Sarah Palin plays TV tour guide in her home state

"That's so much worse than I ever thought it would be!" she says after reaching the summit.

The series is produced by Mark Burnett, whose many credits include "Survivor" and "The Apprentice." In a recent interview with The Associated Press, he marveled at how gung-ho all the Palins were in taking part.

"It would start out with, 'We're gonna have Sarah and Todd do something,'" Burnett said. "And as she's getting ready, she would say, 'Piper, you want to come? Willow, you want to come?' Take the politics away, and this is a family, and they hang out a lot together."

Befitting the travelogue quality of the show, it boasts eye-popping scenes across the state's vastness (roughly twice the size of Texas).

With all that acreage available, the Palins make it clear they're irked that writer Joe McGinniss is living right next door.

McGinniss, the best-selling author of books including "The Selling of the President" and "Fatal Vision," is never mentioned by name, and his face is blurred as the camera catches a glimpse of him over the fence.

But Todd Palin explains, "Our summer fun has been kind of taken away from us because of a new neighbor next door who's writing a hit piece on my wife."

(In an interview with the AP in September as he packed to leave after three months of research, McGinniss wouldn't reveal what his book about Palin will say. But he said he chose her as a subject because, "I wanted a reason to come back to Alaska," where he lived in the 1970s while researching an earlier book, "Going to Extremes." He said he rented the house after its owner sought him out, not to spy on the Palin family.)

Todd Palin is a regular presence on "Sarah Palin's Alaska." This includes the interlude when Sarah Palin heads for an adjoining building on their property they've equipped with a TV studio. She's making an appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor." Todd Palin supervises off-camera and punches the buttons.

"Every time before I go on the air," Sarah Palin says, "I hear the technical guys in the booth back in New York going, 'OK, Gov. Palin, you're on with Bill. Good luck.' And that always scares me. I think, 'Why do I need luck before I talk to Bill O'Reilly?'"

Only snippets of what she says in her exchange with O'Reilly are heard on "Sarah Palin's Alaska," while O'Reilly is unseen and unheard. Here, politics are on hold.

Granted, earlier on the show, Palin seizes on one irresistible metaphor to make a political point. Referring to the fence built by "Todd and his buddies" to separate the Palin homestead from McGinniss' gaze, she suggests it's something "others can look at and say, 'This is what we need to do to secure our nation's border.'"

That's open to debate. But overall the show leaves no doubt: Alaska is well worth a visit. Presenting it to viewers, Palin is literally at home.