Oh, gosh, Sarah Palin soon will have another accomplishment to cross off of her bucket list.
- Junior high flute player: Check.
- Co-captain and point guard of Wasilla High School’s state champion basketball team, on which she earned the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” for her competitive tenacity: Check.
- Head of her high school’s chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes: Check.
- Miss Wasilla: Check.
- Miss Congeniality in Miss Alaska competition: Check.
- Wife: Check.
- Mom of five: Check.
- Hockey mom: Check.
- Top Mama of Mama Grizzlies: Check.
- Wasilla City Council member: Check.
- Mayor of Wasilla: Check.
- Chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: Check.
- Governor of Alaska (and the 49th state’s first female gov at that): Check.
- GOP vice-presidential candidate: Check.
- Best-selling author: Check.
- Tea party fave: Check.
- Political endorser with clout: Check.
- Fox News commentator: Check.
- Dubbed the “most formidable force in the Republican Party, by none other than the press secretary of President Barack Obama's Democratic White House: Check.
- Mother of Bristol, who has survived several cuts in ABC-TV’s “Dancing with the Stars”: Check.
- Potential presidential candidate in 2012 election: TBA.
- TV star in “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”: You BETCHA, coming soon to your living room, in a new TLC reality series.
Producing the eight-show series is Mark Burnett, the guru behind CBS-TV’s wildly successful “Survivor” series, among others. The “Alaska” series, which TLC characterizes as part travelogue, part documentary, will premiere at 9 p.m. Eastern time Nov. 14.
When the show was announced in March, the 46-year-old Palin said it would bring "the wonder and majesty of Alaska to all Americans." In the first episode, the native of Sandpoint, Idaho, says, “We are somewhere that people dream about.”
How good is that? Her observation: “This is flippin’ fun!”
In March, a reviewer at the Vancouver Sun opined thusly about what the program might entail: “Details are sketchy, but what's clear is what Alaska will not be: It will not be the Palin family version of ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians,’ and it won't be a Palin-esque spin on ‘Jon & Kate Plus Eight’.”
Enough about what the show is NOT. Here’s a sneak peek at what it IS: