Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, a Pirate Hunter's Life on TV
REUTERS/Ho New
Timing is everything.
Just one day after Capt. Richard Phillips' dramatic rescue at sea from Somali pirates comes word that Spike TV has closed a deal with the U.S. Navy to chronicle pirate-hunting special forces in a new reality show, Pirate Hunters: USN.
Producers have been in talks with the Navy for months, but the deal was only finalized last week, just as the five-day standoff between a warship and scalawag-piloted lifeboat was playing out off the Horn of Africa.
Pirate Hunters promises an "up-close and behind-the-scenes" look at the buccaneer-combating Navy operations on two warships, the USS San Antonio and USS Boxer—the same assault ship Phillips was taken to immediately after his rescue.
The show will be set in the Gulf of Aden in the open waters off the coast of Djibouti, bordering Somalia and Ethiopia.
"Piracy off the coast of Africa is a real and deadly threat," the president of the Emmy-winning 44 Blue Productions, which will produce the series, said. "With Pirate Hunters: USN, our goal is to capture that drama for the TV audience in order to highlight the heroic work undertaken by the U.S. Navy every day in this fight against terrorism."
No air date has yet been set.
Meanwhile, with Phillips replacing Sully as the national hero of the moment, several talk shows are scrambling to land his first TV interview once he gets back to the U.S.
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