Sarah Palin on TLC's "Sarah Palin's Alaska." (Credit: TLC/Gilles Mingasson)
So I was flipping through the channels last night looking for something to watch. I watched the last few minutes of the Pistons but Sunday night television isn’t very good in my opinion. I had already seen the Law and Order on USA and low and behold there was Sarah Palin’s Alaska. This is the first show. I decided to check it out, more out of simple curiosity than anything else.
The star of the show is beautiful Alaska. I have several brothers that live in Alaska. I’ve been there twice, but I confess I haven’t been there in about twenty five years! The views are breath taking and the two brown bears fighting were exciting as well. As far as Sarah goes, the show opens up with her in the kitchen with Piper making cupcakes with a niece. Piper refers to her mom as “Sarah”. Sarah explains that Piper does that when she wants attention because there are four people there calling her “mom” and Piper feels ignored. I came from a family of 14 kids that often were ignored and I can tell you no one would have called my mom “Evelyn” or dad, “Bill”. I thought it was odd.
Sarah leaves the kitchen to go outside to read by the lake. She complains about her neighbor watching her as she appears to be “watching” him. I find that a bit like the pot calling the kettle “black”. She points out a 14 foot fence that Todd erected to block out the nosy neighbor that is supposedly writing an unflattering book about Sarah. Later in the show TLC films the man sitting on his balcony again and Sarah makes some remark about him maybe he filming them. As much as she complains about this man watching her, she is doing her fair share of watching him as well!
Todd, Sarah, Piper and the niece fly off for a salmon fishing excursion. The most exciting thing that happens there is the up close and personal attention from a family of bears. This scene is really nice because of the nature. They leave when a bear seems to scare them off. Todd caught a fish but it was slim pickings on the fishing. She makes some crack about a poor day fishing is better than any day working or some such thing. Sarah talks non stop which is kind of annoying. It is not natural talk, but talk meant to capture simple politics like the reference to the brown bears as being like grizzly bears and wouldn’t it be nice if people were more like grizzly bears. I think she meant that in reference to protecting their children.
However, her small child, Trig, was no where to be seen. In the three days they filmed, she told the girls to wave at him through the window once. He was with a gray haired lady. I never saw any interaction with mom. In fact that was the most striking feature of the show. Sarah Palin talks family values but her time is spent doing this show, constantly on her Blackberry, working at a computer or doing her Fox show out in her studio. Her “Fox” spot is filmed from Alaska evidently. It’s hard for me to understand how a small child doesn’t figure into your so called daily life. Trig was nothing more than a simple prop that showed up twice. I know people will say she was protecting him but what I find strange is the time away from him to do all of the filming. He didn’t go with them at all. When I was doing my art shows in Oklahoma and Josh was small I took a baby sitter with me so I could still see him. It seems like someone else is raising Trig and it isn’t Sarah. Maybe that’s what happens when you get wealth, you turn your parenting over to some paid surrogate!
Some boy was over to see Willow, her teenage daughter. She told him he had to stay downstairs. I don’t know if the TLC camera crew told him to go upstairs but of course he did. She called her daughter on the phone and told her to come down. This was such fake crap. Nobody is like that. It was rude for Willow to leave her friend hanging downstairs in the first place but Sarah, ever busy on her computer, could hardly have an interaction with either of them. This show is simply not real. It’s fake but the scenery is beautiful!
Later in the show Sarah and Todd go mountain climbing with a guide. They land a plane on a glacier and you see views that few ever have the opportunity to see. That is the saving grace of the show. This show will probably help Sarah Palin’s popularity because they show her to be a woman that is willing to try anything. She can mountain climb, fish, hunt, you name it. If a man can do it, so can Sarah and that includes being president. If you think Sarah isn’t running for something, think again. Something is up with this show and it isn’t about Alaska, as beautiful as it is, it’s about keeping Sarah out in the real world where people can see her week after week. She will let you in to see a fake glimpse of her life. If you buy what she is selling, she may be the next president. She calls Todd her “help mate” and she is constantly cheering him on when he catches a fish or scratches his leg. Okay, I’m being a tad facetious. I just find the way she speaks in the show so unnatural that I can barely stand it. However, it is probably no different than any other reality show. The only difference is this one has the potential to change the political scene! I don’t know what a Sarah Palin presidency would look like, I just am not so sure that I want to find out! I used to like some things about this woman, until I read her book and realized that Ronald Reagan is like a saint to her. That in itself is enough of a turn off for me not to see any real potential in a Palin presidency. However, there are a lot of people out there that have fond memories of Reagan. I’ll never figure that one out but that makes it clear to me that just as they loved Ronnie, they could easily love Sarah! Time will tell but this show is political reality and the reality could be nightmare politics!