TVSquad

Anna, if your not going to do regular reviews, why did you do this one. I thought the show was lame but at least there aren't 3 judges voting people off, which make it an original summer reality show. Please continue with the reviews and let us vote along with you.

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While I agree the show was not the most compelling that Mark Burnett show has given us, it was worth watching if only to see the tagline describing John's job as "scientist/exotic dancer". I literally did a double-take the first time that showed on the screen.

(His bio on the CBS web site is even better: "Although his brain is full of science, entertaining fills his heart.")

Although he was voted off, on the positive side, it's reassuring that the world of scientist/exotic dancers did not have to suffer losing one of their own to the "fame and fortune" of winning a reality show.

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This show was as bad as I could stand, and while they didn't obviously drink the rum to get through the show, I did. I felt they voted off the one interesting/non annoying character without giving him a chance, so I hit the thumbs down and won't watch again. I'm a sucker for bad tv, but I have my limits....

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I thought is was just okay. Decent summer program to follow but not feeling the need to invest into it. I'll catch it when I can. It was like Survivor with a little bit of Big Brother thrown in (head of household type stuff). I like the idea of mutiny. That's kinda original for a show like this. Reminds me of last summer's knock-off of The Amazing Race. It was called Treasure Hunters or something like that. It was decent, not great, but something to watch without too much investment. I'll stick around for Pirates.

And besides, seeing Christian Okoye again is kinda cool.

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I actually though it was sort of cool. It is hard to be really unique with reality shows. You have 4 basic premises.
1-The dating show(Bachelor)
2-The talent show with judges(Idol, Dance, Top Model) 3-The competition show where the loser, or losing team goes home(Amazing Race, Beauty and the Geeks)
4-The competition show where people get voted off(Survivor)

This falls into the #4, but there is different strategy which is cool. It has sort of a Mole feel with how the money is accumulated over time(hopefully there is treasure they can't find and never get to keep). I like the captain thing, you don't want to piss him off or you will be in the bottom 3, but if he is too much of a jerk, he is gone. He gets more money so he needs to share it keep people happy. It adds a different and unique dynamic. I also like how the captain and officers pick who is up for elimination, but can't vote.

I do hope the challenges are different, following maps would get boring after a while. Challenges that are more like puzzles would be cool, or challenges were the treasure is in several different places, where they can find some, or all, or none, with the ability to hide treasure from the captain. Make this game a backstabbing free for all. They are supposed to be pirates.

My biggest complaint, the name, Pirate Master sounds like some Atari game. And as I watch these normal people looking like pirates I just think of Steve the Pirate from Dodgeball. Arrrgh!

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Comparing Pirate Master to Survivor is being too favorable to Pirate Master. Survivor is about a group stranded somewhere, competing in challenges for a prize at the end. This show is about a group pretending to be pirates (which is slightly odd), that collect prizes along the way, and work for a captain and his commanders.

Where Surviror seems natural when contestants speak their mind, on Pirate Master the dialogue seems fake, as if the people don't know what to say. The captain especially. They make you captain, and his speech is immediately things are going to change around there. Ok. Sure. That's what you say?!

The Scientist/Exotic Dancer title was good for a laugh, which I'm pretty sure was the intent. He was the first to be set adrift (yeah, why NOT walk the plank!?) and even though he was odd from a social point of view (where do they get these people?), it's unclear why everyone voted him off. Obviously there was some conslusion ahead of the vote, which made all their 'save me' speechs pretty much unnecessary.

And that Scientist/Exotic Dancer stole all the compasses was a little strange. You can simply say I'm keeping these and leave with them?

I don't know, the show seems half-baked. I'll give it another shot only because there's absolutely nothing else on right now.

But my first impression of the show is that it's pure cheese.

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And what the hell was John's big idea at the end...? Seriously? Taking the compasses? Brilliant idea there mate...

'I've taken all the spoons... Consider that if you vote me off, there'll be NO SOUP FOR YOU!'

*rolls eyes*

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Total cheesefest. But I like cheese...

This show is sort of like Survivor mated with Big Brother and produced Captain Jack Sparrow's bastard child.

I'll give it another go next week.

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I thought this was a pretty cool concept, and I like the rules with the captain, 2 mates, the crew can mutiny, they can not, it's all very good.

As was said above, it is pretty much Survivor, mixed with Big Brother, on a ship, and with challenges that have a bit of a wider scope. Love both those shows, so I figure I'd be a sucker for this right? Not so fast...

There were some problems which may keep me from watching this show again.

Eye-liner. All the men were wearing Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean levels of black eyeliner. like wtf?

The no plank walking. C'mon man, freakin' pirates here.

That Captain is a straight-up douchebag, not showing the people his room, acting like a hoighty toighty jackass the whole time, ugh. I was hoping for the mutiny so someone with a less 'douchebaggy' type attitude could take his place.

Although, I must admit, in the previews he looked pretty shrewd buying that other guy (It's too soon for most names to sink in) to be his inside man among the crew.

I think John's idea was actually pretty smart. His best chance of staying was to go for that mutiny, and he knew he couldn't just go face to face with Captain Douchebag, so he needed something to pull people to his side, personality differences or not.

I do think the ppl threw away the compasses rather easily. And why did no one question Captain Douche about his navigational skills. Sticking a stick into the mud and waiting half an hr is not something you can do in the midst of a challenge.

I'll probably come back, but Pirate Master might turn out to be pure fluff...but I guess this is reality TV...

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who picked up on the mix of "Survivor" and "Big Brother". It wasn't apparent until after the challenge of course but once you saw the Captain's Cabin (HOH room) and the Summonses to Pirates' Court (House Key Ceremony) anyone with a little imagination could pick up on it.

Oh, and if John had taken the compasses aboard a real pirate ship (or even a Royal Navy ship of the 18th century) he'd have gotten 20 of the best with a cat o' nine tales and then been hanged. Sailors took stealing from their own _very_ seriously, even pirates.

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John stood out and got cut off for that - that's what you get for that behaviour. Anybody on a pirate ship knows that. And honestly - that guy was so full of himself - everybody choses a captain - he shakes his head just because HE found the treasure chest. I mean there is no frickin I in team man come ON how ridiculous can someone behave on a ship where the group votes people off?

Anyway, I like it that they all didn't know that their decision affects the amount of money they get. I like the way they really show that being the captain back in the day just meant having the key to the treasure chest and that mutiny was always a possibility. trust me - further along their way there will be different votes and who knows how often there will be new captain? I liked it that they showed us that Joe Don (john doe?) will bribe a crewmember to get insider-information about what's going on among the crew. That's really nice. And who knows what the next challenges will be like?

I thought Survivor-Fiji was a total letdown for the first six to eight episodes until the maniacs like Rocky were finally gone and they could focus on Yao-man and earl more. This show at least deserves another two to three weeks. I mean COME ON you people are reviewing "On The Lot" and that show is just a pain in the a**

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I think I'll stick this one out. Like ThumbsDown, I too am a sucker for bad TV, but unlike ThumbsDown I think this one gets it just right. I think that as these people get more and more tired and weak from eating gruel and throwing up from seasickness, they will begin to take themselves way more seriously than they should, which will make for some excellent bad TV.

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