Any show that uses the title card "Baldwin Residence: East Hampton" is rather begging to be hate-watched. And on that basis, The Baldwins on TLC, which peers into the life of Alec, his second wife, Hilaria Baldwin, and their seven children, is undeniably addictive and sometimes perversely successful — but, for a whole host of reasons, hateful all the same.

This is not to say one cannot comprehend the reasons why Alec might have agreed to participate in this show. The first several episodes unfold in the run-up to his then-pending involuntary manslaughter trial, proceedings that stemmed from a horrifying (but obviously accidental) incident on the New Mexico set of the movie Rust. In October 2021, during the making of a scene, Alec's prop gun discharged an actual bullet that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. In July 2024, all charges were dismissed by the trial judge upon the disclosure of evidence said not to have been properly given to Alec's counsel. But, to Alec's reputation and work prospects, the damage was done. In the absence of movie or TV roles on par with his past triumphs, in The Hunt for Red October or on 30 Rock, a reality series on cable must have come as a welcome career opportunity. 

In the episodes that take place after the apparent resolution of the Rust affair, Alec is seen moodily shuffling around his house. He talks about wanting to forgo his career to spend quality time with his family without acknowledging the fact that this show is a furtherance of that same career — in fact, an attempt to revive it. He objects to the paparazzi with the same lack of self-awareness. By what rationale is it unacceptable for photographers to stalk his family but acceptable for TLC to do the same? All the same, Alec is compellingly brooding. He references past glories with all the gravitas of John Barrymore. For her part, Alec's wife, Hilaria, has approximately the same appeal as first lady Melania Trump. Both women are intoxicating for reasons that are hard to define but certainly include their oddly constructed sentences in intriguingly accented English. 

The Baldwins must be credited for its bold attempt to uncancel Alec and for its relatively careful handling of the Rust tragedy. Alec speaks plainly of his state of torment since the incident, and Hilaria speaks repeatedly of the losses of Hutchins’s family, including her now-motherless son. The show also does the useful work of reminding audiences of the collateral damage of a terrible accident: No matter how one feels about Alec's responsibility in the matter or the rightness of the charges that were brought against him, what decent person could fail to be moved by his wife’s account of their 10-year-old daughter Carmen asking whether she should say goodbye to her father in a special way before he went to New Mexico to stand trial — since, had he been found guilty, he might not have come back for a long time. 

What is wrong with The Baldwins, then, is not its potentially exploitative qualities, which have been tamped down to a surprising and commendable degree. The truth is more depressing: This show is bad in the usual manner of reality television. Its awfulness is predictable to anyone who watched even a single episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8.

Here, we have a missed opportunity. As an actor, Alec is fascinating — smooth but tortured, likable but kind of hateable. There was a reason why Tim Burton cast him in Beetlejuice, Mike Nichols gave him a plum part in Working Girl, and Woody Allen used him in no fewer than three films. Back in the day, even David Mamet was on the Alec bandwagon: The native New Yorker was never better than in the Mamet-scripted Glengarry Glen Ross, The Edge, and State and Main. I scarcely need to mention his greatest-ever role as the surpassingly wise narrator of Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. And Hilaria is simply fascinating. But the television genre to which they have committed themselves generally strips its participants of all marks of individuality. Everything reality show stars do is too neatly choreographed, and much of what they say is too predictably programmed. When Alec and Hilaria have a session with a psychiatrist, it must seem as though there is a breakthrough even when there is not. If Alec and Hilaria look on the verge of an argument, it must seem as though all is resolved, even if it is not. By conforming them to the precepts of reality TV, the show does not live up to its stars’ actual weirdness.

Like all reality series, The Baldwins dispatches handheld cameras to its subjects’ places of residence, which, in this case, means their luxurious digs in New York City and their astonishingly idyllic estate in East Hampton. The cameras capture allegedly spontaneous everyday events that have the suspicious flavor of having been chosen for maximum “everyday-ness”: an outing to get haircuts for the boys, a trek to a farmer’s market to gather ingredients for homemade pizzas, a meaningful exchange of gifts on the Baldwins’s wedding anniversary. Interspersed with such footage are talking head interviews with the leads, who are generally situated on comfy-looking sofas. Much is made of the age difference between Alec and Hilaria, but it chiefly manifests itself in Hilaria’s inability to sit with her feet on the floor.

The show attempts to elevate the Baldwins's completely inconsequential activities by the sheer novelty of its participants. But let’s face it: there is no magic in watching Hilaria and Carmen bake a cake, even when Hilaria says, hilariously, “I’m so proud of your sifting.” This is not helped by Hilaria’s apparently wholesale endorsement of contemporary psychobabble, represented in her reference to a lunch out with her husband as a “check-in” on their mutual emotional states or her own obsessive references to his alleged obsessive-compulsive disorder, which manifests itself in his careful arrangement of the family’s shoes. “Asking for help is not something that was modeled for him,” says Hilaria.

In fairness, it is rather sad, even endearing, to watch Alec and Hilaria stave off the prospect of a life-changing prison sentence by seeking refuge in their abundant family life. “I wonder what our life is going to be like next year,” Hilaria laments before the trial. Anyone who has faced the prospect of a truly life-changing event — whether a court case, an illness, or any other sort of gigantic challenge — will be able to relate to her sentiment. The couple seems to genuinely care for their brood, but since they opened up their family to public scrutiny, we must deal with facts: To judge by what is seen in the first wave of episodes, the Baldwins are raising a rather unruly, untamed bunch. Except for Carmen, who seems to have been encouraged to inhabit her parents’ rather chaotic world, the children are indistinguishable: A great swarm of pandemonium-causing rich children. They are seen flinging a pizza box into their bucolic yard, smearing their faces with paint, raising their middle fingers, and saying naughty words. “I have to fill my children’s days with positive energy,” says Hilaria. But by the looks of it, what they could really use is a little more parental discipline. 

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Without question, the Baldwins (the family) have endured an ordeal in recent years. But The Baldwins (the show) is less a reflection of that ordeal and more its latest, perhaps terminal manifestation. “I really need to have a different life,” Alec wearily says. Having watched these snapshots from his present life, I have a suggestion on how best to turn over a new leaf: Alec, don’t let TLC renew your show for a second season. It’s time to get back to those big-screen roles that once made you great.

Paging Wes Anderson ...

Peter Tonguette is a contributing writer to the Washington Examiner magazine.