Sarah Palin Shows Her Wild Side
Chuck Barney - Contra Costa Times
Nov 12, 2010
In the early moments of the folksy new TLC reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," the former governor and vice-presidential contender is perched high upon a picturesque bluff overlooking a rugged wilderness. "You can see Russia from here," she says. "... Almost."
OK, so Palin has a self-deprecating sense of humor. That's one thing we can glean from this eight-part series produced by Mark Burnett for the network that gave us "Jon & Kate Plus Eight." We also learn that she's a busy working mom who loves the great outdoors, is constantly tethered to her Blackberry and has issues with a nosy neighbor.
It all sounds harmless enough, but can we still count on this show to be polarizing? You betcha. Surely it will have Palin lovers rushing to plant wet smooches on the screen and all the haters citing it as proof that TV is, indeed, full of dreck.
Taken simply as an Alaska travelogue, the series strikes the right notes. It is crammed with wondrous scenery of the nation's "final frontier" - from snow-capped mountains to glimmering lakes. And when Palin's family gets an up-close-and-personal view of a mama bear and her cubs during a fishing trip, you can just imagine the stampede that will greet employees at the Alaska Airlines ticket counter.
But the series doesn't only showcase Alaska. It showcases Palin - or at least what she wants us to see of her active, down-home lifestyle. Sunday's opener offers glimpses of Palin shooting a remote segment for "The O'Reilly Factor" from her specially built upstairs studio. We also see her displaying her gritty toughness during a mountain-climbing trek, and her frustration with Joe McGinniss, an author who has rented the house next door to write what husband Todd Palin calls a "hit piece" on her.
"It's just none of his flipping business," she says, expressing concern with the intrusiveness of it all. And you can almost empathize, if not for the ironic fact that she has opened her lakeside home to a reality TV camera crew.
A website promoting the show (SPAlaska.com) insists that "Sarah Palin's Alaska" is "a lot of things ... but it is not a political show" and that's sort of true. The only hint of a policy stance during the first episode comes when Palin refers to the newly installed fence extension between her property and the voyeuristic neighbor.
"Others can look at it and say, 'Oh, this is what we need to do to secure our nation's border,'" she says in that familiar singsong voice.
On the other hand, how can anything involving Palin not give off a whiff of politics? If she does indeed have her sights on a 2012 run for the White House, this series would certainly make for a valuable photo-op and could even help to mold her image for a curious electorate. It's the kind of valuable TV time and media exposure that any candidate would crave.
Of course, there will be some who will argue that a reality TV show - on basic cable, no less - isn't the best venue to promote yourself as a serious presidential contender, despite the fact that politicians in recent years have scrambled to secure appearances on "Saturday Night Live," Comedy Central and even "American Idol."
Whether it's a wise move for Palin or not remains to be seen. For now, viewers are, as always, free to vote with their remotes.
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