I have one those guilty little pleasures going on right now. It’s name is Mark Burnett’s Pirate Master. As much as I thought the whole concept was stupid when I initially heard about the show, I gave it a chance a couple weeks ago and it managed to lure me in.

The whole premise of the show is pretty convoluted, but the more I watch it, the more I like it. It starts with 16 would be pirates on a ship. There is an elected captain picked out of the crew(which since I didn’t watch the first episode I don’t know how that happened at first), then the Captain picks 2 officers. There are Survivor style challenges, where the crew is divided into 2 randomly selected teams and they go in search of treasure. The black team is always the Captain’s team comprised of himself, the officers and a few crew members, while the red team is always comprised of the rest of the crew. If the black team wins, the Captain stays in place, if the red team wins they elect a new Captain from among the teams ranks. They then divide up the treasure, half is entitled to the Captain, then the rest of the gold is split among the winning team. The Captain and officers then decide which three crew members will be given “the black spot”, which puts them in a position to be cut adrift from the boat.

I find that where the intrigue of the show comes from, the fact the players have money. So far there has been the use of bribes. This week they introduced a pardon letter, which allows players who think they might be in peril of being voted off to bid for the letter. Then when it comes time and the votes have been cast the host of the show reveals who the highest bidder is, so it adds a little bit of intrigue to the proceedings. Players having currency in the game definitely amps up the show in ways other reality shows can’t, mainly because players can pretty much make their own luck if their willing to spend some money.

This week was the first week where the intrigue and twists of the show really shone through. My favourite member of the crew so far is Joe Don. He was the ships first Captain and has played the game pretty shrewdly so far. He made a fair amount of money during his 3 episodes as Captain, which really pissed off a couple of crewmen, mainly Louie. Louie is pretty much a carbon copy of Rupert from Survivor. He seems to be the only one on the show that I suspect actually thinks he’s a pirate, either that or he’s Hacksaw Jim Duggan’s brother. Overall he’s the type of character that most of the viewing audience will love his bearded curmudgeon style. Personally I really dislike him and enjoyed seeing him getting a little bit of comeuppance in tonight’s episode. He got voted into the position of Captain after his team won the challenge and immediately set his sights on taking down Joe Don. When it came down to justifying why he decided to black spot who he did he made a point of saying that he put up crew-member Cheryl because of her association with Joe Don, then mentioned why he harbored so much resentment towards him was because of the fact he had taken more then Louie’s perceived “fair share” of gold while he was Captain. The host of the show called him out on this, as the Pirate’s code entitles the Captain to half of any treasure the crew finds. Louie’s gambit failed as well, as not only did Joe Don buy the pardon letter to save himself, but he didn’t even receive enough votes to be voted off, which kinda showed the crew wasn’t entirely with him on the whole vendetta against J.D.

If you like Survivor you’d probably enjoy this show, and I think given the added intrigue and leverage that money brings to the game it definitely makes for some half decent summer television. And since the guilty pleasure that was “Rockstar: Insert Band Name Here” isn’t back for a third summer run I guess it will have to do.