In 'Homestead Rescue' we see Marty Raney and his children Misty and Matt travel round the United States helping people who are having problems with their off grid homesteads; this series sees them going home to Alaska to undertake a major project on their own homestead. This won't be a one week job; it will take twelve weeks and see them building a brand new house on their forty acre property. This won't be easy; getting to the property involves crossing a river that has no vehicle bridge and the new house is to be three hundred feet above the old property on a cliff top accessed by a fairly narrow road. Inevitably there will be various side projects; some needed to bring water and power to the new home, others more personal for other family members. Several of these projects will lead to some hairy situations.
I have enjoyed the episodes of 'Homestead Rescue' that I've seen but they were only one week projects; this was even more entertaining as the project was so much bigger and even though the Raney's clearly care about the people they help this project is obviously far more personal. It also includes the other members of the family. These days series listed as 'Reality Television' are often full of people doing silly challenges that are far from real... it is clear that this is not the case here. The challenges are provided by the nature of the work they are doing; how do you get a saw mill across an unbridged river or how do you get heavy items up a cliff when the only road is frozen like an ice rink? It helps that the Raney family are likeable and entertaining to watch; they clearly love their Alaskan home and seem to find a solution to every problem they face even if the first, or even second, idea doesn't always work. There are moments of genuinely high tension, such as Marty trying to drive a truck across the river in what could almost have been a scene from 'The Wages of Fear'. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody who enjoyed 'Homestead Rescue'.
