'Sarah Palin's Alaska' May Not Return for Season Two
Jan. 10, 2011— -- It appears that this Sunday's two-hour season finale of "Sarah Palin's Alaska" will actually be a series finale, according to Entertainment Weekly.
EW.com reports that the show's producer Mark Burnett has no plans to return to Wasilla to shoot with Palin for another season of The Learning Channel show, which has some wondering what this means for a potential 2012 presidential bid for Palin.
If the 2008 vice presidential candidate were to do another season while officially running for president, TLC would have to offer her rivals equal on-air time.
The show, which premiered to five million viewers Nov. 14 with an episode entitled "Mama Grizzly," was intended to bring "the wonder and majesty of Alaska to all Americans," according to the former Alaska governor.
Over its seven-week run the series brought in a respectable average of 3.2 million viewers.
Part travelogue, part documentary, the show courted controversy on a number of occasions, as Palin took on-camera shots at Michelle Obama for her nutrition campaign and lambasted leather-wearing animal rights activists.
While eating s'mores on the show, Palin said that the dessert was "in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert."
The comment was apparently made in reference to the first lady's anti-obesity campaign, and a July 2010 speech in which she explained that she tells her daughters that "dessert is not a right."
Producer and writer Aaron Sorkin lambasted Palin in an editorial, calling the show a "snuff film" after Palin shot a caribou to death in a segment. In the op-ed piece in the Huffington Post, Sorkin also said that "The Learning Channel should be ashamed of itself."
Sorkin's editorial came after Palin preemptively wrote a note on her Facebook page before the episode aired.
"Tonight's hunting episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska "controversial"? Really? Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather couch or eaten a piece of meat, save your condemnation of tonight's episode. I remain proudly intolerant of anti-hunting hypocrisy. :)," Palin wrote.
