ABC Renews “Shark Tank” for Eight Episodes
We’re going to play a little bit of good news/bad news. The good news: ABC’s critically lauded reality show Shark Tank has, shockingly, been renewed for another season. I say shockingly because despite the praise it got ratings ranging from mediocre to bad. It was never certain to come back and it was more of a wait-and-see thing each time. We’ve waited, and now we’ll see some new Shark Tank in 2011.
If you haven’t seen the show, entrepreneurs go before a pool of five rich investors, who each earned their money off of their own businesses. The entrepreneur has to convince the sharks to invest in his or her products. There can be bidding wars, someone can outright take it, or the person may be rejected. It’s based off of the UK series Dragon’s Den and it was pretty good, so check it out.
But now the news that teeters on bad. For some reason Jeff Foxworthy will be joining the panel of sharks for three of the episodes at least. Well, it’s clear why they are doing it. They are desperately going to try to get viewers any way they can. But it really will change the atmosphere of the show and I can’t see a possible benefit from adding him. But if it keeps the series going, at least five of the episodes will be the good old version. Jeff Foxworthy is the host for Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? from Mark Burnett, who also produces Shark Tank.
I really enjoyed this show, especially when it came back and they went back and revisited some of the first “contestants” and saw what they did with their money.
Jeff Foxworthy…um…the people on the panel have billions of dollars between them. Is Jeff Foxworthy really that rich a “Redneck”? Seriously…does he deserve to be there? Other than the fact that he’s hosting another show produced by Mark Burnett, he has no place on the show.
I don’t know. I’m gonna hold out judgment until I actually see an episode with him on it. He actually does a nice job hosting 5th Grader, and while that may not have a hill of beans to do with this, he has shown he doesn’t have to go for the cheap laugh all the time. Further, while he may not have the “uber money” the Sharks have, he certainly has enough that he can make some deals with people. We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m just glad to see it back. It’s one of the truly original shows in the US (even if it did come from another show) in a while, so I say Yay!
One of my personal favorite shows. Glad to see it coming back!
The show would have been a much bigger success if it stuck to the original formula from Dragons Den UK. Among other things, the 30-second clips of the people’s stories before they appear in front of the investors, and the almost campy feel of the set never got me very interested in the show. The British version has a certain style to it that I feel would have worked great in the US; Unfortunately, television producers in the States feel that they need to dumb down British imports for the American public.
AMEN! Spot on, Drew. I those two same points was why I only saw one episode of Shark Tank. Dragon’s Den is simple. For some reason American TV has to make shows like these border on, as you said, campy.
Am I missing something here (besides the actual show, that is)?
ABC is renewing “Shark Tank” for another season, when they don’t appear to have shown the 2010 season at all. The show had been penciled in the Thursdays-at-eight slot, but at the last minute, ABC decided that they could get better numbers with reruns of “Wipeout!”. As far as I know, “Shark Tank” has not been seen this year.
Alex, do you know if ABC will be airing that episode they’re still sitting on in this next season? Seems like a no-brainer to me, but then again I’m not a network executive. :-p
Wonder if I should be optimistic or pessimistic about “Downfall”?
I like shark Tank its a cool show
Abc is trying so hard to find a hit they should just bring back Millionaire
I’m glad to see Shark Tank come back, I really like this show, and I know Alex you’ve said before you think of the show as nothing more than people begging for money. but these “sharks” aren’t gonna give them a dime unless they feel they’ll get it back and thensome one day. plus, even if they get an offer on the show its not official until they go through due diligence and sign all the paperwork.
Gene, I see your Millionaire and raise the possible revival (previously discussed) of 1 vs 100…
If the ratings for “Shark Tank” in 2009 were ranging from mediocre to bad, then I can understand why they replaced the 2010 season with reruns of “Wipeout!”. Surprisingly, these reruns have been getting around 75% of the numbers that “Wipeout!” gets on Tuesday nights.
For the sake of the Alphabet web, I wish I could report that “Shaq vs.” is doing as well. In its first weekend, it held less than 60% of the audience of the splash-a-thon.
Sooner or later, ABC is going to have to “burn off” the 2010 episodes of “Shark Tank”–perhaps on Saturday nights, where a show can’t draw flies even if it’s covered with syrup!
In which case, one would have to wonder why ABC is going for a third season of this show, which has already been judged a failure by the Great American Public.
just cancel it already