I’ve been known to watch a cooking show or two, but let’s face it: the big problem with them is that they cook things besides meat.

Which is not a problem with BBQ Pitmasters though, the series that runs on Thursday nights at 10 on TLC. While they do pay a small bit of attention to sides, it’s all about barbecue pits and the teams that run them.

Each episode has four teams that have to cook a main protein like ribs, or brisket, or whatever. But while that’s going on (the process may take 12 hours after all) they’ll do a quick challenge (called a “Pit Fire Challenge,” which has a familiar ring to it) with some exotic meat like rattlesnake.

Losers of the Pit Fire Challenge go home, and the three remaining teams battle it out for the show win and the right to move on in a Kingsford-sponsored contest with a$100,000 main prize. Which will buy a lot of meat, and a hell of a cooker.

While there’s not quite the drama that gets built up in a show where they force people to live together in an artificial environment, the show does have its moments, like when the “BBQ Pimp” got eliminated in the Pit Fire, went batshit and flipped the judges off, then beat on his grill like he was trying to destroy the thing.  Good stuff.

But the best stuff is the wall-to-wall meat, smoke, and charcoal. The judges are  BBQ champion Myron Mixon, chef  Art Smith, and, for no discernable reason beyond being famous and looking like he eats a lot of meat, football payer Warren Sapp.

Bottom line is if you like meat, like BBQ, or like grilling stuff, Pitmasters is worth a look, even if it’s just to pick up some new techniques, an idea of what to cook next, or an obsession to buy one of those incredibly cool big-boy smokers.

Watching an idiot like the BBQ Pimp melt down upon elimination is just extra sauce on the ribs.