Yo ho, Yo ho, a pirate’s life for me! Tonight, for a crew of 16 would-be pirates began the adventure of a lifetime! The crew seems to be the usual assortment of characters that you get on most reality shows. All of them were very full of themselves. One in particular stood out. John (the Scientist/Exotic Dancer) seemed like he was going to be the freak of the show. He was getting on people’s nerves during the first night’s meet and greet. The first time we saw him my son asked “Is that Sanjaya?” Supposedly the crew had all sailed before but you couldn’t prove it by me. The couldn’t haul on a line in unison, some of the crew seemed a little shy of climbing the ratlines to set sail, and before they had even reached the island joy was seasick and chunking over the side of the ship (some pirate, eh?).

The Zanzibar Chest
The story for the show states that the notorious (fictitious) Captain Steel divided his treasure in 14 parts a buried them separately around the Island of Dominica. A map to each of the parts was locked in a compartment in the Zanzibar Chest. With each part of the treasure, is also buried the key to the next compartment. (See our series preview for a more detailed explanation). The first morning Cameron Daddo, the show’s host, opened the first compartment of the Zanzibar chest. He then divided the contestants… er, I mean pirates, into two crews, the Red Crew and the Black Crew. Each crew was given a copy of the map and a compass. They had to paddle to the island and then head up the Indian River to Deadman’s Cove (Arrrgh! A good place for pirates that be!). They would then have to find a hanging cage containing… a skeleton. Below the cage was buried three keys which could be used to unlock the cage. In the cage the crews would find their next map.

Then it was off to the longboats! As the crews paddled for the island (yes, I know longboats don’t use paddles) the Red Crew didn’t realize they had a rudder to control the longboat. By the time they discovered it they were way off course, and way behind. The Black Crew reached Deadman’s Cove first but they got bogged down when Ben lost his shoe in the mud. The Red Team made up a lot of time as the Black Crew stood around waiting for him as he dug through the mud. The Red Crew actually caught up to them as they were unlocking the skeleton cage. The Black Crew quickly made their way back tot eh boats and began paddling up river again following the new map.

Along the river, the Black crew passed a Sabotage Point. This allows the crew in the lead of a competition to slow down the crew trailing them even further (think of a yield from Amazing Race). In this case, when the Black Crew cut the rope, a net was drawn across the river blocking the Red Team’s boat. Once around the next bend the Black Team had to find the treasure chest which was in the water and marked by two crocodile heads. They had a really hard time locating this. The Red Crew had actually reached the Sabotage Point, which barely slowed them down at all, and were on there way when John finally pulled the chest up from beneath the submerged roots of a mango tree. Black Crew Wins!

Upon returning to the ship, the Black Crew victoriously hauled their booty aboard. Arrgh! John was really arrogant about finding the treasure. He said that originally he thought the other crew members would be goo but, he He quickly found himself, “…far and above the only one able to do it”. In addition to live crabs the chest contained $40,000 in gold coins. At this point Cameron told the Black Team that they had to elect a captain then and their. They all quickly agreed that JD (Joe Don) shoud be the cpatain. John of course was the only one to dissent because he thought he should be the captain instead. Then the show took an interesting twist. JD had to pick two oficers to assist him and he selected Ben and Cheryl. The gold was then divided up based on the historical method for the division of prize money. The captain received half! (or $20,000). The officer’s split 25% or $5,000 each and the rest of the crew got to split the remaining 25%. This worked out to $2,000 each. The rest of the Black Crew was bitter, John was totally jerk. JD also got the key to the captain’s quarters. The Red and Black Crews were disbanded and they all became just crew. JD wouldn’t even let the rest of the crew in to see the cabin. He’s crazy. He suddenly became very arrogant and aloof from the crew, which was probably historically accurate is a mistake from the perspective of the game. The crew was already prepared to get rid of him.

The Pirates Court:
The captain and his officers now get to chose 3 pirates give to give a black spot to. One of them will be voted out unless all of the crew agrees to mutiny against the captain. JD wanted John to send home. He, Ben, and Cheryl also picked Louie because he was talking mutiny and Joy because they didn’t think she would be voted off. Just me but if you want to survive on a reality show you can’t just go it alone. They should have called some of the crew in to discuss this first. [Black Spot] When Joy received her Black Spot she was in tears (seriously, there’s no crying in piracy!). John’s ploy was to steal compasses out of the boat because he figured that without them the crew couldn’t find the treasures so he would use that to force the crew to keep him in the game.

When the Pirate Court was called, each of the three selected pirates got a chance to speak to the rest of the crew to defend themselves. Louie and Joy made heartfelt talks to the crew. Then came John. First he said that he was singled out because he was the only one who didn’t vote for JD (Were you surprised John?) Then he tried to incite the crew to mutiny by going on about how JD kept all of the money for himself and forced everyone else to do extra work. Finally he pulled the compass business (which I’m surprised the producers let him do). When Cameron tallied the votes, he announced that the crew was unanimous. He immediately sent Joy and Louie back to sit with the crew. John tried but in the end, the crew stuck with their captain.

John’s voyage has ended he has been cut adrift.

They actually put him on a raft and had the captain cut the line to cast him adrift. I guess no one really cared about the compasses. While I found John extremely annoying its too bad they got rid of him already. He would have made for some good drama later in the season. I also have to give him credit, 300 years ago, controlling the compasses would have been a very convincing move.

I really want this show to be good. I know its cheesy and to some extent, its just Survivor in pirate costumes but I liked it. It will be a fun show to follow this summer (and I have a reason to talk like a pirate! Arrgh!). The historical inaccuracies are going to drive me crazy. The first season of any reality show is always a little rough. It takes a season or two for the strategies to mature enough for the game to get really good. Hopefully this show will make it.

Next Week: The power of being captain goes to JD’s head and he bribes Jay to be his inside man.

Check out the rest of our Pirate Master coverage.

SirLinksALot: Pirate Master