Hermione Way with a strap-on. Not pictured: investors from Gramercy Ventures. (Photo: Business Insider)

On last night's episode of "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley," the close-knit (like real close) brother-sister duo Ben Way and Hermione Way claimed to raise a $500,000 seed round for their health and wellness app Ignite--from respected angel investor Esther Dyson and Gramercy Ventures, no less.

(By email, Ms. Dyson confirmed that she invested $25,000. "I  guess I would say the tech industry takes itself way too seriously....and anything that gets the public interested in either tech developments or a healthy lifestyle contributes some value to the world," she said in response to questions about the perception of the show. We've reached out to Gramercy to confirm the size of  its investment. But it's worth noting that Gramercy managing partner Michael Gale delivered the good news shortly after saying, "I care about looking stupid"--perhaps in reference to the party he attended where Ms. Way pranced around in her birthday present, a strap-on.)

UPDATE: By email, Mr. Gale confirmed that Gramercy is an investor in Ignite, although not the size of the round. In an email to Betabeat, he wrote:

"We tried to ignore the whole reality TV aspect in making our investment decision and not be swayed too much by that. So we followed a fairly typical review process and made our decision. It is true however that within the context of reviewing the opportunity we did factor into consideration the TV show as a way to increase downloads of the app and that is an important part of the strategy. When the show was being filmed we had no idea what the response to the show would be nor what it would look like so we had no feel for pubic response to the show.

The company is off to a great start and we are very excited to be involved. We think there is a magnificent opportunity in this space and Ben and Hermione are very talented entrepreneurs."

UPDATE II: Mr. Gale confirmed that Ignite raised a $500,000 round with $475,000 from Gramercy Ventures.

So after some deeply embarrassing, amateur hour attempts to pitch Dave McClure and Jeff Clavier, which involved napping under the conference room table and wondering if the firm would decide within the hour, it seems the Ways managed to make a semi-convincing case for their Wii Fit/Withings scale/Fitbit-like combo, sans prototype. A good thing since Mr. Way floated the possibility of stiffing their design company on camera.

The chance that viewers noticed the company's big break? Pretty slim since Bravo tweeted out yesterday that the show would now be aired at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central on Tuesdays.

#SiliconValley is all new and on at a new time: 7/6c! Watch a clip: bravo.ly/S6hf1D

— Bravotv (@Bravotv) December 11, 2012

And that's after already moving the show's plum 10pm Monday slot, right after the capitalist screetch-fest "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." As an earlier email from cast member David Murray seems to indicate, this latest change was not planned.

Bravo reps declined to comment, but it seems clear the blame lies with abysmal ratings. According to Futon Critic, the total audience for the November 27th episode, at its original time slot, was 512,000, down from 634,000 for the premiere. "Bravo is a big cable channel. 500K in prime time would not be good," one ratings expert told Betabeat. "LOLWork," the show about the Ben Huh and ICanHasCheezburger, appears to be faring even worse, the season finale is scheduled to air at 1.30am.

It seems all that hysteria that Randi Zuckerberg would bring barbarians to Silicon Valley's gates may have been for naught. But cable execs with startup shows in the works--from the MTV show rumored to be produced by a Reddit cofounder to Mike Judge's version of the Valley--might want to take better care not to put recappers to sleep.

As for the Ways' app Ignite, since the startup's name competes with a New York lecture series, a Texas power company, and a social media firm, you'll have to trek over to the unfortunate URL signup.goignite.it to find it. The current version of the app holds a two-star rating on iTunes and some scathing user commentary: "Sorry but bravo won't help you succeed. Looks like this app was made by some kid over night."

Season 1 . . . Episode 2 . . . no end in sight . . . I’m not sure how much more I can take.

Now that the dust has settled from the PR, subsequent Valley backlash, promos, more backlash, and last week’s premiere, we actually get to see what we have here with Bravo’s "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley." Basically, it's formulaic reality show.

The genre's hooks and tricks are well established, they just happen to be filmed in Silicon Valley with cast members that are, well, made for TV. I think for many here, there was still some hope that the show would offer a national audience an insider's look into the motion and the madness in which the Valley operates. Not so much.

Back in 2001, there was a great startup documentary called "Startup.com." It would have been such a worthwhile endeavor if the producers aspired to create something like that. Instead we’re left with what venture capitalist Ron Palmeri of MkII Ventures calls, “The Housewives of Silicon Valley.”

However, I will say these characters are kind of lovable. (Emphasis on “kind of.”) I even tried to make fun of Sarah Austin on Twitter, but I don’t think she got the joke:

@spencerchen @p_kassie hahahaha no she's the one who meets me in the morning and brings hot coffee lol#siliconvalley

— Sarah Austin (@sarahaustin) November 13, 2012

(Noteworthy here is that whatever was written about the Valley’s disdain towards the cast members was misguided. It’s the idea of a startup reality show that Valley folks disliked, not the people involved.)

Anyways, enough about what could have been and more about that Sony Vaio.

Recap: Ben Way and Hermione Way return to The Villa dejected after being turned down by VC Dave McClure. They start screaming. Um, okay. Kim Taylor is pissing and moaning about work because she’s been there for two years and the cofounder is thinking about bringing in someone more senior to handle sales. This is her first startup job after being a NBA cheerleader, so you know, why wouldn’t she be considered for the Chief Revenue Officer role? Sarah is talking about “Lifecasting” again. I don’t even… oh hey, pool party! David Murray made an “Oedipus” reference to siblings Ben and Hermione during the pool party. Awk!

Friends of the cast finally get some airtime here. I guess all that hard work lingering around the cast members finally paid off! Sarah hosts some VC pitch event. She’s wearing a cute, burgundy dress . . . her tan looks awesome? Totes. Hermione vists Sarah at the Four Seasons to extend an olive branch in the shape of a homemade tiara. Sarah dismisses the hope that she and Hermione will be friends anytime soon. Whatevs. David and new hottie Jay Holanda go play in the park together. Ben and Hermione pitch Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC. Denied! Hermione elects not to sleep underneath the VC’s conference table this time. Smart girl, she’s learning! David and new hottie Jay play Magic and do some brogrammer bonding. Sarah and Jay go on a date, but Sarah ruins it by ‘lifecasting’ it. The end.

How Real? Once again, giving the show the benefit of the doubt we’ll start them off at 100% real Silicon Valley. Last week the show scored a respectable 60% real Valley. Let’s see how they do this week . . .

Getting Rejected By VCs - 10%

After VC Dave McClure shot down their first pitch, Hermione slumps back to The Villa physically tired and emotionally exhausted. There’s quite a bit of drama’ing it up here. Getting rejected, especially at the seed rounds, is quite common for first-time founders. While the constant rejection can take a horrible toll on your ego and self-confidence, founders in the Valley tend to have thicker skin. Being better prepared helps. They certainly don’t scream from the Villatop every time a VC says no. I know one founder that pitched 50 Valley VCs before getting funded. I didn’t even know there were 50 VCs in the Valley.

Lifecasting -30%

Kassandra, Sarah’s assistant, asks Sarah if she’s going to Lifecast her date with Jay. Sarah responds that she’s going to because it’s the way for her audience to get to know the ‘real’ Sarah Austin. At this point, I feel it’s my moral obligation to educate the world that we in the Valley have no idea what the hell she is talking about. I’m pretty sure that Sarah means she tweets and Instagrams. If so, yeah, we do do that.

The Pool Scene at the Four Seasons - 20%

I don’t know where to start. There’s a poodle, spray tans, pretty flowers, and a lengthy conversation about feelings and being BFFs. No. No. No! Whatever free time startup people have (and it’s very little) are spent grabbing a quick meal, a few Fernets, and being generally exhausted. We don’t have enough time to have feelings here in the Valley. 

Sony VAIO -10%

Ben is seen pitching Jeff Clavier with a Sony VAIO. I’ve heard of these things and I’ve seen them on BestBuy’s site before. I’ve just never seen one in the wild here in the Valley. The Valley is MacBook Air country or if you’re a designer or developer, you’re on a MacBook Pro. Maybe it’s a product placement deal?

Tweeting About Your Date -20%

Sarah meets Jay at his place for their long-awaited date and she starts secretly live tweeting the big event. Here’s another thing that Valley types just don’t do. Between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Socialcam, Tumblr, etc…there’s already an abundance of sharing for the tech set throughout the working day. If there’s one last bastion of privacy that we all hold dear, it’s with our love lives. At the most, we make those posts #PathOnly (yes, that’s actually a thing).

Zzzzz

For episode 2, we get a final score of 10% real Silicon Valley. Worse is that the Valley’s interest in this show is sliding like Groupon stock. It just has not been that entertaining. It neither gives you enough of real startup life, nor is it an entertaining reality show. For anecdotal evidence, take a look at the photo I snapped of my girlfriend Amy White during the show. She heads up marketing for Highland Capital Partners and loves Jersey Shore. If Bravo’s Silicon Valley can’t capture her interest, I’m not holding out hope for the rest of the season.

Spencer Chen is head of partnerships at @appcelerator (and Betabeat’s 86th most entertaining Tech Twitterer!) Follow him@SpencerChen.

Thankfully, Drew Olanoff at The Next Web was kind enough to single out some of the potential players so we can start doing our due diligence. According to Mr. Olanoff the show will "star" The Next Web's Silicon Valley video director Hermione Way. Her brother Ben Way, founder of The Rainmakers, Kim Taylor, digital director at Ampush Media, and Dwight Crow, founder of Carsabi.com also all appear in the preview.

A rep for Bravo told Betabeat that the cast is "not confirmed," emphasizing that, "Randi is not in the show." However, an NBC affiliate (Bravo is owned by NBCUniversal) also reported the same stars, along with Marcus Lovingood, founder of Futureleap. A Facebook post from Erin Kanaley Famularo, who used to work in consumer marketing at Facebook and now works as director of production at Ms. Zuckerberg's R to Z Media, seems to indicate that David Murray, who has worked at Google, Raptr, and Atari, will likewise be joining the cast. "Exciting! We can finally talk about this," wrote Ms. Famularo.

So let's make their acquaintance, shall we?