Aha! Even from the dramatic screenshot, and well before I read the actual article, I said to myself, "Ah, that looks suspiciously like Dragon's Den, the absolute best show on the BBC America channel!" And so it is -- suspiciously like Dragon's Den, I mean. Willfully, even.

Of course, Dragon's Den is so engaging because, quite apart from your cheering on the underdogs, the so-called "dragons" themselves are, in turns, kindly sympathetic or unbelievably intimidating. And, in fact, they drive the narrative: these billionaire entrepreneurs-turned-investors are caustically insightful, occasionally generous, and invariably off-put by human hubris.

The British show is as its very best when two "dragon" investors, keen on "winning" the contestant's business, fight and bicker over who will be the one to fund the next Great Idea. (Admittedly this happens with little frequency: very few people win the dragons' admiration, mentorship, and financial backing.) So what could be shrugged off as some ordinary American Inventor becomes an extraordinary battle, with the confused and beleaguered contestant caught in the middle, visibly vacillating as he tries to decide whose deal is in his own best interest.

In the BBC show, many of the contestants are rosy-cheeked Irishmen, twentysomethings with technology backgrounds, struggling businesspeople, or homemakers who have invested everything they have into a wobbly prototype. Some are hysterically shy or awkward, while others march in with polished, determined presentations on casters. But the keenly businesslike dragons always ferret out which contestants are best prepared, and those contestants are not often the polished ones. The dragons think aloud as they weigh their risks. A contestant insists her product is already successful: "Then why do you need the money?" a dragon will ask, tenting his fingers. "How much does it cost to manufacture this product," another will ask, rhetorically. "And do you really think people will buy that for only thirty pounds?" It plumbs the nitty-gritty of business, but it's hardly boring. And in the end, really, almost all of the contestants are forgettable, all blurred together -- the committee of businesspeople, the "dragons," are the real heroes.

But no matter the reason you watch, BBC's Dragon's Den is a tremendous feat of reality programming, because it has everything reality TV strives for: alacritous underdogs; scathing insight; genuine drama; human interest; schadenfreude. Oh, and money. Tons of it, meted out to the few arguably deserving. Most peculiarly, though, Dragon's Den has something most reality shows lack: it feels altogether unmanufactured and wholly sincere. If the show is missing anything, actually, it's sex.

Dragon's Den, in its BBC incarnation, is distinctly English (even though at least one of its titular "dragons" is a businessman based in the US). The show is painfully formal, for instance, and the wit moves along at a clip. And if there is any humor at all, it's derived from somebody's embarrassment or shame, which is (pardon me!) very, very British. But what that television show champions -- financial victory through industriousness, cleverness, charm, and a little luck -- is the Dream we like to think of as distinctly American. I think we Yanks are due for a reality show that rewards the same.

What the BBC show nails -- and I'm not suggesting ABC's Shark's Tank can accomplish the same, though I'd like to see it try -- is the reward. Because, if the ABC show is only about money, it's missed the point entirely. Dragon's Den is, at its core, about faith. A contestant has faith in his product or invention, and if he fares well, someone else will choose to believe in him, too. And if an investor chooses to put his money where his heart is, well, that's only gravy.

You don't have to be American to enjoy the sight of someone convinced they're going to make their fortune from a plastic cap you put on the end of a cut cucumber.

Ohhh, thank you. Thank you. I was trying to remember what the hell my favorite invention was -- and what it was supposed to do -- and that was definitely it.

I've only skimmed some comments, but I'm a little baffled at the folks dogging our pal SZ to read the book. Why? Today, she's a movie reviewer -- although I don't doubt she's a fine literature critic -- but in judging the movie as an autonomous and complete individual work, she is in no way obligated to additionally analyze the source material.

SZach's review nails all the points the MSNBC review noted (to summarize: why is this movie so creepy), and I am making what I feel is a very informed decision to stay far, far away from the movie theater.

Also. I'm planning to read the book as a result of SZ's not-even-remotely-a-book-review. About a year ago I told a close friend about an especially moving nightmare I'd had, about my 28-year old boyfriend (he's really 28) comforting the ten-year old me right after my father's death. Then my friend recommended, I think he called it, "some cheesy romance novel thing, but with a lot of the same ideas."

So I'm disappointed: I'd basically hoped to skip the cheesy novel and watch a cheesy movie instead. But no, no, I'll read the book. Maybe I'll even skip around the book, and it'll be double-meta!