TVgasm Recaps

It looks like without an elimination ceremony, Mark Burnett's reality offerings don't burn up the Nielsens quite as much. Such would be the case with The Casino, which is churning out mediocre ratings on Fox's über-hyped Summer season lineup. Yeah, the show's stars, Tim Poster and Tom Breitling, don't have the charisma of Donald Trump, Jeff Probst, or even Rocco DiSpirito, but they're eager enough to whore out their casino for our entertainment, and why should we turn our noses up at that?

An interesting lesson was learned on this week's episode of The Casino: If you go to the Golden Nugget, they'll be sure you don't become a hooker. In an amusing, if not staged, episode, a Vegas neophyte descended on the Golden Nugget to find fame and fortune but wound up getting a big ole dose of whoredom instead. And while our Pretty Woman fell on hard times, a plucky croupier butted heads with his boss and a few high rollers took advantage of Tim and Tom's hospitality. Just another weekend in downtown Vegas...

Yeah, I know it's been literally a week since the last episode of The Casino aired, but in that time, we've had the season premieres of Big Brother and Amazing Race, not to mention our normal slate of Real World, Road Rules, and Simple Life. Toss a second Big Brother episode on top of that and a weekend trip to the Northeast and understandably newbie The Casino got the short thrift. Now maybe if the show could provide slightly more compelling content, it might get bumped up on my TVgasm commentary list. Unfortunately, while the stories it tells are enjoyable enough, the show has become increasingly staged, and I'm finding it harder and harder to disavow those critics who refuse to watch it because of all the phoniness.