Calling time on Tycoon [BT broadband office]

Calling time on Tycoon

Posted 12 July 2007 at 9:44AM by Simon Dickson in Light relief

Peter Jones, I'm afraid you're fired. ITV's business gameshow 'Tycoon' returned to the schedules this week, in its new, truncated, lower-profile slot - and was actually worse.

The initial signs were good, with Peter leaving the country for the week. But it quickly became a montage of 'arriving at a meeting' or 'leaving a meeting' clips, with even less context or story development than before. There was a brief glimmer of hope, with some positively David Brent-esque examples of team leadership from eco-entrepreneur Justin. Telling Elizabeth everyone hated her, then in the next breath asking if there was anything he could do to help, was a masterstroke. Fantastic: some character development, some tension, some emotion!

Then suddenly, something truly extraordinary. Everything built up to the set-piece scene in the 'boardroom', as Peter dished out more venture capital, and decided not to put an end to Elizabeth's succession of catastrophes. Seconds later, we're shunted forward a week, to Peter telling Elizabeth - actually, I am going to shut you down after all. Er, where did that come from?

I'm sorry. I've given the show its second and third chances. But it isn't funny, insightful, dramatic, educational or inspirational. Can I have those two and a half hours back, please?

Tags: dragon's den, itv, peter jones, tycoon

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Comments

1. At July 12, 2007 2:35 PM, Niamh wrote:

It was strange how Justin brought about what he dreaded most. i.e. a confrontation with Elizabeth. His treating her like an office junior and interrupting her meeting was terrific television. All HR people watching must have gasped as he put his hand on her shoulder and left it there for what seemed some time.

Kind of wonder if he could have been a bit more savvy about the situation and avoided going head to head by building some rapport with her and giving her some support.

2. At July 13, 2007 7:17 AM, postcard-nostalgia-co-uk wrote:

It was nice to see this mentioned on the BT Business section, mainly because I believe it was a very good example of how to get business wrong.

Had this been 3 months down the line AFTER the well known BBC1 series had ended then maybe we would actually have appreciated this poor but similar series.

You don't finish eating M&S food to then eat Kwik Save no frills range, however if you have not eaten for a while then anything is more likely to do. Peter is a great guy and is good in Dragons Den, however the scenes of sitting in his Bentley, wheeling suitcases to the meeting, the music has they entered, it really all did seem a bit of a mock after another series ended.

I can't believe "The Tower" hasn't been mentioned on the BT page yet, when one of the three council blocks were sold to Berkely Homes they turned it into a show piece, this series shows the local pub with its few locals trying to survive, a few lads climbing in skips to sell scrap, then suddenly the people are visiting these show homes in their posh cars and deciding how many of these flats to buy at a time, in an area that they think one day will be a lot different. A brilliant 50 mins every Monday on BBC1 and it was so good I recorded the early morning repeat and watched it again with sign language.

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