20 underrated reality show gems you should be watching

Shark Tank

The premise: Burgeoning entrepreneurs bring their innovative ideas and concepts to a panel of super successful business people in the hopes they’ll invest in their upstart companies. Although it sounds simple enough, it’s not always as cut and dried as the premise suggests. Often, the ideas are duds and none of the panels care much about them, making it similar to every reality competition out there. Other times the ideas are genius and the sharks (as the professionals are called) volley for the opportunity to throw money at this invention.

Why you’ll love it: It can get really heated, and watching a contestant weigh his or her options between the five is sometimes high melodrama. It combines all the things we love about the competition reality drama without dragging us down into the ditch of sludge and gross exploitation.

The worst it gets is when the sharks turn on each other, bandying about white collar digs that rest of us wouldn’t register as insults. When the encounters heat up, it’s a treat to watch the dollar signs start to appear in their eyes. Rich people groveling is my new favorite past time.

When it doesn’t go the contestant’s way, you get your standard let down and send off, and it’s familiar and recognizable as just part of the game. Most times the folks who don’t make the cut have had some asinine idea that nobody would buy anyway, and it doesn’t feel like such a dramatic push off the cliff. But don’t get me wrong. They still get their tearful “in the moment” interview and we have to grapple with their loss and disappointment — everything we love about reality TV.

How to watch: New episodes air on ABC and you can watch previous seasons on Hulu.