Cameron Daddo: Pirate Master More Than Survivor on a Boat
As Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End heats up movie screen, it's the perfect time for a pirate-based reality show, isn't it?
That's what CBS thinks, as he gets ready to premiere Pirate Master. The show's host wants everyone to know that the Mark Burnett-produced program isn't just a replica of another competition.
"I mean Survivor to me is a show about surviving... They're dumped on an island and they have to survive and they're split into two teams, whereas on this show, it is different," explained Cameron Daddo during a Tuesday conference call with reporters.
"There are 16 pirates and they live together, they work together and they sleep together. It's not divided. The only time they're divided is to go on an expedition and the expedition is for gold. Each week there is a treasure hunt for gold. And the pirate crew is divided into two separate crews - a black crew and a red crew - and they go head-to-head in an expedition for a serious amount of gold. So in that, there's an intrinsic difference right there because in Survivor there's money at the end.
Whereas each week of Pirate Master there's money up for grabs. At the end... there's $500,000 of treasure up for grabs. But week to week there's money to be had, there's deals to be done, there's skulduggery... There's piracy."
Pirate Master will follow 16 contestants as they spend 33 days traveling around the Caribbean island nation of Dominica in search of hidden treasure that will total $1 million. When they're not busy embarking on quests to decipher various hidden treasure clues, they'll live on the 179-foot, square-rigged barque that will also serve as their main form of plundering transportation.
Because this is "working ship," Daddo said there are regular duties that need to be done, such as the four-hour watch, raising the anchor, and swabbing the deck, among various other maintenance-type tasks.
One pirate will become the captain of the ship and will assign roles and chores to the remaining crew members - establishing a hierarchy that could lead to mutiny, as each episode will conclude with Pirate's Court, a Survivor Tribal Council-like event that will see one individual eliminated and "cut adrift."
Daddo said the captain and his two officers "had anything from steak and eggs to chicken and fresh fruit" to eat, while the rest of the crew chowed on gruel, stew, "and basically whatever they could conjure up for themselves."
As if that weren't demoralizing enough, he added while the crew slept end-to-end in wooden bunks built into the side of ship, the captain and his two officers slept in their own quarters with a double bed for the captain and mattresses and blankets for his officers.
