Skip to main content
ShowsShark TankSeason 5
Premiered September 2013 · ABC

Season 5

The panel widens from two rotating guests into a full six-person bench — the lineup fans still call the classic six, five of them appearing on any given night.

Filmed
Culver City, California
Culver City · shoot where the classic six first assembles
Premiered
Sep 20, 2013
ABC · September 2013
Episodes
29
29-episode fifth run
Format
Six-shark rotating bench debuts
Five of six sharks appear each episode
Cast size
6 cast members
Corcoran, Cuban, John, O'Leary, Greiner, Herjavec — the classic six
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 panel the show would keep for years.

Six sharks, five seats a night — the rotation the show would keep running for years.
02The shape of the season

A rhythm worth tracking.

Season five widens the panel from two rotating fifth-seat guests into a full six-person bench: Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban, Daymond John, Kevin O'Leary, Lori Greiner, and Robert Herjavec are all now credited main sharks, five of them appearing per episode on rotation. It is the lineup fans still call the classic six. Guest sharks John Paul DeJoria and Steve Tisch drop in for select episodes across a 29-episode season, the show's longest run yet.

03Where it sits in the canon

The #02 slot.

Slot #02 of 6 in the Shark Tank Editor's Canon. Season five is where Shark Tank stops tinkering with its panel and settles on the version that would define it for years. Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban, Daymond John, Kevin O'Leary, Lori Greiner, and Robert Herjavec are all credited as main sharks now, with five of the six appearing on any given night — the six-person bench fans still call the classic six. After four seasons of guest slots and ad hoc fill-ins, the show finally commits to a full roster instead of rotating through candidates. Twenty-nine episodes, the longest run yet, give the new lineup room to prove the format works at this scale. Nothing about the panel would need major fixing again for a long stretch.

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

Cross-references.

Shark Tank — Season 5 — tiered.tv