After a more than decade-long hiatus, a new season of the reality TV show “Alaska State Troopers” will air starting in January on the cable network A&E.
In a statement, the network described the show as a “look inside the law enforcement teams that serve and protect the communities of Alaska’s vast territory” that will “showcase a range of calls Alaska State Troopers face that are as immense and unpredictable as the state itself.”
A previous iteration of “Alaska State Troopers” ran on the National Geographic network from 2009-2015. The show, which followed law enforcement officers as they crisscrossed the state via patrol car, plane and snowmachine, was one of Alaska’s biggest reality TV hits during an era when series such as “Deadliest Catch” became a phenomenon.
The previous trooper series leaned on a mix of only-in-Alaska subject matter and “Cops”-style policing mayhem. A typical episode description from the first few seasons: “The Troopers chase a wanted and dangerous man through a forest, clear small villages from illegal bootleggers, help a man under the influence of drugs, and protect the community from a curious bear.”
The combination proved to be a hit, and the show’s depiction of troopers became a boon for state law enforcement recruitment during those years, said Austin McDaniel, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
But in 2014, the department pulled out of production, saying it was “time to focus on the job of providing public safety without any added outside distractions.”
It was a tough time for the agency, McDaniel said. That year, two troopers were fatally shot while taking a suspect into custody in Tanana. In 2013, a fatal helicopter crash killed a trooper rescue pilot, a trooper and the snowmachiner they were rescuing. Some of the troopers killed had been featured on the show.
The tragedies “required us to refocus on the core mission” of public safety and drop filming, McDaniel said in an interview Monday.
Film production crews approach the Department of Public Safety “dozens of times every year” about getting access for projects, ranging from films or series focusing on a single high-profile case, to requests to embed with troopers, he said.
Usually, the answer is no, McDaniel said.
“The state won’t accept doing some type of production or show that’s going to cost us money,” he said.
Production companies also need some experience with Alaska, and some experience with law enforcement, he said. When a different production company and network came calling about restarting “Alaska State Troopers,” the department agreed to it, McDaniel said. Part of the reason the state said yes was overlap in the staff of the new production company and the one that filmed seasons of the previous iteration, he said.
The show is produced by Seattle-based Anusia Films, according to A&E. A&E is jointly owned by Disney-ABC Television Group and the Hearst Corp.
A 10-episode season of the documentary series will premiere on Jan. 7. The series will also be released on the network’s streaming app.
The state is hoping the show again proves to be a recruitment tool. During the heyday of “Alaska State Troopers” on National Geographic, the department was getting 2,000 to 3,000 applications for trooper jobs per month, including many from law enforcement professionals who’d glimpsed Alaska on the show, the department told the Daily News at the time.
These days, job applications are in the hundreds, McDaniel said. Last month, DPS had about a 13% vacancy rate for commissioned officers, the Alaska Beacon reported.
The show filmed all summer into the late fall, with multiple film crews traveling from Ketchikan to Glennallen to Bethel to rural villages to the Mat-Su, McDaniel said. Troopers can choose whether to take along camera crews, he said. All people featured on the show sign a release form to the production company.
It’s not clear what exactly will be on the show. A spokesperson from A&E did not immediately make a producer available Monday to talk about the new season’s content.
In the past, critics have said that the public safety issues troopers respond to — including high rates of violent crime, homicide, suicide and sexual assault in Alaska — are too serious to be fodder for television. The previous iteration of the show featured storylines such as troopers pulling a man out of a Wasilla crawl space and busting rowdy partiers at Arctic Man, but also more serious incidents like a man stabbed in the stomach with a kitchen knife.
The idea is to give people a realistic look at the troopers, McDaniel said.
“We hope Alaskans will watch the show to see what their Alaska State Troopers are doing every day … with or without camera crews,” he said.
