TV Review: Dragons’ Den by shoutingatco.ws

Just weeks after the Apprentice slammed head-first into its “belligerent richie offers investment opportunity” gimmick, Dragons’ Den returns for its ninth season.

Former Dragon James Caan has left, after mistaking an orphanage for the Den, to be replaced by the triangular Hilary Devey.

Will this 9th series of the Den continue the interminable formulaic approach favoured in the past?

Let’s find out.

The opening slot is traditionally held for someone with a seemingly earth-shattering idea, who gets torn to shreds because the invention also has the capacity to kill children.

In a slight twist, Georgette decides not to make a pitch, instead adopting the unorthodox “starting a sentence and then tailing off” strategy, backed up with “standing in silence”. The Dragons have clearly already been briefed, so they whinge about her present-buying website, The Present Club. As the program aired, The Present Club proudly stated: “MySQL Service Not Started”.

Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis make her an offer, and the series has been turned on its head. A deal by 9.15!

No-hopers follow – a man with a toilet that stops the spalshback from massive ploppy poos, a massage chair that may or may not help you lose weight and a trumpet warmer all get inordinate amounts of telly time. Especially the massage chair guy, who was shown forever and given a thorough Q&A, purely ‘cos he seemed like a bit of a chancer.

A human cannonball shows off his new, er, half-built cannon. Another timewaster without a business, showing off for a bit of publicity and for the producers to air frankly sinister shots of the Dragons laughing.

Right, that’s half an hour killed by people with no chance, and so it’s down to a chap in the final 15 minutes to buck the trend. He’s flogging solar panelling, and is ridiculously excitable about his little plan. A pissing match ensues between the Dragons, with Duncan throwing his toys out of the pram when the chap has the temerity to think about his offer. Eventually, he sides with a joint offer from Theo and Deborah.

Overall, the pacing of the show was rubbish – despite dropping the formula that had dogged previous series, the middle thirty minutes was entirely made up of no-hopers, and really dragged. The Dragons’ whinging schtick wears thin pretty quickly – some of the clearly shit ones shouldn’t have made it past Evan Davies on the stairs.  The other half an hour was taken up by just two deals, and even then, professional sourpuss Duncan Bannatyne couldn’t help but moan his way through.

As for the new dragon, it’s too early to tell – she clearly has the belligerent, bolshy streak that makes a Dragon, but at the same time, she was trying – and she really was trying – not to be an overt arse.  We suspect that several weeks of underground greenhouses and handbags for ducks will soon grind her down.

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