Oh, for a bailout. The American economy, beleaguered and humiliated, weakens with every passing day. Investment banks, insurance firms, automobile makers, newspapers -- no Brobdingnagian industry is safe from collapse. Perhaps the Obama administration, so committed to newness and change, could benefit from ingenuity from that most creative of arenas, reality television.
Consider "Dragons' Den," which concludes its third season with a two-part finale that begins airing this week on BBC America, essential viewing for the bailout era. In the spirit of the New Toughness, when CEOs have to plead their case for a helping hand before Congress, here is a show that prizes the initiative of the little guy, the small-business owners and the inventors who are the constant, if sometimes unreliable, engines of the middle-class economy.
At least, until the little guy gets swallowed up by a big conglomerate, at which point he may succeed or may atrophy -- it almost doesn't matter which.
On the exceedingly sober "Dragons' Den," entrepreneurs are given three minutes to pitch a business concept to five self-made business moguls -- Duncan Bannatyne, Richard Farleigh, Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis -- with diversified interests. If successful, they receive an investment for an equity piece in their business, invariably a significantly higher one than they were prepared to part with when they entered the room.
It can be plodding, unvarying television, broken up only by the product demonstrations that fail -- the egg cooker that doesn't cook, the directions helpline that no one answers -- and the heavy doses of sanctimony occasionally delivered by the dragons.
"I would rather pass a kidney stone than invest in this," Paphitis tells one unlucky pitcher.
Some of the products are promising -- a seat-belt height adjuster for children seems to be a likely winner -- but there is little suspense: Occasionally the businesspeople turn down an evidently predatory offer from one of the dragons. Sometimes, the dragons undercut each other for better deals, but more often, they partner to lessen the risk of investing in an untested idea. (A young circus company? A pub-based poker league?)
But while "Dragons' Den" begins as a means to rescue small ideas from the slush pile, it ends up promoting the values of big-scale business. Smallness, the show insists, is a sort of failure, and a self-perpetuating one at that. Most of those who pitch are ill-prepared to face the dragons, both logistically and emotionally. Testing their mettle becomes a bit of sport. After eight episodes of dressing down and shakedowns, it's almost easier to sympathize with the bully.
