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.

Mike Maples of Floodgate

At the Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur conference, talk of seed stage slaughter was in the air.

"A lot of seed stage startups are going to die," said Jeff Clavier. "An enormous amount were funded over the last two years, and the money is not there now to support them in the next round."

Lerer ventures Eric Hippeau said the IPO window, which seems to have recently snapped shut, makes it difficult to gauge their returns. "Facebook is worth 80 billion on the private markets, but we don't know how that will hold up during the IPO."

Mike Maples of FLOODGATE said venture investors have to change with the times. "The potential permanent change of the last ten years is the micro-fund matched to the realities of democratized innovation. The capital markets will have to adapt to that. "

The angel investor won't die off, even if many lose big on the current crop of startups. "You need to test an idea to see if its worthy," said Mr. Hippeau.

"I want to help people build meaningful companies. I'm not a good fit for someone who says, photo sharing is broken and I want to build and app to fix that," said Mr. Maples. "Don't tell me what product you have, show me your engineering team, not your rinky dink little product."

Mr. Maples said he loves to go all in when the outlook is bleak. "We gritted our teeth and backed Chegg when they were close to bankrupt and the chips were down. That's a great feeling."

Cinema verite.

Last week on the premiere of TechStars, the startups got the good news about their golden ticket into the inaugural New York class (more selective than Hahvard, didja hear?). Last night, the reality show's second episode (you can watch the whole thing here) focused on Lesson One: Humility--as in, it just might behoove you to get some. Fast. One startup picks up $1 million in funding. One startup goes to Hollywood to meet their idol. And we learn that you don't have to know a whole lot about gaming to throw around the words "gaming mechanics." Here's what you missed!

First things first, how can Betabeat score an invite to the weekly 10.10 pm parties Wednesdays at the TechStars loft? There appears to be pizza and shots of Johnny Walker. We want in.

In true reality show format, this week's winner (as determined by the judges mentors) gets a special prize: a chance to meet with their tech idol. Urban Apt's Caren Maio says Guy Kawasaki;  one of the dudes from Homefield says Al Gore "because he invented the thing." Pretty much right off the bat, the producers make it clear the lucky lady isn't going to be OnSwipe.

After finding out about a $1 million investment from Spark Capital while "chomping on a hamburger" at Wendy's, OnSwipe CEO Jason Baptiste comes into the TechStars loft a little too cocky. "'Mo money, 'mo problems," quips Mr. Baptiste and indeed an Antoine Dodson reference ("Hide your developers, hide your designers because we're hiring everybody") does not go over well with other finalists. "Let me give you some advice, I wouldn't tell the other companies you're trying to hire their people," says David Tisch on the special black-and-white David's cam set up in his office. OnSwipe appears confused. "We can hire their teams?" asks Mr. Baptiste. "No!" exclaims Mr. Tisch.

Hey, it's not Mr. Baptiste's fault they didn't get his sense of humor. "You know what, I like to speak in soundbites," he admits.

Next up comes the mentor speed dating, which is giving startups like ToVieFor, UrbanApt, SocratED, and Homefield mentor whiplash just in the first week. Homefield might like the emphasize their athleticism--and the Bloomberg TV producers might like to emphasize co-founder Reece Pacheco's chiseled cheekbones--but it's Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson who agrees to mentor them and urges them to pivot into a bigger market that just sports: video.

Mr. Tisch, David Cohen, and Roger Ehrenberg, who function not unlike the prophetic Three Witches in Macbeth, are skeptical."Do they have the technical chops to go build something in a technical market where everybody else is lining up with Google engineers?" wonders Mr. Tisch. "The road is littered with video companies that have gone splat," says Mr. Ehrenberg. At least Mr. Pacheco picked a direction, earlier he said, "In the last week I've been sitting right on the fence about where to go and I fucking hate it."

Speaking of swears, even the announcer got in on the game. "It only takes a few mentor meetings for Urban Apt to realize they don't quite have their shit together," intones what we think is the Bloomberg voiceover. "Urban Apt at the beginning--coming in and thinking they're gonna dominate the real estate market in New York without a day in the real estate industry? Arrogant," says Mr. Tisch. "I think that's been a lot of my frustration seeing these companies think that they could do stuff without knowing how to do it/why they are he ones to do it."

Investors may be turned on by the notion of a gamification, but both ToVieFor's "Hurricane Melanie" and SocratED are struggling with layering in gaming without, well, quite knowing what they mean by that. "Maybe Angry Birds for fashion, or I dunno something not cheesy," says ToVieFor CEO Melanie Moore.

Lucky for SocratED Gary Vaynerchuk gives the startup a solid pro tip. After admitting, "[SocratED] was the one that was least in my zone. Learning? I don't like to learn," Mr. Vaynerchuk tells offers some advice on finding someone who's "Jedi" in gaming. "I highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly recommend putting somebody on your board--and give them real equity--that comes from Zynga or Playfish or Playdome or one of these companies that really really really gets it." Afterwards, he tells the camera, "That could be one of the better mentor jobs on my part . . . because I'm completely right," before scrunching up his face in self-mockery.

In prescient bit for Ms. Moore, whose startup started winding down two months after Demo Day, she seems sanguine after a rocky meeting with a potential retailer wary of discounting their handmade handbags to play ToVieFor's game, "Even if we do totally fail and the company blows up, it's fine, it's a good thing," says Ms. Moore. "An investor is much more likely to invest in a failed--an entrepreneur who has done a startup and failed rather than someone who's a first-time entrepreneur."

SPOILER ALERT!!! The week's winner ends up being Wiji, who got to meet every tech blogger's favorite brainiac, UI designer John Underkoffler the man behind the futuristic devices and technology in Minority Report. That prize should cushion the blow when Wiji, which is now called Immersive, hears what the Davids & Co. said about their name. "Everybody hates the name," says Mr. Tisch, "Roger, what is your reaction to the name?" Mr. Ehrenberg, "I think Wiji is the shittiest name I've ever heard in my life. Easily top five shittiest. It sounds like a disease. Oh, my Wiji!"

The best takeaway, however, might be from Jeff Clavier, who urged Homefield, now ShelbyTV, to give investors a demo to look at during a pitch. "I was listening to you, which was interesting, but I was like what the fuck does that mean?" Mr. Clavier told Mr. Pacheco. "You never want the what-the-fuck to happen because some investors will try to engage and others will just check out and take their BlackBerry out."  Cue Mr. Tisch in the audience, tap, tapping away.

What VCs see when they picture hedge funds.

While investment banks jockey to become the lead underwriter for the next hot new tech IPO and broker-dealers dip into the secondary market for Facebook stock, another Wall Street contingent has been barreling its way into the tech sector.

According to the Wall Street Journal, hedge funds with a hunger for tech stocks and seeking higher returns are increasingly investing in private start-ups. If you ask some venture capitalists, this is A NO GOOD VERY BAD THING.

Jeff Clavier, founder of SoftTech VC, a small, but influential Palo Alto firm told the Journal:

"Hedgies investing in start-ups directly is scary. They are the antichrist of patient, supportive early-stage investing."

For example, the paper cites New York-based hedge fund Tiger Global Management, which invested in two massive funding rounds recently: LivingSocial's $400 million round in April and Square's $100 million round in June. A quick look at Tiger Global's Crunchbase profile shows that it's not just investing in marquee names. But after buying large blocks of Zynga and LinkedIn on the secondary market in 2009, its also invested in GetJar and a number of Indian web start-ups. Meanwhile, Edward Lampert, a hedge funder who controls Sears Holdings Corp., attended two TechStars events to hear entrepreneurs' pitches.

The problem, of course, is that hedge funds don't have a venture capitalist's long-term view or interest in mentoring young companies. They're seeking higher-returns and "can sell at a moment's notice." The fact that they're pushing already frothy valuations to sky-high extremes is also rocking the VC boat. But some start-ups are getting over their skepticism for outsiders and considering the upside of a hedge-fund investor. Namely, a Rolodex of other big wig investors, oh yeah, and piles and piles of cash.

Tiger led GetJar's $25 million round in February and CEO Ilja Laurs says he appreciates its passive influx of capital, which came without the demand for a board seat. "An IPO used to be the only way to raise more than $100 million," he told the Journal. "If you need less than $1 billion, there are alternative sources available" now. For some VCs, that probably sounds like the end of days.