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ShowsShark TankSeason 4
Premiered September 2012 · ABC

Season 4

Shark Tank's first fall premiere comes with its biggest order yet — 26 episodes. Barbara Corcoran and Lori Greiner formalize an alternating fifth seat, and the show starts checking in on past pitches.

Filmed
Culver City, California
Culver City · shoot behind the first fall premiere
Premiered
Sep 14, 2012
ABC · September 2012
Episodes
26
26-episode fourth run
Format
First fall premiere, full season order
Corcoran and Greiner formally alternate the fifth seat
Cast size
5 cast members
Cuban, John, O'Leary, Herjavec now full-time regulars
On this page
  1. 01The take
  2. 02The shape of the season
  3. 03Where it sits in the canon
  4. 04Adjacent in the canon
  5. 05Also appears in
01The take

The format gets a full season to work with.

A full season order, a settled fifth seat, and a format confident enough to look backward.
02The shape of the season

A rhythm worth tracking.

Season four is Shark Tank's first fall premiere and its biggest order yet — 26 episodes, more than any season before it. Mark Cuban, Daymond John, Kevin O'Leary, and Robert Herjavec now appear in every episode, while Barbara Corcoran and Lori Greiner formalize an alternating arrangement for the fifth seat instead of trading it ad hoc. The season also introduces "where are they now" update segments. The finale's air date shifted late, pushed by breaking news coverage that spring.

03Where it sits in the canon

The #04 slot.

Slot #04 of 6 in the Shark Tank Editor's Canon. Season four is where the network stops treating Shark Tank like a mid-season experiment and starts treating it like a real show. Moving to a fall premiere for the first time, and ordering 26 episodes — nearly double the season before it — signals confidence the format hadn't earned yet. Mark Cuban, Daymond John, Kevin O'Leary, and Robert Herjavec are locked in as full-time regulars, and Barbara Corcoran and Lori Greiner formalize their alternating arrangement for the fifth seat rather than trading it ad hoc. The season also starts folding in update segments on past entrepreneurs, a small addition that signals a format finally mature enough to look backward as well as forward.

No spoilers. Every page is reviewed before it goes live.
05Also appears in

Cross-references.

Shark Tank — Season 4 — tiered.tv