All posts in television

• Pirate Master

  Jun 14, 2007Posted by Dave Darby

  You know we don’t watch much television, but for the shows that we do hit either live or TIVOd, we are extremely loyal.

  We were long time watchers of The Apprentice.  And, even though he didn’t pick my late submission for The Apprentice a few years back, we like Mark Burnett a lot.  Not only for his reality tv prowess, but with great respect as he is a former member of the British special forces and also as a master and world champion adventure racer.  Having competed in an adventure race I can tell you it is adventurous and fun to push your limits and hard as hell – due to poor training for my race, I reached my limits way too soon for my tastes.

  Anyway, we didn’t watch The Apprentice this year – had enough of Donald Trump.  And, go figure, apparently everybody else felt the same way as his show was canceled after a successful run.

  On a side note Mark, here’s a show that would sell – put Trump’s ass out on the street with $20 everyday for a month and see what he could do with it.  Take away his image, his tailored suits, limousines and helicopters and let him live and eat in a homeless shelter.  Let’s see if he has ‘skills’ or if he is just the master bully that we all know he is still riding the wave his Dad created.  I’m thinking that show would draw quite a crowd.  Oh, and lets put Rosey O’Donnell as the soup kitchen boss.  Ha!

  K, so back to Mark Burnett.  So we respect and support him.  He has a way of putting a show where people are pushing their limits and making you fantasize about being part of it.  He had another show The Contender that we like alot about a group of boxers fighting weekly challenges to win the $1M prize.  Nearly every ‘contender’ was a Rocky story.  For each week’s match, they’d show a touching bio and you’d be like – oh yeah, that’s my man – then they’d show the rags to rags story of the next guy and you’d feel bad for thinking you were going to root against him.  It was a great first season but it dropped off – they changed the challenge format and it sucked.  But that first season motivated me -  I went out and bought a heavy punching bag and used it a few months.  May be the best workout tool I’ve ever used.

  That’s what Burnett’s shows do.  Make you want to be part of a grueling process in which you put your personality on the line and open yourself up for either huge reward or huge embarrassment.

  This summer, it’s Pirate Master – his new show on Thursday nights.  Yep, we’re hooked.  Talk about a master genius – capitalizing on the HUGE success of Pirates of the Caribbean – he makes us all want to be pirates.  And the ultimate hook – ha, I used hook to talk about a pirate show – is that sociology steps in and makes us mad crazy about the choices the people are making.  So far, we’ve had 1 ‘elected’ pirate captain – he’s a total ass, keeping 50% of the loot, eating fine while the crew eats sludge – and the kick, he makes no bones that he is the captain and everyone else sucks.  And what did the crew do last week when they had a chance to keep the wiley captain or mutiny against him and put in my NFL man in charge? (Christian ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ who played running back like a Mack truck running through wet paper and made a vow that he would create a socialist regime so that everyone shared equally.)  Of course, they dumped Christian and kept the mean-assed captain.

  WHAT!??  Damn you Burnett.  Now you know I’m going to watch next week to see if these stupid people choose him again.  Brilliant.  And all the while, I’m thinking, hmmmm….how would I do on this show?  Brilliant.

  But all he is doing is mirroring life.  You hear people talk about curing diseases and ridding the world of poverty in a socialistic way, but it won’t happen.  Why?  We like democracy.  We like Rocky Balboa.  We like winning and it’s a zero-sum game.  Somebody can win, ONLY if somebody loses.

  Think about it – we like The Apprentice not only because somebody rises up to win the almighty time-treasured $1M, but because some schmuck gets to hear ‘Your Fired!’ every week.  In Survivor, it’s not only the $1M and the amusing twist of the angry mob at final tribal council, but it’s the weekly ‘The tribe has spoken’ that sends shrieks around the water coolers.  And in the Pirate Master, there’s the adventure, the promise of nearly $1M in loot but there’s the loud, sudden whack as that mean-assed captain slams his sword through the rope and deep into the might oak that sets some poor bastard and his good intentions off to drift.  Aye!

  But once in a while – like the French and American revolutions – everybody gets tired of watching their futures go down the toilet to someone else’s benefit and they rise up and rebel and they set a new course.  And the tv fans go wild.

  Speaking of futures, toilets and rebellion, I should blog about career changes soon…

  Comments

  Comments Off

  Tagged

  Family, Sociology
  Read more »