There is no end of “reality TV” in America, and one of the most popular are food shows, or rather food-porn shows, IMO.

Anyway, Food Network recently threw up several new shows, most of which come off to me as being very forced in their structure. And most derivative, even of themselves, always trying to come up with a better Chopped.

One of the most uncomfortable to watch is “Kitchen Casino”, one episode only that I’ve viewed, and that was enough.

At the end the winner gets to gamble his winnings by spinning a wheel, the downside being he could lose all his winning award. But, out of 16 stations on the wheel only one of them is “bust”. The other 15 stations are all good (returning a little to much more money) or neutral. Who wouldn’t take the chance to spin the wheel? You’ve only got a 6% chance of losing.

I’m trying to figure out why the producers thought adding a casino gimmick would make a cooking competition more interesting, when there aren’t real casino games.

On top of everything else the host for Kitchen Casino looks like stepped out of a 1950’s cigarette advertisement.

Charles could add a casino gimmick to LGF - put images of roulette wheels on the front, have all our avatars be playing cards. Even make a little Java app to simulate a slot machine to mesmerize us while we’re reading posts.

But it just wouldn’t make sense.