Review: 'Missing In Alaska'

Even the most voracious of television critics don't receive review copies of every new show that premieres - especially when you're talking about a reality/documentary series debuting on cable TV. I had seen the promos for History's new series "Missing In Alaska" and based on that, I was willing to give it a try. The promos touted that fact that up to 3,000 people go missing in Alaska every year and their bodies are never found. The series sounded a bit like a cold case show set in Alaska and that premise was promising enough for me.

Man, was I mistaken about everything.

The premiere episode focused on the case of a a military transport plane that vanished in 1950. That seemed like an odd case to focus on, until I realized that this wasn't a show about the efforts to track down missing people. Well, not in the traditional sense of "track down." No, "Missing In Alaska" is the search for the "truth" about mysterious disappearances of people in what the show's three "investigators" described as the "Alaska Triangle." Sure, there's that old boring Bermuda Triangle, but this show focuses on some odd theory that many of Alaska missing folks disappear because they're sucked into some previously undiscovered vortex. And hey, that vortex might go two ways. And given that a few people have seen UFO's, maybe aliens are using the vortex to travel to Alaska, grab some unsuspecting folks and take them back to the alien planet, or universe or wherever they come from.

Now this isn't the dumbest theory I've ever encountered. At least, not as long as some people still believe that Stevie Wonder is actually able to see and is just pretending to be blind. But the entire episode involves the investigators vaguely implying that something "could" have happened and spouting the vaguest theories you've heard this side of the search for Bigfoot. If you watched this show and took a drink every time someone said "possibly," you'd be in a coma halfway through the hour.

Given that "Missing In Alaska" airs directly after "Ancient Aliens," it's likely to find an audience. But man, is this one aggressively idiotic waste of my time.