Reality television shows in various forms have been around since the late 1940s. Allen Funt's Candid Camera was first to feature people in unscripted situations, usually awkward, and the concept has been maintained and tweaked as the product has been developed.
Such a show, sort of, is Sarah Palin's Alaska. Part travelogue, it is in many respects a retro series utilizing elements that add up to the sitcom of 50 years ago. Such shows were built around a strong woman, kids who were, well, kids, and husbands not excelling in maturity. There were in-laws, best friends, pets, and neighbors created by an industry with canon rules of type casting one of which decrees that one of the neighbors has to be nasty.
All those elements are there in the family, freedom and fun-filled Sarah Palin's Alaska now being seen on The Learning Channel (TLC). Sarah, the stalwart mother, spews a kind of gee-whiz Chamber of Commerce patois in direct contrast to husband Todd. All sitcoms worth their weight in laughter have to have the husband/father as sap and it's a bit too early to tell if Todd has the stuff required. So far he has done little but wander around benignly as a kind of Fred MacMurray doofus: tall, dependable, and exceedingly quiet. Recall The Absent Minded Professor. Todd has a lot to be quiet about and his concerned appearance could easily be interpreted as anticipation of the return of the bizarre turkey grinder to the Palin story line. Thanksgiving, after all, is nearly upon us.
Viewers may recall an animated Sarah yammering away two Thanksgivings ago while an attendant, straight from a Roger Corman film, tended to turkey annihilation in the background. It takes a viewer of little political acumen to quickly realize that Sarah Palin's Alaska is root bound in politics complete with explanations and self-mocking ("You can see Russia from here...almost") of past misadventures including the monumentally goofy Katie Curic interviews that attempted to determine Palin's reading habits of which there appeared to be none. That gaffe is handled obliquely with Sarah seated in front of a computer while expressing concern over a writing project. Palin likes to do "a lot of my writing and researching...on our cement slab." The suggestion here is that Palin is over the reading hurdle having become an author. That may very well be, but it would be reassuring to see evidence of the writer's pal, the dictionary, on that frighteningly barren desk. Further, the scene also fails to display a handy thesaurus. Perhaps writer Palin keeps the thesaurus in the attic along with a ghastly painting of a quite different hue than the perky self so difficult to avoid.
Speaking of the dictionary, the current year has seen acceptance by the Oxford English Dictionary of a Palin made-up word. "Refudiate" is the word and the stunning decision, so without merit in the mnds of many, has produced demands that George W. Bush's "misunderestimate" be considered.
Not a wild guess is the thought that there will be additional scenes showing us the "literary" Sarah while attempting to make the point that she is not an intellectual lightweight. The TV series, as Machiavellian public relations ploy two years before the 2012 presidential election, appears to be something lifted from the Karl Rove playbook.
Perhaps, under the impression that New Jersey or Orange County housewives know little about mama grizzlies, the show offers us a lot of grizzly jive in the first segment of the eight-part series. Palin seems at odds with others in the cast who keep referring to the "grizzlies" as "brown bears." Mama grizzlies, as we learn from Palin, take care of their cubs and, in PalinSpeak, represent allegorical voters. The initial show pulled five million viewers, 79% of them 55 or older including a lot of mama grizzlies.
Yes, there is an unfriendly neighbor in the show who has rented a home next to the Palins thus adding some drama to a story insistently accompanied by what sounds suspiciously like Disney music. The bad guy is an un-named Joe McGinniss, a writer of considerable skill whose authorship includes 11 books. The Palins, furious about what they consider an intrusion of privacy, have erected a 14 ft. fence that gives Sarah an opportunity to mutter about McGinness's "hit job" efforts while adding something unintelligible about borders in the Lower 48. The McGinniss search for Palin biographical material is "none of his flippin' business," according to Palin and I get the uneasy feeling that "flippin'" is soon to become a massively utilized dismissive word as the presidential hopeful further develops a vocabulary to gain additional traction with voters already captivated by her remarkable variety of winks not see since Liberace. My prediction is that "flippin" likely will come close to achieving the current popularity of "awesome." Sarah certainly has a way with words and there is increasing evidence that her rambling articulation is on the verge of making her the Casey Stengel of politics, or Fox News punditry, or writing, or hockey moms, or fisherwomen, or all of the preceding.
All the Palin kids are involved in the show with the exception of daughter Bristol, apparently eitherDancing With the Stars or busy at work directing her public relations firm that specializes in political counseling services. Levi Johnston, Bristol's sometimes boyfriend and father of Tripp, has a graceless relationship with the Mama Bear. The show's creator, Mark Burnett (Survivor),a very savvy guy, has an intriguing ace-in-the-hole in Levi should an unlikely ratings dip occur. Mama Bear, face-to-face with the guy reluctant to marry Bristol, would be something of a you betcha' ratings bonanza.
There are a lot of oddities in the pilot show but perhaps the strangest scene takes place during a mountain climbing episode during which Palin vows to never give up. This is in emphatic contrast to her having walked away from the governorship of her state after serving but 19 months.
If my calculations are correct, we'll be treated soon to a Sarah Palin's Alaska Christmas Show and it will be fascinating to see if the series continues to ape the TV of yesteryear--say, the Andy Williams Show. Maybe we'll get a singing Sarah, turkey dinners served by the bird-savaging nitwit, a comedic Todd, and, perhaps, Joe McGinnis as Scrooge, forgiven by a noble Sarah?
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