When the show first started, the Anchorage Daily News reported on controversies: "A new Discovery Channel reality show set in McCarthy is drawing fire for heavy-handed treatment of the reviving old mining town's dark past and alleged outlaw reputation."[4]
Synopsis
IMDB summarizes Edge of Alaska as:
Tradition collides with the residents of the isolated town of McCarthy, Alaska. The 42 souls who are brave enough to live there must battle the elements and each other to maintain their pioneer way of life.[5]
Neil Darish
Neil Darish is a McCarthy resident who was involved in creation of, and appeared as a main character in, Edge of Alaska. He did interviews, about McCarthy and about the making of the show, with Hollywood Soapbox,[6]
and the YouTube channel The Loud Spot.[7]
In the YouTube interview, Darish said about the show:
[7:20] They're drama, based on an exaggeration of people's lives, but they're true to the ethos of what it's like to be in remote Alaska. Am I going to get frostbitten because I lost my glove on a snow machine? Absolutely not. So, would it look like I'm going to die on the snow machine in the show? Yes, because that's what gets people in the drama.
[8:02] The hard part is finding people who have a big personality and are willing to give it, you know, everything, to the producers, so that they can make it work.
[8:33] I'll tell you how it will be; I'll tell you how it works; because it's not a secret. ... First it's theater, and it doesn't make it a lie or right or wrong; it's just a way of creating story; and it is story you know, and they're not written for Alaskans; they're written for people who are going to be drawn into the drama.
[9:08] There were lots of people that wanted to be on the show, many more that didn't.
[18:43] I've got very dear friends that I genuinely feel bad [about] ... they really resent that we did the show.
Darish said the show was what he called "scene scripted": the producers would decide on the particular story to be portrayed, where a scene would take place, and what would happen in the scene. Mostly, the producers would not decide on the actual words to be used.
Also, Darish's views were included in an Aljazeera America article about film crews in Alaska:[8]
Neil Darish is one of the stars of “Edge of Alaska.” He says he expected the show to be dramatized. He “plays a character,” a landowner who isn’t necessarily likable, he says. Viewers reacted to him. At first it was hard not to take the negativity personally, but then he decided they were reacting to his performance, not to him.
The show is somewhat scripted, but that doesn’t matter, he says. It captures the ethos of the town of McCarthy. “I’m just kind of fodder for the storytellers. That’s the approach I took.”
