Diario de Alaska

Just watched the pilot and will definitely watch more. The series places a disgraced investigative journalist at a small local newspaper in Alaska. At first I thought it was going to be a bit trite, but when I saw that Hilary Swank heads the cast, I thought I'd check it out. She doesn't disappoint. And the basis of the Missing and Murdered Indiginous Women shines a light on a current topic that has largely been overlooked. I know people will criticize the abrasiveness of Hilary's character, but I kind of like it. So glad the boss is not the stereoptypical man, or the too-nice woman. Also, there a lot of characters that can be developed. There is some room to grow, but Looking forward to the next episodes. Hope the writing doesn't take a wrong turn and stays original.

The backdrop of Alaska seems a bit bleak, but the stories weren't bad. I love Hillary Swank. She obviously is the standout in this show. It would have been interesting to see how the other characters developed in a second season. The dialog seemed a bit stilted, but I've seen other shows that started out that way and improved. I hope Hillary has something else coming soon. She is very intense yet likeable. Maybe the writer's strike contributed to the show's demise. We may never know, but there seems to be many other shows that you would expect to be cancelled, but they just keep going on, and on, and on.

I enjoyed this show, but if any program is to be judged on viewer numbers they might want to go back to one episode a week instead of dragging a season out over nearly a year. In the olden days TV series had 18-20+ episodes, shown one a week. You knew when it was on and scheduled your time to watch it. Now series have 6-10 episodes and you have to keep checking and checking week after week to see it an episode ran. People lose interest. Eventually, it takes so long you don't even care what happened to the characters or the story. I'm not even that much of a Hillary Swank fan, but I liked other characters, the interactions between them, and have always enjoyed "newspaper" shows. It would be cool if someone else picked this up.

It is so refreshing to watch a series about news reporting that is low-key, serious and respectful of the profession. Given the constraints of time and storytelling, there may be some scenarios that seem overly simplistic (such as sources giving up sensitive documents or even returning phone calls) but overall it's really well done. The choice of subject matter - the disappearance of indigenous Alaskan women - gave the series tension and gravitas without lurid sensationalism. I was sorry to see it end and was left hoping for more. Some great characters and a really fine cast. Hilary Swank is superb!

Let me just say, this series is very much needed. The realization that indigenous women are indeed murdered more than 10 times than the average is appalling. That doesn't even include all of the indigenous women in Canada, either. The depiction of this in the series is spot on. It's a very well acted cast. It's good to see so many indigenous actors to highlight this issue. I would like to see a series focused on actual cases, as well. Get on that, Investigation Discovery. Hilary Swank is brilliant, as per always. In a time that everyone seems to want to demonize the media, this series shows that sometimes they do get it wrong, sometimes they're heroes but they work really hard to get it right. Most of them, anyways.