Drop everything you are doing. This is the most important television announcement since Jon Stewart told audiences he was leaving "The Daily Show" and the most unexpected announcement since Jack White mysteriously played a show at University of Anchorage Alaska for $3 a ticket.
According to the Facebook page of the face of Alaska marijuana legalization, Anchorage's most notorious quitter Charlo Greene is maybe getting her own reality TV show. On April 15, Greene posted a photo on Facebook of herself sitting on a deck being interviewed by some bearded dudes with the status "… Yet another Alaska reality TV show lol. At least this one is about weed (emoji) #MariWinning."
Couple things. There is no way to know if this video being filmed goes beyond the number of YouTube videos or weed-focused interviews she has done. Her hair is blondish in the shot, not dyed gray like it is currently, so the photo was likely taken a while ago. But I will choose to believe that emoji + hashtag = real. It's the code of the young.
Apparently, just one week of new TV series previews isn't enough. So here is part two of my 2015/2016 new Alaska TV show announcements.
There is a new take on a well-worn Alaska reality TV series subject called "Alaska's Ultimate Bush Pilots" on the Outdoor Channel. I didn't know about this show, because who knew there was an Outdoor Channel? I knew about the Sportsmen Network, the DIY Channel and I even frequent Country Music Television (because of an amazing show called "Party Down South"), but the Outdoor Channel was new to me. This is the same network that brought us "Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild," during which Nugent earned his first hunting violation for baiting deer.
"Alaska's Ultimate Bush Pilots" is currently airing on Channel 40 if you have the normal cable package in Anchorage. It's about bush pilots with Island Air in Kodiak. When I was in Kodiak this fall, I noticed filming disclaimers that were likely for this program, so now I have to watch it.
Finally, we've got one more new show airing in 2015. "Guiding Alaska," on the Travel Channel, is about the Tikchik Narrows Lodge and its "savvy and eccentric crew." The teaser for the show features many attractive young guides taking guests out on their sportfishing adventures. While there are all the trite Alaska TV staples going on in this teaser*, it also highlights the guides' love of the cocktail hour. Here's another formula I've learned, this time from "The Bachelor" franchise: cocktail hour + young, attractive people = amazing television.
This show will surely feature a "Downton Abbey"/"Upstairs, Downstairs" kind of vibe, because guests pay over $8,000 a week to fish at this lodge. There is a terrible, wonderful show on Bravo called "Below Deck" about crazyfaces who work on a yacht catering to the richest of the rich. It combines the work hard/play hard mentality of the staff with the "Real Housewives"-esque clients with their ridiculous and impossible requests. It almost always leads to some great interpersonal drama.
"Guiding Alaska" is my No. 1 draft pick for 2015. Until it airs, or we have a trailer for the Charlo Greene show, I'll just have to keep hate-watching "Party Down South."
*Bears, boats breaking down, bears, people running into trouble in the wilderness and more bears.
Emily Fehrenbacher lives in Anchorage, where she reviews Alaska reality TV. You can reach her at realitycheck@alaskadispatch.com or on Twitter @ETFBacher.