Amarsir

I don't know if I buy that Dennis who couldn't survive 1 month in the suburbs is going to cut it in North Dakota, but I can believe he'd want to try. You guys are right; this was a very Dennis-focused season. It was also a much better finale than last year's do-nothing bottle episode where they killed off the gang yet didn't. I wonder if when they were shooting this, they realized it would play on International Women's Day. They've never been shy about having the guys pick on Dee in particular or make sexist comments in general, but certainly there was an extra helping here.

IIRC, ratings rebounded when it went to celebrities. I figure the logic was always something like this: "I don't like the host, and I've never heard of 2/3 of these celebrities. But I like that person, so I'll watch anyway." Do that with 16 contestants each doing publicity in their own little niches and you put together an audience.

I just watched on cnbc.com, who lists it as airdate of "3-7" but had the episode available. For a pilot it could have used a second hour and a little more action. This certainly felt real, like Marcus is doing it to find someone and not simply for television. That's a reality I don't always find on The Profit. But because it is a TV show, I needed more than just 3 rounds of "tell us about yourself". Right now I'd say Chuck, Erin, and Peilin are the frontrunners with Buffie and Juliana looking a little weaker. But we'll see when they actually start doing something.

The show never really had any credibility in judging. (Or anything else, really.) At best it was "Here's the night manager at Chipotle, a woman who has posted 28 different Yelp reviews, and an audience member for Beat Bobby Flay who wandered into the wrong room." In addition to the well-observed problem of Rachel's teaching method, she also leaned on techniques that Ann had never used before - like deep frying or making pastry dough. This completely invalidates the show's premise that they've been trained for this moment. A real finale should not only draw on what they've learned, but should involve choices by the contestant. Otherwise, judges saying "The pears and blueberries worked wonderfully together" is meaningless since they're judging someone who didn't pick them.

He has a bit of a reputation for being disingenuous. I think the numbers back that up where he has the largest number of modified or abandoned deals. (With a notable negative being "You Smell" soap where he won a bidding war to make the deal and then according to the entrepreneur never returned her phone calls.) That's not usually the challenge. Anyone who can read calories (and optionally use a food scale) can make a meal that's well within a planned diet. The problem is once you've cleaned your plate and think "gosh, I really want more food right now." Something that ends the meal to stop that desire is good. Of course you can get a similar effect by brushing your teeth. Not as portable or as compelling as chocolate candies, but it sounds like he hit a lot of the same effect. ("I don't think other food would taste good after this.")

Yeah, I figure we'll be finding out if having a respectable host makes that show more watchable or less so.

It had nothing on bottled air! The AbeeGo wraps are possibly the most interesting thing I've seen on any of these shows. I haven't ordered yet, but I'm tempted. ($18 with shipping for 3 in various sizes or 2 larges.) I'm surprised the archery guys at the end got 2 offers (from 2 each). The Dragons really focused on the "rage room" which I grant is the most original part of their pitch. But overall it sounds like a clunkier version of paintball / lazer tag.

That would be nice in it's way, but this episode pretty much proved that won't happen. The show could have shown him with the capacity to be good, only to have the gang drag him down again. But he really doesn't have much in the way of good qualities.

You're right about Robert and streaks, but I don't think Kevin makes fewer offers. I think he makes more offers, but they're often so extreme that we don't take them seriously. Perhaps it's gone down of late, but there have been many times when everyone else dropped out and we had to hear "So all roads lead back to Mr. Wonderful."

It's completely over the top, but every time it happens I figure that at least the editors found a way to have fun. You probably did spot it, but are just looking for something more subtle. I'm pretty sure SpiderPig is talking about the video games transition, "The Bickersons" splash, the Dragnet background sting for "solving a mystery", the graphics not just saying 'wrong" but "incorrecto" for the cilantro guess, record scratch sound effects, channel change effects, etc. They were on serious overload during the first part, and after we got a break for a bit they put flames behind Daniel after his final talking head. As I say I don't mind them having fun, but it certainly ensures there's no seriousness creeping in to the show in any way.

Yeah I love a bit of craziness. It keeps things fun. The last pitch was a good competent one to end on and the wireless lock was an interesting product. But the unpredictableness in the middle is what lets the Dragons cut loose a bit.

For all Kevin's self-promotion, Mark is actually the one who knows how to creatively structure a deal. They all like to say "Sharks are worth more!" but only Cuban knew how to actually put it in writing that way. Instead of 17.5% to "special" investor, it's 15% to an investor and 2.5% for a partner's experience. There's no guarantee that prior investors won't see it as a manipulation, but it's a smart way to put on paper what they all wanted to imply. (My favorite creative financing deal was Mark's backing the Sworkit app, secured by unsold advertising inventory. Apparently the deal fell through on minutiae, but as structured it would have been very clever.

I do have to say that as much as Sacca annoys me, I respected his statement of "I'm very confident in my offer so I invite you to shop around."

No vinegar?

That was in the first challenge which doesn't count. She got it right in the second or I'm sure it would have ended her. As it happened all she did wrong that round was overseasoning, which was less than Adam's forgetting the bell peppers. Speaking of which, bell peppers and mayonnaise were freakout-worthy ingredients this week? Makes the baby corn and eggplant phobias from last week seem rational.

I balked at the claim that degenerative disease can be cut by 50% by eating organic. A veggie-centered franchise is a good idea so I'm still happy to root for them, but I do think it will be hard to find big success. Especially if their deal with franchisees is "arrange your own suppliers". Do you think they knew it was a family week they were going to be on? I thought she brought her brother because he was better with the numbers and the editors just figured that's good enough to qualify for the the theme. Also you're completely right on the valuation and I don't know why Wek even saw a prospect in it unless he has some way of cutting costs or raising the price.

Lori likes to hear herself talk and has interfered with other people's offers purely for the purpose of saying she wasn't making an offer. That reminds me of a cute story. A kid whose parents had shared an iPad but didn't have a TV was visiting his grandparents who did. When he wanted to change the program he went up to the screen and started swiping left and right, then said "Grandpa, it's broken!" To a certain extent there's always a bit of copying because the first time you use a tool you need to see exactly what it does. It seemed like they started with 3 graphics functions and then added bit by bit. As in "Here's a section that makes a loop. Add it to your code and watch. See how it happened 5 times? That's what a loop does." So that's not unreasonable. An inquisitive kid might then make it loop 6 times, or change the numbers on the random size, or other variations to see what happens. Here's my problem though: It's a subscription box. Either: Everyone gets the same boxes in the same order regardless of when they sign up. This means they're basically selling a course, but portioned out so shipping expenses are higher, inventory management is much more awkward, and pacing is forced. Everyone gets the same boxes each month regardless of how new they are to the program. That means when I'm getting my 10th box I'm still getting stuff targeted at kids who are seeing it for the first time. So either way, they did a subscription box service because it's the trend for startups not because it actually suits the customers. Yeah, I was thinking "They just don't want to do a down round. I get it. Just say that." But they didn't, and then their 4th counter was at something like 5.25 million which was above his ask but below their last round. It's weird to me because this seemed like "negotiating by begging" which we see a lot on this show by inexperienced "momtrepreneurs" or whatever. But they had prior funding and should know how to close. Very good point. Also it seems that their method was not to hack the existing system (as Sacca claimed) but to reserve their own inventory from hotels. How'd you like to be a hotel manager knowing you're completely booked except for two "daytime-optional" rooms that you can't book because they're not even in your system? And I'm also imagining the customers who book through "hotels by day" and show up at the front desk only to have an employee check the main system and not see their reservation. It all sounds like a lot of headache for a small market. Maybe in the future when cleaning robots have replaced maid service the remaining 5% of humanity that still has a job can use this on their business trips.

I don't think so, unless it was done subtly. But Walgreens was a sponsor in the past so I can't imagine a competitor would want to follow in their steps but fill a lesser role.

I can understand the texture putting someone off more than the taste. Especially if it wasn't freshly prepared. Someone who likes chicken parmesan could easily try a badly-made eggplant parm and go "Oh this is too mushy and slimy. Never again eggplant for me!"

You are correct that "Dee Made a Smut Film" is the episode last year that really established "statutory rape", but I also agree that the predecessor to that episode ("Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life" in season 4) laid the groundwork.

Most of his donations in the final event seemed to come from Arthritis-specific specific sources. You can't just redirect someone else's donation to a concussion institute (Ricky's charity) if it's the cause that has them motivated. So I could easily believe he tapped his flexible resources during the candy and that "holding back" wasn't relevant.

I figure you could get by with one premade component but not both. It's the difference between using time efficiently and just not making enough effort.

Knowing Sunny, I had already predicted that the daughter would be in the audience and would turn out to be that particular actress in the front row. However, I didn't suspect for a minute that Dee would have done it on purpose! It's awesome that even when I think I know how disturbed the show is, it can get worse.

Yes. To all evidence he made it up himself. Kevin has jokingly stated that both Arlene and Barbara had given him the name because they're so fond of him. (To each of their immediate objections.) It's possible if someone heard that without getting the context and believed it to be true.

He also had some extreme claims about sorghum. About 10% of the carbs are fiber, which isn't bad. But it's far far from "you can't get fat from this". Tough life story and I wish him well, but that's a lifeline he should have taken. The guy after him with the flaxseed had an even more healthy product and didn't oversell it. And it tasted good. Glad he accepted. I think you get hit on two sides. 1) It's harder to get into, since stores have less room and it costs money to have unsold inventory around. 2) Frozen is getting a bit of a rap much the way we don't use canned products as much now as prior generations did. Frozen replaced canned and fresh is replacing frozen as culturally we're embracing the "farm to table" attitude more. I think a niche cultural product like Pao de Queijo (Brazilian cheese bread) is something I would be more willing to have frozen, but if they were easy to make from a dry kit that'd be more appealing to me.