But, in spite of everything it has going for it, Pirate Master ends up missing the mark by a wide margin. I really want to like the show, and I’m sticking with it every week, hoping it will get better, but my hope is waning. It’s just boring for long stretches, or remarkably lame in others, or just…there most of the time. Nothing remarkable, nothing to hate exactly, but not a lot to love. The TV equivalent of oatmeal.

So where does the problem lie? Maybe it’s because the challenges are a far cry from Survivor’s. I mean, every challenge we’ve seen so far basically boils down to running through the jungle in a straight line, then going underwater to look for something. Compared to the challenges on Survivor, which somehow manage to stay brilliant and original after fourteen goes, this “hunting for treasure” really blows. Especially if they don’t switch it up a little. Or maybe it’s because of the incredibly lame backstory of Henry Steel the pirate, and the goddamned Chest of Zanzibar that they have to magically open at the beginning of each show. Or maybe it’s the contestants themselves, because even though we’ve established that there are two or three good characters out there, none of them seem to be worth a damn at strategizing. On Big Brother, on Survivor, hell even on The Amazing Race we see people plotting and making alliances. These folks just sit around being bitter but not acting on it (Louie) or staring at each other with a blank stare (everyone else). Jay’s the only one that seems to be playing, but he’s not very good at it. It’s only being dropped in the middle of this group that makes him look like a genius.

A lot of it, I guess, has to be blamed on the editing. There was a lot of crappy editing on The Apprentice this year, too, so maybe it’s getting endemic over at Mark Burnett Productions. There is stuff on this show that could be exciting, but it’s not because of the way it’s edited. There are segments that could be epic and beautiful, but turn out lame because of the editing. We could be shown footage of people scheming, or strategizing, or even just deciding who to vote out, but that’s all left on the cutting room floor. The people didn’t mutiny again Joe Don, but we weren’t shown why. The people voted Christian Okoye out, but we weren’t shown why. Even this week, Sean took Jay’s bribe to vote one way, and then backstabbed him by voting another way. But because of the editing it was easy to miss. It wasn’t a big deal like it would have been on Survivor. So the show alternates between boring and confusing, but hardly ever reaches the level known as “entertaining”. And it’s tough to triage exactly why that’s happening, but already people are starting to tune out, and already the ratings are slipping, and I think this show is dead in the water already.

Easily the most entertaining part of this whole episode was the way Azmyth went mucho loco as soon as he put on the captain’s hat. Although, where Joe Don went ass-crazy with power and started bullying everyone under his command, Azmyth got a much more mild case of the wacky jackies and developed a super-fake English accent that kind of came and went throughout the whole episode. I mean, I’m trying to comprehend the thought process there, but it’s like once he put on that hat he thought he was the captain of the Ren Faire or something. The quote of the night actually has to go to Louie, for perfectly wording the exact thing I was thinking: “I think there’s some kind of dope in that cap, that goes straight into your brain as soon as you put it on your head.”

I also noticed that Azmyth dropped his accent after Cameron the host called him out on it. Come on. If you’re going to be ridiculous, at least be stubbornly ridiculous. He didn’t waver earlier in the episode when his own officers mocked him. “We don’t have to get accents too, do we?” asked Jay, in the second best line of the episode.

So we’ve got a whole summer of ennui on the high seas ahead of us. I’ll still be tuning in to every episode, hoping that it gets better, but sometimes you can tell that it’s too far gone. Damnit. I had such high hopes.

This schedule means that Pirate Master will be booted out of the prime Thursday at 8 slot to make way for Big Brother’s eviction night. It will air July 5th at 9 for one time only, following the Big Brother premiere. But CSI’s ratings are just too high for Pirate Master to stay in that time slot, so the following week the merry crew of the Picton Castle will instead be finding a new berth Tuesdays at 10, right after the weekly Big Brother veto episode.

And if three nights a week isn’t enough to satisfy your Big Brother appetite, tune in to the “Showtime Too” network (which I never heard of either) every night at 9pm Pacific / midnight Eastern for three straight hours of live feeds, broadcast live from the house with no editing. Of course if you’re that much of a Big Brother addict, you’ll be subscribed to the live feeds anyway, but this way the feeds will be piped straight into your TV and you won’t have to pull out your hair screwing around with Real Player. Plus you’ll get them in full broadcast quality.

There are only supposed to be 12 houseguests this time, but I remember them telling us that before. Maybe this year the big twist will be that there really are only 12! And, behind the scenes, producer Arnold Shapiro has stepped away from the show, leaving partner Alison Groder in charge of the whole thing. No idea yet if this means anything creatively for the show, like for example the “twists” getting less lame. I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

And, of course, the cast won’t be announced until all the people have actually moved inside the house, which they normally do 5-7 days before the first episode airs. So look at the CBS website at the end of the month to see the latest group of idiots we’re going to have to put up with.

The new pirate show has started, and it looks like it might be a fun summer. Read my review.

Episode links:
TV Guide review
TV Squad review
TWoP review
Zap2it review
Download the episode with BitTorrent

It seems like forever that we’ve been hearing about this new pirate show from the guru of reality TV, Mark Burnett. The news first came out last year, when it was just called the “CBS Pirate Project”. And then, a number of months ago, we got a real name for the show, the delightfully awesome name of “Pirate Master“. And we found out there would be buried treasure, and captains, and mutinies, and swabbing the deck. No walking the plank, but I guess you can’t have everything. Now all we had to do was sit back and wait for the premiere. Would it suck, or would it be awesome? Would it capture all the fun of Survivor, or would it die on the vine like Treasure Hunters?

Well, the first episode of Pirate Master was last night, and I’ve got to say that I don’t think we have anything to worry about. While it’s not the absolute best new reality show that’s ever been on, it’s a fun ride that should keep us entertained at least until Big Brother comes on. Pirate Master is part Survivor. 16 people made to live on a sailing ship and vote each other out. They eat gruel, they swab the deck, and they get seasick. At least they don’t have to worry about making fire. Pirate Master is also part Big Brother. The “captain” is basically a Head of Household, who gets his own room and nominates three people for eviction. Pirate Master is even part Treasure Hunters, with the first task being to row through the jungle, trying to find a buried treasure. Of course all the props and camera crews made it pretty obvious where the treasure was hidden, but I guess the mental leap they had to make was realizing they had to swim under a tree to find the chest.

It’s definitely a Mark Burnett show. His shows always have a certain flair to them that other shows lack: the lighting, the music, the camera angles. It’s all bumped up to absurdly overwrought levels in Pirate Master, with fog, sea shanties, and fake rain spraying everywhere during the “Pirate’s Court”. But the real hinge to any show like this is the casting. With a great cast, a show can take off to new heights. With a horrible cast, you’ve got something that’s either forgettable or laughably bad.

So how does Pirate Master’s cast stack up? Well, you’ve got John, who is labeled as a “Scientist/Exotic Dancer”, which is hilarious. He’s probably just being a scientist to pay his way through exotic dancing school. He’s also kind of an ass. The you have Joe Don (which may or may not need to be pronounced with a French accent), who was just a random nobody in the sea of faces until he became Captain, then the power immediately went to his head and he went batshit crazy. Completely. And then you have Louie, who is either the brother of Rupert from Survivor, or the result of some sort of failed attempt by CBS to clone Rupert from Survivor. And I’m not sure how to categorize Louie. I mean, I liked Rupert at first, but he quickly became a condescending prick. So maybe Louie’s going to follow the same path. At least he doesn’t talk in a baby voice.

And the rest of the pirate crew? God, it’s way too early to sort through them all. And half of them are anonymous faces, who don’t even get one line the whole show. The women made damn sure to show a lot of cleavage, though, but that’s the only way most of them get any camera time. And there’s some dude who, I swear to god, has shaved his sideburns into little swirls. That’s just about the worst thing I can think of. I don’t even know his name. Hold on a minute while I look it up….Holy fuck, it’s Azmyth. Azmyth? Are you joking? He has pet snails! Is this a real person? Too bad I don’t think he said one word on the show last night. There’s also a former football player who, according to this video game footage, was such a badass that nobody could even tackle him. So watch out, you don’t want to make Christian Okoye mad.

The whole conceit of the show is that this imaginary pirate hundreds of years ago buried his treasure in fourteen pieces across the island of Dominica. He then drew maps to the treasure and locked them inside a giant fake prop treasure chest. And now it’s up to our 16 modern-day pirates, and their cleavages, to follow the maps and find the treasure. The twist is that there’s not just one final winner who gets all the treasure, but that each week the crew who finds the treasure splits it up amongst themselves. So even if you go home the first week you can still go home with a little cash in your pocket.

And the first one going home this week is John, the exotic scientist, who started out trying to impersonate Jack Sparrow, zoomed ahead to demanding that he should be captain even though the vote was unanimous for Joe Don, and ended with some off-the-rails plan to hold the compasses hostage in exchange for his safety. I mean, that was his whole plan, which he revealed at the Pirate Court at the end: I stole the compasses, and if you vote me off I’m taking them with me. Everyone voted him off anyway, which was pretty funny. “Go screw with the compasses, you gasbag. We’re tired of you.”

Other notable parts:

Once the winning crew found the treasure, they had to count it. They started during the day, and suddenly it’s almost nighttime, like five hours later. And they’re still counting.

Cheryl is from Reno? Western Nevada represent!

Mark Burnett sure has a thing for skulls. We’ve got skulls skewered to trees, skulls that you crack open like an easter egg, skulls on sticks, and skulls climbing out of the water.

As soon as Joe Don put on the captain’s hat he went bonkers, all “I was in the military” and “Things are going to change a whole lot.” Dude, it’s Day 2. There’s not much to change. And he stayed crazy through the whole episode, taking things a little too seriously. And the whole speech he made at the end of the episode, about how he doesn’t need the compasses because you can put a stick in the ground and draw a line between it, that was pure comedy. Then when John called him out on it and asked him to point north right that second, and he couldn’t because it was cloudy? I almost fell out.

So I’m excited for a summer full of Pirate Master. It might go downhill quickly, or it might get more and more awesome as the weeks go by. Azmyth might even get some screen time. But I think wherever this show goes, I’m along for the ride.

The wannabe brigands dress in period costumes, eat such yummy authentic food as gruel – the officers get better rations – and are ruled over by an elected captain who assigns roles to the crew members and can be overthrown if he doesn’t treat his crew well. Mutiny, anyone? Each week at “Pirate’s Court” – which are, according to Burnett, modeled after actual tribunals – a player is cast off the ship and set adrift on a raft. “If you can’t run with the crew, if you can’t swim or row or navigate, you’re a liability.”

This is either going to be the next Survivor or the next Treasure Hunters. I’m betting on the former. Mark Burnett is a freaking genius.