Even though Alaska Daily is a network television drama, it had a lot going for it. For starters, it was created by Academy Award winning director, Tom McCarthy, and he also got two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank to star. Admittedly, Swank hasn’t been doing the best work of her career recently, but I had hopes for this show. I’d say that even with this short season, they delivered.
The show is actually inspired by a story written by Anchorage Daily News back in 2019. While the show focuses on defamed journalist, Eileen Fitzgerald, who was fed to the wolves after a source lost credibility, as she starts anew at Anchorage’s premiere paper, The Daily Alaskan. The underlying and more central story is that of trying to solve a two year old murder of native, Gloria Namnac. Most of the people in charge in Alaska all but forgot this event even happened, but Eileen and senior writer Roz Friendly had their doubts. It was with the push of their boss, Stanley, to start looking into cases like Gloria’s. It was quite remarkable how many native crimes went unsolved over the course of Alaskan history.
Of course, with digging comes danger and there was no shortage of that on this show. Some incidents certainly straddled the line of being hokey, but they managed to wrangle it in before it got there. While Eileen and Roz’s story was central to the show, I enjoyed that all of the other members of the staff each got their fair share of spotlight. Aside from the usual happenings at a newspaper, this particular establishment also had to deal with the threat of being bought and essentially erased by some secretive conglomerate. Luckily, there are a select few businessmen out there who are dedicated to the paper as its staff.
There were a few weak romances throughout the season, but I imagine they will find their legs if they’re given more seasons. I think the show rightfully spent it’s time in solving the case and bringing closure to Gloria’s mother and the native community. Although I’m sure some things were exaggerated in this show, I have no doubt that a lot of the corruption Eileen and Roz uncovered in Alaska’s government and police forces actually happened in real life. I can only hope that Anchorage Daily News‘ story was able to facilitate real change.
Not for everyone, but so far, Alaska Daily has been a more than suitable replacement for the cringe-fest that was Big Sky.