# So I guess everyone is as bored with Pirate Master as I am **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 22, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948 "2007-06-22T02:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/1 "2007-06-22T02:43:10Z")
No thread on this week’s episode? Not too surprising, really. This show is possibly the dullest I’ve seen in the last decade. The “royal pardon” nonsense is contrived. None of the people are remotely interesting. The only reason to keep watching is to see if Louie gets eaten by a shark. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/2 "2007-06-22T03:12:18Z")
I’m still watching, for the obvious reason, and will probably see it through to the end. But there’s not much about the show that needs to be talked about. They took the interesting stuff (the islands, the ship, the adventure) and put it in the background, and made the contest about all the things I don’t care about (the alliances, the backstabbing, the money). There was a Canadian series filmed on that ship a few years ago, about one of her actual round-the-world voyages. I’d love to find a copy of that. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/3 "2007-06-22T03:14:41Z")
Half of the first episode. When I realized they were clearly coached and / or actors and they weren’t going to bother even showing us how or why they seemed to know everything about how to sail this thing, I was gone. I can only handle a couple of reality shows at a time, and American Inventor kicks this one’s ass. I also bailed on Age of Love , which is equally horrendous. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/4 "2007-06-22T04:00:15Z")
It would be better with nudity. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/5 "2007-06-22T04:02:38Z")
I’d rather not see naked Louie, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/6 "2007-06-22T05:59:17Z")
[QUOTE=Morbo] When I realized they were clearly coached and / or actors [/QUOTE] Hijack: This brought to mind a question - do the laws that restrict “rigging” game shows apply at all to reality shows? After all, ones like Pirate Master have enough competition such that in the early days, I thought of the genre as just a spinoff of game shows… ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/7 "2007-06-22T10:24:33Z")
I didn’t even make it to this week. When I realized I’d caught less than half of less week’s action – despite being in the same room with the TV for the whole time – I declared myself completely uninterested. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/8 "2007-06-22T12:14:27Z")
I actually bailed after the first episode. Not only was about half of it scripted, the script was read by people who _sounded_ like they were actually reading it while filming. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/9 "2007-06-22T12:47:46Z")
[QUOTE=Robot Arm] I’m still watching, for the obvious reason [/QUOTE] What the heck would that reason be? I knew 11 minutes into Episode 1 it was putrid, and watched the entire thing only because my wife was watching it. It’s the worst television show since “Who Wants To Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” Since the so-called contestants are obviously actors, or at best are coached and prodded into acting as best they can rather than being themselves, it’s not even interesting as a reality show. I’m nt entirely convinced it isn’t scripted. It’s boring, phony, and stupid. I can’t think of a single reason it shouldn’t be cancelled immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/10 "2007-06-22T13:29:01Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] What the heck would that reason be? [/QUOTE] Because I sailed on that ship about 4 months before the series was shot, and know some of the crew who were on board during the filming. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/11 "2007-06-22T14:13:34Z")
I found the Royal Pardon to be a good way to redistribute the wealth around (if it works they way I understood it to work). Too little too late, though. It is not a bad idea, it is just that the players are not smart or likeable enough. It might even saturate adventure-reality-show fans and sink Survivor with it! ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/12 "2007-06-22T15:46:54Z")
I taped last night’s episode, because when it was on I was busy in my online pirate game in a prearranged multi-ship battle. I’m going to watch the tape tonight, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’m a far better pirate than these people! ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/13 "2007-06-22T16:24:12Z")
I thought that having money in play was an interesting twist. Turns out to be not interesting enough. Each challenge is basically a footrace, and even with last night’s Big Mistake, both teams wound up digging randomly in the right spot at the same time. I was glad to see a thread started, because I wanted to post something I noticed: whenever something is dramatically cut with a sword (like, the rope holding the Sabotage, or the pirate being set Adrift) – there’s an edit to a closeup of sword and rope. You never actually see the pirate hitting something effectively with a sword. I infer that these guys aren’t actually given anything sharp to play with. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-guess-everyone-is-as-bored-with-pirate-master-as-i-am/408948/14 "2007-06-22T16:48:30Z")
The **only** two reasons I watch this drivel are: 1. nothing else is on that I care even this much about; 2. my wife and I picked a player each at the outset and have a $5 bet on which one will last longest. She picked Sean and I picked Azmyth. Once one of them is “set adrift” I’ll bail out. It is beyond dull and I am beyond stupid for watching it. But, as they say, “WTF?” The promos they’ve been running for _Big Brother 8_ don’t hold out a lot of hope for it being much better, but again, because there’s so little competition that I care about watching, I’ll probably stare at it, too, and cuss a lot. Julie Chen is such a phony!