Sarah Palin begins her real ity show/presidential cam paign, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” Sunday night.
She climbs rocks, fishes, performs dangerous feats, communes with bears, bakes cookies for her five kids and talks about patriotism — all without mussing one hair of her giant bouffant.
Call me a novice, but when I go camping, fishing or climbing (just hiked a big one two weeks ago), I never remember to tease my hair or — and I know this is careless and dangerous — apply a thick coat of stage makeup. Granted, Palin looks gorgeous at all times, but who has hair and makeup people on a mountain?
While Discovery, which is devoted to saving wildlife, may regret giving a show to an avowed hunter, Palin’s show works perfectly for their TLC channel. After all, TLC has become the channel singularly devoted to awarding reality shows to anyone who procreates at twice the national average. But is it unseemly for a presidential probably-contender to do reality TV — especially one from Mark Burnett of “Survivor” and “The Apprentice?” No, not if you know how to play modern politics, getting huge exposure and getting paid big bucks while you’re at it.
The show itself works for her in that it lets us get comfortable around her exceptionally good-looking husband Todd, upon whom she is clearly very dependent, and her five equally gorgeous children. And despite being so white they make the Bushes look like runaway slaves when they say things to each other like “golly” and “you betcha,” they are still somehow relatable.
Tonight, the family goes fishing and rock climbing. OK, it’s by private plane, but still.
As they are climbing aboard, she tells us that Alaska has the highest per capita ratio of private pilots in the US. And then, “unfortunately, we lead in fatalities, too.”
If you’re not sure how you feel about Palin, she comes across as personable, somewhat clueless and willing to do anything to boost her image — including climbing a glacier, even though she’s afraid of heights and is terrified during the experience.
She even makes fun of herself: “You can see Russia from here — almost!” she quips.
The series, however, feels quite schizoid — as it bounces between Sarah making cookies, doing dangerous outdoor feats and then putting on a power suit and taping “The O’Reilly Factor” in, yes, her private at-home, fully-outfitted TV studio.
If “Survivor” and “Gene Simmons Family Jewels” had a love child, it would be called “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”