Alec Baldwin’s new reality show has been widely blasted from critics, after the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in October 2021.
The charges against the actor, 66, were dropped in July 2024, as the judge dismissed the case with prejudice based on the misconduct of police and prosecutors over the withholding of ammunition evidence from the defence.
He would have faced 18 months behind bars if convicted, and was charged twice, though pleaded guilty in both instances.
Ahead of the second trial, Baldwin revealed he and his wife Hilaria, as well as their seven children, were welcoming cameras into their home for a reality show.
They faced immense backlash when they announced the new series by saying: ‘We’re inviting you into our home to experience the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the wild and the crazy.’
Critics have now further blasted the TLC programme, which premieres on Sunday.
The first of the eight episodes is titled ‘Along Came Hilaria’, featuring Baldwin’s 41-year-old wife, who was previously accused of faking being Spanish.
In it, she reportedly addresses the Spanish scandal, saying: ‘I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me sad and it didn’t hurt and it didn’t put me in dark places.
‘But it was my family, my friends, my community who speak multiple languages, who have belonged in multiple places, and realize that we are a mix of all these different things and that is going to have an impact on how we sound and how we articulate things and the words that we choose and our mannerisms. That normal. That’s what’s called being human.’
Baldwin also addresses the trial, saying he had ‘never been through anything like this in my entire life’.
‘I do not want to go back to the life I had,’ he adds, when asked by his wife: ‘Where do you go after a tragedy?’
‘Everything was so different before this happened, and our lives are very, very different. Our children have been forced to recognize that. They’ve been forced to deal with that, with us, in their own way,’ he says, according to reports.
The trailer also shows Baldwin’s relationship with his seven young children, and talking about how his divorce from Kim Bassinger in 2002 impacted his eldest daughter Ireland.
‘The show—which also counts the couple as executive producers—is so obsessive in its quest to make the Baldwins seem like normal human beings, it forgets to be even a little bit interesting,’ TIME TV critic Judy Berman writes.
She adds: ‘What they say about Rust is so carefully worded, so deliberate in foregrounding their acknowledgment that Hutchins and her family were the incident’s true victims, it could have been scripted by a crisis PR team.
‘But the strain the case has put on the Baldwins is palpable, and perhaps the most authentic element of this snoozy infomercial of a reality show.’
The Telegraph’s Ed Powers gives the series just one star, and writes: ‘A cynical reading of The Baldwins is that it is a attempt at public rehabilitation by Baldwin.’
He continues: ‘Whatever the motive, The Baldwins is a saccharine pity party, where Baldwin swings between mucking about with his kids and staring into space as he contemplates the manslaughter charges.’
Powers adds that those ‘sincere expressions of grief’ are ‘uneasily’ combined with ‘the show’s wacky tone’.
Meanwhile, Variety critic Daniel D’Addario calls the series ‘an outright offensive response’ to the Rust shooting.
‘What we are watching is a father of seven minor children anticipating the potential end of his life as a parent as he’s known it; as such, the canned, stock reality-show instrumentals feel extra-tinny, the moments of gaiety extra-forced,’ he says.
‘A would-be “Jon and Kate Plus 8”-style family sitcom about one kooky family seems like an outright offensive response to this tragedy,’ D’Addario adds.
After the series was announced, several fans declared they wouldn’t be watching it, with Unicornsandcat fuming on X: ‘How dreadful. I wouldn’t watch this if they paid me.’
Several others said they were ‘livid’ as the news was released while Baldwin was awaiting trial.
Alan Sarapa added: ‘This is what happens when you have a lot of young kids and legal bills and you’re almost 70.’
The release comes after it was revealed Baldwin has filed a lawsuit for malicious prosecution and civil rights violations against those involved in pursuing criminal charges against him over the death of Hutchins.
The lawsuit alleges that prosecutors intentionally concealed evidence that would absolve Baldwin from blame and ‘sought at every turn to scapegoat’ him to ‘maliciously bring about or advance’ the 30 Rock actor’s trial and conviction.
It claims the defendants were ‘blinded by their desire to convict Baldwin for all the wrong reasons’.
Baldwin broke down in tears after the case was dismissed last July, and later thanked fans on Instagram, saying: ‘There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now.
‘To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family.’
He was the lead actor and co-producer of Rust, and was pointing a gun when the revolver went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.
The weapons handler on the set of the Western, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on the charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Baldwin and Hilaria married in 2012 and had their first child in August 2013. Their eldest is now 11, while their youngest is 2 years old.
The Baldwins begins on Discovery+ on Sunday, February 23, for UK viewers and on TLC in America.
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