If you see a twinkle in the host’s eye on Mark Burnett’s new reality contest, “Pirate Masters,” it’s because the good-looking scallywag comes from a long line of robbers on the high seas. “My grandfather, who’s 101 years old, said something about pirates in the family,” says Australian actor Cameron Daddo, 42. “And that was before this pirate show was even on my radar. I said, ‘We’re Spanish pirates?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s right. Spanish pirates that came down through Cornwall.'”
In this high seas version of “Survivor,” Daddo takes the Jeff Probst role. He’ll preside over a working tall ship stocked with sixteen “pirate” contestants and a shadow crew — that the audience will never see — charged with making sure the players don’t run the ship into the ground. The players run the gamut from real-life bartender and music producer to automotive parts salesman and former Washington Redskin Christian Okoye, And like the contestants on “Survivor,” the players have 33 days and 13 weeks to outwit, outlast and outplay each other to stay on the ship.
But this time, they’re also on hunt for a half-million dollars in gold coins buried on the island of Dominica. The winning team each week gets to elect a captain and split the loot. The losers swab the decks, eat gruel and cook steaks for the winners. Everyone gets to keep the money they find. But the ultimate winner gets an additional 500 grand and the title “Pirate Master.”
Did the premise of the show give the players permission to unleash the very worst in human behavior? “I fully expected everyone to be vicious, conniving and manipulative,” says Daddo. “But because of the community of the ship, and living in such close quarters, they became a very tight knit community. They were taken out of their fluorescent-lit offices, their car bubbles and their modern day life and put onto this tall ship. Under full sail, that thing moves and quite a few of them lost their lunch.”
As the ship sails the waters off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean, the players are sent on island expeditions to search for the buried treasure. (Apparently, they didn’t shock the natives because this is the same location where the “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy was filmed.) Dressed in pirate couture, they’re given the option of maintaining secrecy about who they are and what they do in real life. And they’re allowed to use the money they find to win friends and influence those who would rather see them walk the plank.
“Money,” says Daddo, “is changing hands all the time. It’s a live currency.”
But given the fact that these people are playing buccaneers, can’t they just stay on the ship and steal from each other? “No one can steal,” says Daddo. “We had to draw the line on that. What we realized is that if someone nicked money from under my pillow, I would be extremely upset. However, if I feel like I’m in trouble and think I might get voted off, I might choose to give someone two grand [as a bribe].”
Daddo says the best part of doing the show was being on the water. With his pirate DNA coursing through his veins, he actually had trouble being a landlubber.
“I was standing in the shower washing my hair and had my eyes closed, and I almost fell over. I just started rocking. I actually hit the wall. And it wasn’t the beer. It was definitely the motion of the ocean still with me.”
PIRATE MASTER
Thursday, 8 p.m., CBS