Watching Reality TV

There’s just no getting around the comparisons. Both air on CBS. Both are masterminded by Mark Burnett. Both involve wicked mind games, a “tribal council” of sorts, intricate challenges all the way down to very similarly styled graphics. But “Pirate Master” has something that “Survivor” doesn’t: my interest. We have your typical large mob of contestants that you always see at the start of a reality show. It’s hard to differentiate between them all, save for a few notable exceptions. Those people are: Cheryl, a 35 year old district attorney from Sparks, NV (hey, neighbor!), Christian, a 45 year old former football player from Rancho Cucamonga, CA who was born in Nigeria and is known to be the “Nigerian Nightmare” (sweet!), Joy, a 21 year old receptionist from West Columbia, SC who is unfortunate enough to get a black mark AND suffer horrible seasickness (you’d think that’d make you think twice about signing up for a pirate show, but whatever), John, a 25 year old scientist/exotic dancer (yes, that’s not a typo) from Carlisle, MA who really pushes the envelope of creepy when he mistakenly assumes he’s Captain Jack Sparrow’s clone, and Louie, a 43 year old marina owner from Fishing Creek, MD and who also looks almost EXACTLY like “Survivor’s” Rupert. So much so that I have to do double takes all episode long. It’s really eerie.

At any rate, let me give you a quick rundown of the episode: The contestants board a completely wicked awesome looking pirate ship called the Picton Castle, where Aussie Cameron Daddo is our Jeff Probst.  The pirates temporarily split up into crews, the Red Crew and Black Crew and their challenge is to go find some treasure.  The challenge is very intricately set-up, a Mark Burnett trademark.  The Black Crew makes it to the “Sabotage” section first and sets up a blockade for the Red Crew, who is hot on their heels.  So they make it to the treasure first.  Back on board the boat, they find that the chest includes $40,000 worth of gold.  The pirates then nearly unanimously select Joe Don (from Alaska!) as their Captain, only to find out he gets half the gold to do with as he pleases.  GAH!  The only person who didn’t vote for Joe Don (and who really, really wanted to be Captain himself, darnit!) was John.  And he’s pretty ticked off.  Louie isn’t too happy either, and proceeds to belly ache.  There’s some talk of mutiny (where everyone unanimously votes to mutiny against the captain and he gets sent packing) but that is quashed when Joe Don gives Louie a Black Mark.  A Black Mark selects someone for elimination, ultimately.  Also selected is John (duh) and Joy (simply as a pawn).  John thinks he’s going to be clever and steals the compasses.  Yep, all of them.  So when everyone goes to “Pirate’s Court” where each selected crewmember has the opportunity to speak their piece.  And, predictably, John continues to be a tool.  He reveals that he stole the compasses and that if he’s “set adrift”, he’ll take them with him.  Joe Don isn’t concerned, he explains how he can tell north from south without a compass.  John calls his bluff in a fantastic moment and asks him to find north.  Being it’s a rather cloudy night, Joe Don admits he would be better able to tell in the daytime.  John looks smugly satisfied.  That’s why it was hilarious when it was revealed that the votes UNANIMOUSLY ousted John.  He looked like he’d been shocked with a cattle prod.  He honestly expected everyone to keep him after his little stunt and I thought that was marvelous.  Joe Don sets John adrift on a dinky raft (but I thought it would have been MUCH better had he been forced to walk the plank, HA!) and that, as they say, is that.

All in all, I liked it.  I’m interested to see what happens next week.  Yes, it’s almost exactly like “Survivor”, but it works.  If you happened to catch it last night, what did you think?