TV is the new reading

‘Dragon’s Den’ is better in theory than in practice

I’m guessing this show seemed a lot more interesting when they were kicking it around in the planning stages.

As of last week, Thursday nights on BBC America feature “Dragons’ Den,” a show in which five multimillionaires listen to entrepreneurs present a business plan — and, in the process, exposing their prototypical ideas to a public audience — and then tear them to shreds.

In theory, the entrepreneurs have figured out how much money and input they need to make their business work before approaching the millionaires – the   “dragons” in the den. And the game is, will they make their case? If they don’t get at least the amount they’re asking for, they go home with nothing.

So, there’s the tension. Someone might convince one of them to put up some money, but it might not be enough, and they might not convince any of the rest of them to make up the shortfall.

In effect, you get poor, desperate people in a last-ditch effort to hit pay dirt on their lifelong dream — be it  to market baby rockers or  establish an arts festival or install umbrella vendors in the London subway system  — dancing in fawning attendance on five rich people who are clearly there for their own amusement.
In essence, they make decisions worth thousands of dollars on the kind of whim you might see from a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance?”

In fact, it’s incredibly similar to that sort of show. The would-be business developer comes in and makes a pitch to five Simon Cowells.

The pilot episode kept the kid gloves on, but the promos promised wickedness, with dragons saying things like “That’s the worst pitch I’ve ever heard” or “Would I back this product? Possibly. Would I back you? No.”

Instead, their first applicant was nervous and they were very understanding. Another person was rude to one of them and they rejected him out of hand. And in general they seemed to focus on getting the hapless entrepreneur to agree to sign over larger and larger chunks of the new business to them as investors.

A hyperactive Evan Davis signed on to host this concoction of one part stammery, unready pitchmen, one part boring negotiation of percentages and a third part uninteresting jockeying for interest among the dragons, who all had way more money than they did personality.

“Dragon’s Den” might be interesting to people who tune in to MSNBC for the stock ticker. It’s possible there are people out there who will find this show very exciting, but no, if you can’t tell already, I’m not one of them.

“Dragons’ Den” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on BBC America.