User reviews

I wanted this to be good but it just wasn't. Made it through a couple episodes before dumping it. The main storyline is a timely and important topic - the kidnapping and murder of Native American girls and women. However, the direction is so bad and so cliché that it just became a struggle to get through.

Overall, it's just badly executed with a very predictable plot, bad directing, some questionable casting, and mediocre writing.

I wanted this to be good but it just wasn't. Made it through a couple episodes before dumping it. The main storyline is a timely and important topic - the kidnapping and murder of Native American girls and women. However, the direction is so bad and so cliché that it just became a struggle to get through.

Overall, it's just badly executed with a very predictable plot, bad directing, some questionable casting, and mediocre writing.

Based upon only the first 6 episodes (all that was available in my area sadly), Alaska Daily is a decent show, with Swank being TERRIFIC and VERY easy to watch. Each scene she's in she nails it. Natural, charming, believable, etc. Etc.

Sadly, there's not much depth to the cast past Swank. Grace Dove earns her place as a co-star, but after that the acting quality frankly drops off a cliff down to 'TV' quality, AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY, just in case that isn't clear already. If anything, this show is a good demonstration of movie star level acting vs. Common mortals.

A couple of the subplots were also merely TV quality, in particular the small cute animal that gets lost at the office, apparently to fill time. This begins 10-15 minutes of the supporting cast 'emoting'. Sigh.

But the main story is thumbs-up.

The scenery of Alaska is charming, maybe a bit underused... a poor reflection on the production crew. They did OKAY, it is good to look at, but feels like it could have been better.

6/10, upgrade this to 8/10 if you are a big Hilary Swank fan - I wasn't much of one, but after watching the first half of this, you can call me a member of the club, she's very impressive actually. If they had paid a bit more attention to casting and WRITING!!! I think they'd have gotten a second season.

PS. There were at least a few references to the now classic Insomnia, based in Alaska, starring Al Pacino and Hilary Swank. That was cool to see.

The show's premise of a fallen "big city" pro moving to a small town in the backwoods is fairly formulaic, whose "this is how it's done in the big leagues" meets "it's not the way it's done here" and the two sides will eventually reach middle ground for mutual gain. What stands out from the pilot episode is Hilary Swank's screen presence, the message of support for journalism (perhaps reminiscent of Newsroom, the earlier torchbearer for journalistic ideals), as well as a return to an Alaskan-flavored TV drama (reality TV notwithstanding), which we really haven't seen since Northern Exposure back in the 90's.

The show's message laments the decline of local newspapers, decimated by social media and the Internet, and the consequences of losing coverage of local issues that impact the people at the local level. The pilot credits the show as based on ProPublica's article, written with the help of Anchorage Daily News, "Lawless: Sexual Violence in Alaska". And that appears to be the basis for the main arc, while other episode arcs to cover other local stories and character development.

Acting appears to be decent with good chemistry. The cast of characters--though predictable clichés--lays the groundwork for character-based side arcs. The screenplay risks being a bit too preachy and shallow, but hopefully it'll settle down throughout the series. The show has promise, and worth watching a few episodes to see where it goes.

There's no excuse for the too-often poor quality of this show. It's got great heavy hitters mixed in with younger, rising talents, a fantastic premise, gorgeous scenery, and "shooting fish in a barrel" choices for plotlines. It doesn't matter if the stories are new and inventive or old, the context would make them fresh enough. I'll continue to watch, but the scripts sorely need improving, and so does the direction. Actors are so wooden in scenes that require more of a response, yet the unnecessary degree of melodrama in drawn-out shots has me rolling my eyes in at least three times an episode. Maybe the actors are trying to balance that, IDK. But it needs to be sharper, smarter, and aim for higher quality. I'm giving it 6 instead of 5 stars because I believe the potential is definitely there.

The topics they cover are good and important. I wasn't crazy about the hostage episode, but it's important because journalists really are under attack and we know far-right instigators fuel alienated individuals--it was good that they showed the humanity in the guy and didn't make him two-dimensional. But the Toby subplot got shallow, predictable treatment. Really weak and drawn out in parts where that time could've been spent on a better exploration of trauma.

Much hyped star turn for Hillary Swank, and great to see Alaska again. But it's mostly reporters and editors discussing a murdered Native Alaskan woman in the manner of police procedurals. Next week when they leave their offices it might have more Alaska ambiance.

Looks like the collection of Alaskan Daily reporters can lend itself into some great interpersonal stories and it's a nice mashup of ethnicities. Also, why does Hillary keep having panic attacks? Guess we'll find out (well, you will-I'll be watching something else). Funny line when offered a ride home from a Turnagain Arm cabin, "No thanks, I can get an Uber," to which she's told, "No you can't."

Started watching cause I love Hilary Swank. The other actors are all great. But it's not actually a story about people but a ONE NOTE MESSAGE!!!! So I'm done with this. I now stop watching shows that are clearly only made to hit the audience over the head with a message designed to shame society. If I want to learn, I will watch the news not a series claiming to be a story. And I'm case the very limited storyline didn't beat the message about non-white women who are missing, then the ending frame shown at the end of each show will make even the most dense realize that the ONLY purpose of the series is to promote the cause.

The underlying points here about Alaskas ruralness, indigenous women going missing, newspapers going bankrupt and how dangerous it is when the police are missing correct training and empathy for human life are truly important and well put in this show.

It's a slow burn but it's a decent one. Hilary Swank obviously does a great job and she has some good counterparts, but there are some actors who seem to be in their first acting gig. However, they do not drag down the show. For me it was the slow burn that made the show a little less tense for my liking, but I enjoyed the plot and the character development.

The dialogue; It just sort of doesn't work. Feels forced, not polished well, or something. Just doesn't flow naturally. Which makes the show harder to watch, with better dialogue it would be an 8 or 9 or so.

Which is too bad, because everything else I can say about the show is solid. The setup is that big city/major national reporter Eileen Fitzgerald, after writing a questionable story, gets fired from her paper and her career is dead. An old contact/friend/work partner offers her a job in Alaska, to help write a story about a dead, probably murdered Native American teenager that was not properly investigated. She agrees, and we see both the main story thread and the workings of this paper, which has seen better days, with lots of side stories about various goings on in Alaska.

I have heard about how Native American women go missing and dead at very high rates, but have no personal connection or special knowledge about this problem so won't comment further. For story purposes, it works something like a cold case or other detective show, and investigating a missing person properly is compelling. The side cases make for good stories also. It is funny how well connected the journalists are, a friend or family member is somehow connected to each major story.

The characters are meant to be regular people, the sort you might run into regularly rather than super competent types who always get things right. Eileen is a hard charging, hard driving personality that sometimes hard charges into boneheaded decisions and abrades against her colleagues, the other journalists are generally friendly but sometimes need some sharpening up, the two managers are fine, neither making genius or boneheaded decisions, doing about as well as expected. It's a different feel than, say, lots of detective shows, be ready for this when you watch.

So, good setup, good characters...but that darn dialogue.