Watching Sarah Palin is like watching a car wreck. She’s the type of comedic character that sitcom writers just could not come up with.
So when news hit that TLC was coming out with “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” a reality show to focus on Palin, her family and the state of Alaska, did it make this reviewer seek it out and watch it? “You betcha.”
We all know why Palin lovers would watch this show, but why would Palin haters? Because it could provide the most laughs this side of a Tina Fey “Saturday Night Live” sketch. Unfortunately, the prevailing word to describe “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” after watching the premiere episode Sunday is not funny. It’s boring.
The show is less an exploration of Palin and her family and more of Alaska (or as Palin calls it “the last frontier”).
A few moments with Palin’s family are interesting, such as Palin preparing for an appearance with Bill O’Reilly by getting her personal studio ready.
Palin also kept a boy away from going upstairs with her teenage daughter, Willow, which cannot help but evoke memories of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston. One wonders if Palin was as strict with them, or if her dealing with Willow is a lesson learned from Bristol.
But, no, the vast majority of the episode is essentially just like any other TLC or Discovery Channel or whatever network’s outdoors show. It’s essentially an hour-long commercial for the state of Alaska, with Palin serving as tour guide instead of an Australian who yells “Crikey!” a lot.
And if the show is an accurate barometer of the Palins, all they do is see the outdoors. In the pilot alone, the Palins go out to fish near where wild bears are and later climb part of Mount McKinley. And judging by the preview of the rest of the season at the end of the episode, the Palins are goin’ to go shootin’, kayakin’ and mushin’ animals as well. She must live a pretty boring life now that she’s not governor and the presidential election is still two years away. But at least she acknowledges that fact.
Even an outdoorsy person would probably find “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” not worth his or her time because nothing of note really happened. When the Palins went fishing, two brown bears slowly clawed each other a few times, and this is hyped up as a heavyweight bout. Plus the scene leads Palin to spout all these groan-inducing lines about “mama grizzlies” and how America should learn from these slugging brown bears.
And our Sarah and Todd do not actually climb that much of Mount McKinley. There’s still three miles to get to the top when they quit. And even what they did climb — Sarah took literally 45 minutes to manage. Seeing her paralyzed with fear for what amounted to five or 10 minutes of the show is not entertaining television.
Plus, Todd climbed up the mountain with speed and precision, and here, as well as other places in the show, the talkative Sarah reveals her petty jealousy of the quiet Todd’s athletic prowess. People who follow the entire season will probably see this spring up quite a few times.
Multiple times the show points out a shadowy figure sitting on a porch across the street — one of the Palins’ neighbors, who Palin describes as an author looking to write a book on them. If that is true, judging from watching “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” one cannot even imagine the boredom springing from observing this family in real time.
