We’re just eight minutes into Sunday’s premiere episode of the TLC reality series “The Baldwins” when the show addresses the elephant in the room, via a title card that reminds us of the tragedy that occurred on the set of the movie “Rust” in 2021: “While rehearsing a scene with a prop gun, an accidental shooting occurred.” Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that had been loaded with a live round, resulting in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuries to director Joel Souza.
Cut to the summer of 2024, with “The Baldwins” chronicling the day-to-day lives of the actor, his wife Hilaria and their seven young children. It’s two weeks before Baldwin will be tried for involuntary manslaughter, and Hilaria and Alec talk about what their family has been going through. (Of course, they don’t know at this point that the case will be dismissed three days into the trial.)
“In no way is it meant to compare with Halyna’s loss,” says Hilaria, “with her son who has no mom, it breaks my heart …”
Says Alec: “I have one overriding thought, I have one overriding concern, and that is letting seven children know that I love them.”
Adds Hilaria: “All we can do is put one foot in front of the other, and try to make our kids happy.”
I’m sure some will want nothing to do with this series and will call it a cash grab and an ploy for Image Rehabilitation. I respect that — but in a reality TV world that has foisted upon us the likes of “Cheaters” and “Dating Naked” and “Kid Nation” and “Bridalplasty” and “Toddlers and Tiaras” and and all those shows with all those housewives behaving horribly, this is a relatively dignified and cringe-free show.
Of course it’s going to paint a positive picture of the family; it’s a vanity reality show, not a documentary. But I’m not going to deny the visceral kicks I got out of seeing the notoriously prickly Alec Baldwin and the accent-shifting Hilaria presiding over a circus that includes those seven children, along with eight animals.
Granted, it makes life a whole lot easier when you have an apartment consisting of four units in Greenwich Village, a sprawling estate in the Hamptons and two nannies helping with the load. (When Hilaria literally maps out the seating arrangements for the family’s drive to the summer property, she’s divvying up the kids and pets and nannies between a Cadillac SUV and a Range Rover.)
The first episode of “The Baldwins” conveys the utter chaos in a house with so many young children, and plays like a real-life version of the scene in “Home Alone” where everybody is scrambling to get to the airport. Hilaria always looks like she’s ready for a photo shoot in some kind of “Envy My Life” magazine, while Alec, who is 26 years older, putters about in rumpled polo shirts and has heavy bags under his eyes as he does OCD-fueled tasks, chases the kids around and goes along with whatever boss Hilaria wants. It’s a life of luxury, but more than once you think: Better him than me.
The premiere also touches on the controversy over the Boston-born Hilaria speaking with a Spanish accent that comes and goes. At one point Alec says, “You’re speaking English in a Spanish cadence, which is always perilous for me.” Hilaria’s explanation for her way of speaking: “I was raised bilingual. My family, all my nuclear family now lives over in Spain. … I love English. I also love Spanish. And when I mix the two, it doesn’t make me inauthentic. … That’s normal, that’s called being human.”
If much of “The Baldwins” seems calculated verging on semi-scripted, so be it. I’m not sure about the long-term prospects for the series to remain compelling; a segment where the boys all get their summer haircuts is as exciting as it sounds. Still, there’s rich irony in Baldwin, who in 2014 penned a cover essay for New York Magazine titled “Goodbye, Public Life,” who has tangled with paparazzi for decades, who is one of the most versatile actors of his generation being a willing participant in a reality series. You get the feeling that if 1989 Alec Baldwin was given a glimpse of this show, he would have wondered what the hell happened to him.