Alaska Daily

Alaska Daily is an American crime drama television series created by Tom McCarthy for ABC, starring Hilary Swank as a journalist seeking a fresh start in Anchorage, Alaska. It premiered on October 6, 2022 and ended on March 30, 2023. In May 2023, the series was canceled. The series was removed from Hulu on July 1, 2023.

Synopsis

Eileen is a New York journalist who moves to Alaska for a clean start and who looks for redemption both personally and professionally after joining a daily metro newspaper in Anchorage. In Anchorage, she works with Roz Friendly, to complete and release reports on the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis in Alaska.

Cast

Main

• Hilary Swank as Eileen Fitzgerald, a former high-profile investigative reporter in New York City, she comes to Alaska after burning bridges in her previous job.
• Jeff Perry as Stanley Kornik, Eileen's former boss and managing editor of the Daily Alaskan.
• Grace Dove as Roz Friendly, an Alaskan native and star reporter for the Daily Alaskan whom Stanley assigns to write with Eileen on the investigation of a murdered indigenous woman. Having a family member who was a victim of an unsolved crime, Roz has a personal connection to the story and that drives her to keep searching for the truth.
• Meredith Holzman as Claire Muncy, veteran Daily Alaskan reporter who helps Eileen and Roz with the investigation. She deals with a personal struggle to find the balance between work and home life as a mother of two.
• Matt Malloy as Bob Young, Daily Alaskan senior reporter and acting news editor.
• Pablo Castelblanco as Gabriel Tovar, a chatty Daily Alaskan employee.
• Ami Park as Yuna Park, a Daily Alaskan cub reporter who quickly learns that reporting the truth isn’t always easy.
• Craig Frank as Austin Teague, a Daily Alaskan reporter who isn’t afraid to challenge his colleagues and represent the community.

Recurring

• Irene Bedard as Sylvie Nanmac
• Shane McRae as Aaron Pritchard, publisher of the Daily Alaskan
• Phillip Lewitski as Miles, a Daily Alaskan photographer
• Joe Tippett as Jamie
• Theo Stockman as Ezra Fisher
• Kourtney Bell as Karla
• Bill Dawes as Concerned Citizen

Guest

• James McDaniel as Defense Secretary Raymond Green

Episodes

Production

The pilot was written and directed by Tom McCarthy. The showrunner for the series is Peter Elkoff. Tom McCarthy's Slow Pony Productions, 20th Television, and Hilary Swank acted as producers. Filming for the series began on August 8, 2022, and concluded on January 5, 2023, in New Westminster, British Columbia.

The series' credits indicate the program was inspired by the 2019 Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica article series Lawless: Sexual Violence in Alaska, as well as subsequent related reporting by the project's lead reporter Kyle Hopkins. The Daily News agreed to work with the show's producers, resulting in Hopkins as well as ADN president Ryan Binkley being credited as executive producers on the TV series; however, Alaska Daily is not a dramatization of the specific events documented in the Lawless project.

On May 12, 2023, ABC canceled the series after one season.

Broadcast

Alaska Daily premiered on October 6, 2022 on ABC. The final five episodes of season 1 aired from March 2, 2023 to March 30, 2023. The series was removed from Hulu on July 1, 2023.

Alaska Daily premiered on Disney+ (Star hub) in Hong Kong on November 9, 2022. It also premiered on Disney+ in Australia and New Zealand as part of the Star content hub on January 4, 2023 and weekly from February 8, 2023 in the UK and Ireland and Spain.

Reception

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 74% approval rating with an average rating of 6.6/10, based on 19 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Alaska Daily awkwardly straddles the sensibilities of network TV and edgier streaming fare, but the core message about the importance of local journalism is fit to print." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 67 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Ratings

Accolades

References

External links

• Official website
• Alaska Daily at IMDb