TV Review: "Sarah Palin's Alaska"

"Sarah Palin's Alaska" (Season 1, episode 2: "Salmon Run," TLC)

   
    Oh what a great country we live in where any celebrity with a mild grasp of politics and high aspirations can get elected to an office and any politician with an equal amount of ambition and a questionable sense of self-respect becomes a reality TV star. The latest politician joining the elite ranks of politician-turned-celebrity (and the butt of many jokes), Rod Blagojevich, is the comparably illustrious Sarah Palin. TLC's eight part series 'event' follows Palin and her family throughout Alaska as they go about their everyday adventurous lives. For an American public who by now expects nothing more than a good laugh from the clueless Palin, the idea of a reality TV show based on her life makes for potentially hilarious entertainment. However, despite delivering a few one-liners and finding herself in some odd situations, Palin's  show gets bogged down by traveling propaganda and by the location itself, after all there is only so much to do in Alaska.
    The theme of this week's episode was mother-daughter bonding. The cameras followed Palin along as she and husband Todd tried to get oldest daughter Bristol "away from the tabloids" by visiting the local shooting range. After noting that this was the place where she had her last baby shower, Palin demonstrated her hunting skills and helped Bristol learn how to hit the 'bird.'  The next day, after emphasizing how fame has made life difficult for Bristol and deciding that she needed a break from the cameras, the whole family went on a camping trip down to Homer, Alaska (Palin of course couldn't resist delivering the Simpson's joke). Once there, as any good politician would do, Palin worked the crowd greeting the common folk and posing for pictures. Later she and Bristol embarked on a commercial fishing trip to catch Halibut. After catching the first fish, Palin did a demonstration on the "most safest and humane way of killing the fish" for Bristol, by beating them with a club until they bleeder to death. Bristol, the quickly learner, did most of the beating afterwards and acknowledged her mom's "work ethic [as her] biggest life lesson." The day ended with a picture perfect shot of them side by side admiring the majestic jumps of a killer whale. The episode was filled with more hunting and digging for clams with the whole family, kayaking and some fish processing line work for Bristol and Palin who where paid in fish. After a day of getting Bristol reacquainted with the "blue collar hard work she's used to" Palin and the family put an end to the adventure with a grand family meal by the RV.
    Although it was a treat to see Palin as the great outdoors queen she is, it was a little disappointing not to see Palin working around the office. It would had been far more interesting and illuminating to see Palin's work ethic handling real business. Instead, the show focuses on representing Palin as a country girl and family woman that prospective 2012 voters can relate to, as well as serving as a publicity campaign for Alaskan tourism, (the show was stuffed with geographical facts).
    Ultimately, there wasn't enough excitement in this week's adventures to overcome the propaganda. After the first fifteen minutes the novelty of watching Palin wears off and you are left with a show about a family fishing trip. Boring. If you want to watch some really exciting fishing, (although how exciting can fishing be?), than you are better off watching reruns of "Deadliest Catch" on Discovery. Turns out Palin and her family really are just  your average American family and average doesn't make for fun and exciting TV.