Pirate Master

[Moozik: The Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf]

I'm a Survivor fan. There, I said it. It's my weekly TV guilty pleasure and the only reality TV programme that's even remotely watchable. There are four or five like minded fans in my office and every Friday morning we have a pow wow about the previous night's episode.

So, last night, the creators of Survivor aired their new reality programme, Pirate Master. A kind of Survivor but with Pirates. Pirates you say? How could it go wrong? Well, turns out a number of ways actually and the general consensus this morning in the office was "oh my god did that suck".

They tried far too hard, far too early. The contestants (sorry, Pirates) gave far to many fake "woohoos" and "yeaaaaahs" whenever there was the slightest mention of anything Piratey or treasury. Far too much emphasis was placed on letting us know who the "edgy" contestants (sorry, Pirates) were in the first 30 mins or so instead of letting us figure that out for ourselves over the course of the next few weeks a-la Survivor.

The first "challenge" involved paddling a boat up a river, unlocking a padlock, and finding a chest on the riverbed. Yawn. We didn't really care who won or who lost - it was far too early for that. Yet they insisted on making sure we saw exactly how upset the losing team were.

Needless to say, I bailed. Dear CBS, you owe me 35 minutes of my life back.