Last month – in what was once the fermenting cellar of an old distillery – CBC quickly shot and wrapped its next attempt at reality TV, putting almost 100 entrepreneurs up against five tight-fisted venture capitalists for what will be The Dragon’s Den.

The 5 x 60 series – set to debut in October, and lifted from a format owned by Sony – watches as participants with various bright ideas for new businesses try to wring start-up cash from a panel of established millionaires, each of whom is putting $200,000 of his or her own money into the show’s $1-million pot.

‘You can get a lot of tape done in eight straight days, and a lot of deals,’ says Julie Bristow, the network’s newly appointed exec director of factual entertainment.

Bristow picked up the show after seeing its U.K. version on BBC, crewing the Canadian version with exec producer Stuart Coxe (CBC News: Sunday), senior producer Tracie Tighe, director Michelle Berlyne and Venture host Dianne Buckner.

The crew’s experience with the business world has made things easier, she says, noting that many of the ‘dragons’ have previously been profiled on CBC. ‘We have a built-in relationship, and I think they trust us.’

Among them are La Senza founder Laurence Lewin, Boston Pizza boss Jim Treliving and cattle magnate Jennifer Wood.

And yet, the series represents a hard climb, both for the participants who arrive cap in hand, and for the network itself, which is still recovering from the embarrassment of The One.

But Bristow is quick to play up the differences between the failed ABC-imported musical reality show and the suit-and-tie Dragons Den. For one, her show canvassed some 1,200 Canucks in search of its entrepreneurs.

‘When you have the opportunity to reach out to people like that, and hear their ideas, it makes it inherently Canadian.

‘What we’re trying to do here is make programming that’s smart, that informs people and also entertains,’ she says. ‘The One… I can’t tell you exactly what lessons were learned, but there are really no similarities in a music show to what this is, except that they’re both based on formats.’

Other reality shows have done quite well for CBC, she adds, citing the business-themed 2002 mini Back to the Floor and The Greatest Canadian.

‘When people put CBC and reality in the same sentence it tends to cause a bit of flak,’ she notes. ‘But we’re doing reality. It’s just that sometimes reality seems to be synonymous with the lowest common denominator, and that’s certainly not what we intend to do.’

The show’s Wednesday 8:00 p.m. timeslot puts it up against the popular Dancing with the Stars on CTV, Bones on Global and How I Met Your Mother on CH. After Dragons is done, the timeslot will be taken over by Underdogs, about consumers taking on big corporations.

‘Everything in primetime is hugely competitive right now,’ says Bristow.

Underdogs, together with new game show Test the Nation, also come from Bristow’s department.