What Arrrgh Show; What Arrrgh Tragedy

Although my dear blogging friend Ms Fits gave Network Ten's new reality TV show Pirate Master a relative shellacking in the paper a while ago, I must confess to having a soft spot for this show. Why? Because I love pirates. Not as much as my other dear blogging friend Elaine loves pirates, but no one can love pirates more than she does, anyway - so she doesn't count.

What I love most about the show is the weekly treasure hunts that make up almost half of the hour. The contestants are randomly split into two teams (teams are never the same unless purely by chance), then they compete against the other team to be the first to find the buried treasure. They set out from the Picton Castle (the name of the pirate ship they're all living on throughout the show), row to a nearby island (each episode takes them to a different island with different buried treasure), and they use maps, booty traps and cryptic clues to locate the treasure chest filled with gold coins before the other team. The booty is then split amongst the winning team members (the captain gets more than anyone else, which has been a cruel but juicy twist to the bonds and friendships formed on the ship), and then someone is "cut adrift" at the end of the show. The captain chooses three people he wants gone, and the crew votes one of them out. But the captain must beware, for the crew possess the power to mutiny and cut them adrift instead (although only if the mutiny is unanimous).

Sound like Survivor on a boat? Well, it effectively is. Except that I don't really like Survivor, whereas Pirate Master doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's clear that the producers don't expect too much from their little show.

And as it turns out, that's a good thing. The show has been plagued with troubles, both here and in the US.

Shame. Aussie E-grade celebrities Cameron Daddo and Eden Gaha are heavily involved in the project (creator Bruck Bruckenheimer has often admitted to having a soft spot for Australians, having employed many Aussies over the years as his camera crews on most seasons of Survivor - he particularly likes their work ethic, which is why he hires them to film the other, top-rating show). Daddo is the show's host, and Gaha - inexplicably - is one of the Executive Producers. Just how the latter landed THAT gig, considering he was last seen as the near-invisible and hugely-underused vet on Channel Nine's Renovation Rescue a few years ago, I'll never know.


Cameron Daddo. I admit to still having a bit
of a crush on his wife (which originated in
my early teen years), Alison Brahe.

Eden Gaha: "Hey guys, remember me? ... No?"

The show's initial problems in the US amounted to much the same thing as the problems the show has encountered here in Australia as well: Basically, nobody's interested in watching it. Except for me, it seems.

However, whereas that's where the problems stop down here, back up there the situation has recently gotten a whole lot worse. One of the first contestants to be "cut adrift" on the show, District Attorney Cheryl (friend and co-conspirator of the at-first despised inaugural pirate captain Joe Don), committed suicide the other night - and the show has now been cancelled in the US. Apparently the remaining five episodes will be 'aired' on the official website, one per week, so that loyal viewers can see it through to the end (and so the winning contestant/s can receive their prizes, as prizes aren't awarded on TV shows until the episodes in question go to air - it's an advertising revenue thing). Cheryl's suicide is a tragic event, and it's an interesting insight into the human mind that the show has now probably gained more popularity than ever before. I bet the more black-hearted producers and network executives involved with this show in America would be hating themselves right about now -- here's the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the free press they're receiving and ride the wave of infamy to the end of the series with increased ratings (people will want to see Cheryl in the final episode, knowing with some sort of sick morbid curiosity that the woman they see smiling on their screens has since taken her own life). And yet these same hypothetical black-hearted producers know that if they were to screen the show on TV and be seen to 'profit' from the attention the show has received since Cheryl's death, the public's reaction will be outrage.


Cheryl Kosewicz: RIP.

The really nasty side of the coin for the producers of the show, is that the media is reporting that Cheryl left a message on fellow contestant Nessa's MySpace page not long before she ended her life, partly blaming the show for her decision. After reading said message for myself, I have to disagree. The full story is far more tragic and realistic (who'd kill themselves purely because of a TV they'd been on?).

Almost a month ago, Cheryl's boyfriend killed himself. That's awful enough, but when you realise that such a short time later she was to follow suit - presumably in desperation and despair - it compounds the misery for all. The comment Cheryl actually left on Nessa's MySpace page was the following:

"CHERYL K

28 Jun 2007 5:40 P

Truthfully, I've lost the strong Cherl and I'm just floating around lost. And this frik'n show doesn't help because it was such a contention between Ryan and I and plus its not getting good reviews.....then I made National Enquirer today so I'm just hitting it big....the hits keep on coming.

Sorry you couldn't make it to Vegas. It was a blast. Lets plan another trip in August - for one of the last shows....what do you think?"

So you see that the public's reaction to the show - not the show itself - was what was depressing Cheryl further. But to intimate that the compete story to Cheryl's sadness was somehow linked to the show is just nonsense (I know the reports said "blaming in part", but when no other reason is given, the implication is that the item referenced is the main cause). Clearly, the woman was already depressed beyond belief. She was grieving, and obviously taking it very badly. The truth of the matter is that the poor press and bad reviews the show was getting certainly wouldn't have helped her emotional state, but we can't go around pointing to the show as the main cause of her sorrow and the reason behind her decision. That's highly disrespectful; both to Cheryl, and her late boyfriend.

An eerie reminder of Cheryl is her MySpace page, which not (obviously) not been updated since a couple of days before her death.

So the show has been shafted to the Internet in the States. Meanwhile, before any of the above tragedy unfolded in America, the show was already attracting lower than low ratings in Australia, so the other week it was replaced with an hour-long Simpsons special (purportedly to celebrate the release of the movie), and then appeared at the extremely flattering new timeslot of 2pm Sundays. Considering that its original timeslot was 7:30pm Thursdays, this is quite a sideways shift.

TV Week still lists the show as appearing in its Thursday slot, so I'm not sure if I've already missed an episode on the weekend that's just passed ... seeing as I only found out about the scheduling change yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to catch the show this Sunday and pick up exactly where I left off.

But if not, it's not the end of the world. (Note the lame and somewhat paraphrased Pirates of the Caribbean reference, there? Probably not, without me pointing it out like that. So I'm glad I did.)


The impressive Picton Castle.
Check out the size of this castle's moat!

So what does the future hold for Pirate Master? Well, I think it's safe to say there won't be a second season of the show. And if US audiences have to watch the remainder of the show online, I wonder if we'll ever see the end of the thing here, either. Will a 2pm timeslot on Sundays be any more fruitful for Ten than 7:30pm Thursdays? I can't exactly see people following it to its new (barely advertised) time. Except for me, of course - but I'm a different beast entirely. So maybe, in the wake of Cheryl's suicide, the show will be pulled from our screens here, as well. I certainly wouldn't put it past Ten to do something like that (it's not as if they haven't had a history of the same offence with other shows - Smallville, The 4400, Battlestar Galactica, Jericho, etc).

I know this much - if I'm forced to watch the last five episodes of the show from the Amercian website and read about the missing intervening episodes on Wikipedia or something, I will. But I'd prefer to watch it from start to finish like a normal person.

It might be a lame, sucky show that pales next to the likes of its older, more stable and popular cousin, Survivor. But the theme is more enjoyable, the b!tching is kept to a minimum (at least so far), the twists are in line with the pirate thing, and the challenges are all about hunting for hidden treasure. So it's WAY more exciting for the likes of me. I hope I get to watch it through.



PS - Pirate joke for everyone. Say it with me, now ... don't pretend like you don't know it ...


Q. Why are pirates pirates?

A. Because they arrrgh.


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