Whenever you throw two time Oscar Winner, Hilary Swank at me, I’m going to give you my attention. And that’s why I took a look at the new ABC crime drama “Alaska Daily” which premiered this week.
Swank stars as big shot reporter, Eileen Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, for the show, Eileen Fitzgerald is also the problem.
We’ll get to that in a second. But Eileen finds herself in Alaska after getting cancelled at her big city newspaper. She’s there to investigate the disappearances of indigenous women in the area.
It’s just impossible to care about Eileen. I’m not sure what this character’s problem is. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to support her. I’m not sure why we were given a main character anchored by such a gifted talent, that appears to have no redeeming qualities outside of the mission that was given to her.
She treats her co workers like crap. She walks around angry. She does it in the name of local journalism (which definitely should have won me over) but it’s mentioned only in passing in this slog of a pilot. She’s just mean. She makes Mare Sheehan look like Rachel Green.
And when you’ve got talent like Swank, then the problem is the writing.
Then there is the Webbio placement. Yeah, I got the message. If there is a check involved, cash it.
Because Alaska Daily has almost nothing going for it.
Let’s hope things pick up, because there are a lot of better things that Hilary Swank could be doing instead of lumbering around as a character that makes us look elsewhere to find a reason to care about this television program.
Let’s give it time to develop. But not too much more time. This wasn’t a good start.
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