Alaska Daily

The most interesting characters by far are Ami Park’s Yuna Park, Meredith Holzman’s Claire Muncy, and Grace Dove’s Roz Friendly. Yuna is an eager young journalist who learns all-too-quickly that reporting the truth means consequences for the people she covers, whether or not they deserve it. ... [Claire] writes a manifesto in the second episode about the state of the world today that is not at all preachy but is very, very sad and pragmatic.

This is the rare, modern network drama to balance mass appeal with semi-progressive ideology. Led by an absorbing performance from Swank (who shocked the world this week with the announcement that she is pregnant with twins at age 48), Alaska Daily is the most intriguing new show on network television.

The strength of the show is in burrowing into character and situation to find something fresh behind the basics. The pilot shows promise for what may, with time and care, bloom into a strong entry on ABC’s schedule, and a welcome weekly dose of McCarthy’s sensitivity and skill.

The world of the show feels like a fully realized place where people are connected to the community they cover. And it threads the needle between episodic storytelling and servicing a longer, serialized arc that will presumably span the season. ... And Swank brings the right kind of cantankerous nuance to the role.

A solid, impressively credentialed and entertaining albeit conventional series that plays like a comfort-viewing, hourlong show from the 1990s. ... Swank and the supporting players are terrific together.

A true rarity — a sharply drawn portrait of local journalism.

There’s enough potential in “Alaska Daily,” to easily be fall broadcast TV’s best drama pilot that it’s worth rooting for this series that’s earnest without being cloying, sincere without getting sappy.

It may be a low bar, but if we’re watching a network series where we don’t roll our eyes or throw up our hands at what we’re seeing on the screen, there’s a good chance that we’ll want to see more of it. And Alaska Daily had enough to like to make us want to see more.

Had it been made as an HBO miniseries, to which the subject would easily lend itself, it would be a different thing entirely, somber and atmospheric and cinematic. As a network series, it is something broader, more immediate, less subtle. TV not as cinema but as television, an Arctic Circle “Lou Grant.” Gestures are bigger, speeches are speechier, the workplace quirkier.