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YMMV / Dragons' Den

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  • Archive Panic: As of 2020, in the Anglosphere alone, the UK version is on its 17th series, the Canadian on its 14th, and US Shark Tank on its 11th, with more than 100 episodes apiece.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Kevin O'Leary. Viewers either love him for being the most entertaining member of the cast or hate him for acting like a Jerkass and a Smug Snake.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Kevin Hart's run as a guest star on Shark Tank has earned him a surprising number of fans, showing a hidden professional and sharp-minded side of him he normally doesn't get to display as an actor.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • Season 1 of the Canadian version was generally seen as a disaster, 2 an improvement with the addition of Arlene Dickinson and better pitches, with 3-5 generally seen as the best, due to the presence of Brett Wilson completing the fan-favourite group of Dragons.
    • Likewise, Mark Cuban becoming a permanent fixture in Shark Tank by Season 3.
    • On most versions, pitches tended to get better after a season or two because, by watching earlier episodes, many entrepreneurs had a better idea of how the show worked and how to handle themselves in front of the Dragons.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • The shot of O'Leary on his boat in the opening, after he and his wife were involved in a fatal boat crash in 2019.
    • Any time a company doesn't get a deal, and then doesn't survive.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • In the 2011 Children in Need crossover with The Apprentice, Lord Sugar opens his pitch with "Four flights of bleeding stairs in a warehouse! Get a bleeding lift in!" In the 2013 series, the staircase through which entrepreneurs make their entrance was indeed replaced with a lift.
    • In the same crossover, Lord Sugar's intentionally-ridiculous product (the wifi-enabled "AMSBear") is roundly mocked by the Dragons. Six years later, and something very similar's actually being sold.
  • Memetic Mutation
    • [Insert phrase here], and for that reason I'm out.
    • "I'm Barbara, and for that reason, I'm out." For viewers of the show, it's become a common joke that Barbara Corcoran never makes an offer and is always the first to pull out.note 
    • Jenny, for similar reasons, has similar memes about her in the British version.
    • Touker has a habit of suggesting office spaces in London to entrepreneurs who don't.
  • Moment of Awesome: Any time a pitch convinces the Dragons to go into a bidding war over the business in question.
  • No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Regardless of whether or not they get a deal, many companies that appear on the program get a boost in their sales simply from people hearing about the company on the show. And for those who don't get a deal on the show, they may get offers off-screen for investment. This is lampshaded regularly on Shark Tank when the Sharks believe someone is acting strange just to get publicity.
  • Never Live It Down: By its nature, many companies that are rejected by all the sharks/dragons later become successful. However, a notorious example is when the American Sharks were not impressed at all by a pitch from Jamie Siminoff and his company Doorbell, only getting an offer from Kevin that was not good to Jamie. Afterwards, it renamed itself Ring and experienced rapid growth and was acquired by Amazon in 2019 for $1 billion. The sharks of the episode (Robert, Lori, Kevin, Damon, Mark) are frequently asked in interviews if they regret not investing in it.
  • Periphery Demographic: The show is popular family viewing in the UK, as there is nothing inappropriate for children to see, and it's inspirational. The British Dragons were rather surprised when they found this out.
  • Seasonal Rot: Some of the original UK Dragons left when the producers wanted to focus less on encouraging entrants to make their currently half-baked but possible ideas into viable opportunities and more on telling them they were idiots. More recently, the show seems to have reached something of a compromise — the Dragons encourage products that they aren't prepared to invest in but still feel to have some potential, while saving their scorn for truly stupid products.
  • Values Dissonance: Sometimes the US version comes across as creating and playing into fake drama, such as one of the sharks (often Mark Cuban) making an offer and asking for an immediate decision, going out if they fail to make one.

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