Okay, first-off, I've forgotten more about pirates than most people will ever know. It sounds like bragging, but it isn't. See, it's like the paranormal stuff: when everyone else was doing whatever they were doing back in school, I was reading books about stuff like this.
Secondly, the lines have been blurred yet again; this is not so much "reality TV" as a straightforward game show. I mean, all reality shows have their theme and what have you, but this one has people dressing up in outfits, talking with fake (and terrible) accents, and so on. This is a game show.
But on to the review:
Pirate Master is CBS' new "reality"-cum-game show, where 16 people board a large ship and search for treasure. Ostensibly (and I say this because this is only the first show), they will have to live much like pirates did back in The Day. I sincerely doubt this will happen because no one lives like that anymore and those skills and disciplines are lost to time. We have some idea of how they did what they did, and plenty of historical evidence to back up those theories, but the world has changed too much to know for certain.
For instance, no one's going to get marooned (I smell spin-off!), no one's going to get keelhauled (I'd tune in for that, though), and no one's going to walk the plank (actually, they damn well may, but the real pirates never did this - this myth grew from a popular painting and has no historical accuracy, whatsoever). There are no cabin boys to be repeatedly anally-raped, no women dressed like men (that we know of) snuck aboard, and no Bill of Rights (for pirate ships were true Democracies and even offered "health insurance," of a type). Still, it's as good a premise for a reality-cum-game show as any... if only reality TV weren't so formulaic.
Pirate Master looks and plays like every other reality TV show. 10 years in, we're not so easily surprised anymore, and the editing is just plain lazy on all counts. I'd like to point out that I find it awful to edit someone's character into a Character, as they did with the guy who was voted-off tonight, and I think a lot of people would agree with me.
Anyway, Pirate Master: lackluster, trite, seen it before, mean to the contestants. Formulaic.
Yo? Ho-hum - and not even a bottle of rum could make it more fun.
Secondly, the lines have been blurred yet again; this is not so much "reality TV" as a straightforward game show. I mean, all reality shows have their theme and what have you, but this one has people dressing up in outfits, talking with fake (and terrible) accents, and so on. This is a game show.
But on to the review:
Pirate Master is CBS' new "reality"-cum-game show, where 16 people board a large ship and search for treasure. Ostensibly (and I say this because this is only the first show), they will have to live much like pirates did back in The Day. I sincerely doubt this will happen because no one lives like that anymore and those skills and disciplines are lost to time. We have some idea of how they did what they did, and plenty of historical evidence to back up those theories, but the world has changed too much to know for certain.
For instance, no one's going to get marooned (I smell spin-off!), no one's going to get keelhauled (I'd tune in for that, though), and no one's going to walk the plank (actually, they damn well may, but the real pirates never did this - this myth grew from a popular painting and has no historical accuracy, whatsoever). There are no cabin boys to be repeatedly anally-raped, no women dressed like men (that we know of) snuck aboard, and no Bill of Rights (for pirate ships were true Democracies and even offered "health insurance," of a type). Still, it's as good a premise for a reality-cum-game show as any... if only reality TV weren't so formulaic.
Pirate Master looks and plays like every other reality TV show. 10 years in, we're not so easily surprised anymore, and the editing is just plain lazy on all counts. I'd like to point out that I find it awful to edit someone's character into a Character, as they did with the guy who was voted-off tonight, and I think a lot of people would agree with me.
Anyway, Pirate Master: lackluster, trite, seen it before, mean to the contestants. Formulaic.
Yo? Ho-hum - and not even a bottle of rum could make it more fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment