Review by C.J. Bunce
Unfortunately critical success doesn’t always equate to popular success, and it happens in every industry all the time. We discuss single-season shows all the time (most recently here), the series that are brilliant, often perfect, but either they don’t find their audience quickly enough or studio decision makers’ agendas just don’t equate with renewing for a second season. More often than not they are better than what the studios continue to churn out year after year. Count the 2022 series Alaska Daily in that category. Created by Academy Award-winning writer Tom McCarthy and starring two-time Academy Award-winning actress Hillary Swank (who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance) the story of a rejected big city journalist who finds herself a new purpose investigating stories of local importance in Anchorage may not sound like much. But the delivery was compelling, the treatment of journalism better than most TV efforts, and the subject matter is even more relevant to the world today. Alaska Daily, a series canceled after only one season despite critical acclaim, is now streaming on the CW app.
Why does this newspaper room story work so well? The scripts quickly address the key problem in newspapers today–and over the past 40 years–corporate ownership. That goes hand-in-hand with ad-based revenue, and so setting the series in a strip mall converted in part to a newspaper room is not just brilliant it’s accurate and reflects newsrooms across America.
Swank’s Eileen Fitzgerald balances big city cocky with her pragmatic belief in the Fourth Estate. After an incident blots her name with the public she is on the outs with all the big name newspapers, until former boss and mentor Stanley Kornik, played by Jeff Perry (My So-Called Life, Lost), convinces her she is needed in the distant northwest. Stanley is the managing editor of the Daily Alaskan, a struggling paper overseen by the son of a wealthy magnate. Forget about the fact that the title of the series oddly doesn’t match the newspaper (why not just pick one and go with it?), Stanley is possibly the most realistic newspaperman on TV since Lou Grant. He brings an authenticity we don’t see much on television–he’s never knee-jerk, he never yells at his staff. He is a journalist like so many in real life that mentor rising reporters every day. It’s this kind of attention to reality reflected on the screen that makes you keep coming back for more.
Eileen is partnered with Roz Friendly, played by The Revenant’s Grace Dove, a native Alaskan with indigenous roots who feels deeply about using the power of the press to help ordinary Alaskans–especially the frequently sidelined indigenous community. Inspired by Lawless: Sexual Violence in Alaska by Kyle Hopkins and others for the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica, the primary story addressed in the first season is the disappearance over more than 15 years of thousands of indigenous women in Alaska–all without any organized government or police support in investigating the causes.
Typical drama series tropes get into the way of Eileen’s effectiveness at first–she is a bull in a China shop and must address fish-out-of-water conflicts with the staff, viewers learn she has both panic attacks and PTSD triggered by previous experiences and ultimately sees a psychiatrist, and she has a will they/won’t they relationship with the newspaper owner’s son, and a relationship with a past romance. But none of this gets in the way of the acclaimed actor’s ability to convey an effective reporter who knows how to get the job done.
The newsroom is filled out with a smart blend of personality types, but not handled in any canned way, including veteran newsman Bob Young played by Matt Malloy (Paradise, Star Trek Enterprise), who instead of being defensive at every turn, considers opposing viewpoints and is able to change his methods when better ideas come along. Or Yuna Park (played by Ami Park), a junior reporter who gets in over her head but learns from her mistakes. Or Gabriel Tovar (played by Pablo Castelblanco), who starts out as a gopher but when given additional duties he’s able to rise in the ranks at the newspaper.
Another nice twist is not landing Eileen in bed with the newspaper owner’s son Aaron Pritchard, played by Shane McRae, who aims the plot in that direction, but doesn’t hold Eileen’s dismissal against her. Aaron is particularly effective at using his charm and influence to seize control of the company from his corrupt father.
A key episode finds a terrorist holding Eileen and Gabriel hostage. Another finds the reporters working together to free a wrongfully charged man for one of the missing woman crimes. But the long-term conflicts were only getting started.
As pure entertainment maybe this is not a gut-wrenching loss like not finding out what happens to the woman in the apartment in Archive 81, or seeing six more seasons of Firefly, learning the secret of The Lost Room, or see the face-off between Dr. Morgan and his Moriarty in Forever, but it’s a shame we don’t get to see more of it, if only to inspire the next generation of reporters. It’s the rare network drama done right, with real world implications that make it something important. It’s also a season that doesn’t have a big cliffhanger, so you can still watch the 11 episodes and appreciate it for what it succeeded at. Stream Alaska Daily now on the CW app.
