I know you have been through this in the UK but tonight in Oz is the final MasterChef in a contest between a lovely middle-aged Italian lady and young Vietnamese girl.

This show has rated no less than 3 millions viewers which in a country of 22 mill (plus 1 mil visiting backpackers saving the tourism industry )is huge. In fact the biggest audience ever.

Tonight they expect about 4 mill to watch(including me). I often get bored during the show but I'm hooked.

They reckon schoolkids have been talking about it in the playgrounds and hundreds of them have signed up for cooking lessons. So much so that once abandoned domestic cooking courses in schools are now being revived across the land.

Technical schools for chefs are being flooded with applications.

Yet no-one can put their finger on it..why is it so popular ?

I love masterchef, I don't know about the Australian version but I think part of the success in the uk is due to the fact that it is a genuine competition recognising the skills of the participants and it is not about viewers phoning in to pick their favourite to win, regardless of talent (like x factor, pop idol etc.). Also the judges are genuinely honest without been nasty or sarcastic.

The passion of the contestants is very appealing, it is not faked or over-egged like on some of the other reality shows.

I think your analysis is spot on robbiex.

I just worked out who the British judge is-Matt Preston who was the food writer on the Guardian and Time Out.He's a fairly big chap and I noticed he's been sampling much bigger portions than the other judges-I reckon he's put on 5 kilos since the show began.

The middle-aged Mum won with her 'home-style' cooking and picked up $100K prize and they reckon the show has saved the TV network from bankruptcy.

Biggest hoot of the whole thing...for 4 hours on the web and in it's first morning edition the Daily Telegraph-Rupert Murdoch's flagship Oz tabloid, a sort of cross between the Daily Mail and the News of The World ran a story that the Vietnamese girl won!

Oh to be a fly on the wall in the editor's office when the call came through from Rupert !