to watch. Kevin is the real "shark" of the shark tank, the guy you would expect to steal pennies from a dead man's eyes. Barbara and Robert will often fight with Kevin and put him in his place. And Daymond usually sits there silently until he wants to make an offer.
Last night they weren't in a giving mood, as they all rejected the two wanna be business owners, though I can't blame them. One as a cool guy who wanted to sell shrimp burgers (an intriguing but not super-original idea with high overhead) and the second owned a winery and wanted to sell wine from cans (interesting, but he wouldn't separate the wine and bottling businesses). Watching Kevin and this guy go back and forth on the numbers for the final 10 minutes was pretty fascinating.
Anyway, it's nice to see the sharks back. I look forward to more episodes.
And here I thought I was the only person who watched this show, let alone called it a "favorite" of any kind...check out The Next Great Restaurant or whatever on NBC, similar formula.
ReplyDeleteOh wait, I mean don't watch more TV, write novels. Sorry to be a bad influence.