The Baldwins: the biggest takeaways from Alec Baldwin's reality TV show

Alec Baldwin is no stranger to being in front of a camera, whether appearing in blockbusters like Mission: Impossible or Beetlejuice or as Jack Donaghy in the lauded sitcom 30 Rock. However, his latest pursuit, a reality TV series documenting life at home with his family, is new territory.

Debuting on Discovery Plus on February 23, The Baldwins is an eight-part series produced by TLC which documents Baldwin’s life in his Manhattan apartment with his wife Hilaria, seven young children (whose ages range from 2 to 11) and eight pets. It documents his chaotic everyday life raising his children and offers a look at his relationship with his wife, who he married in 2012.

Reviews of the series so far have been far from positive – mostly due to the controversy that’s engulfed Baldwin in the last few years. On a film set in 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed when a prop gun Baldwin was holding was fired, and unknown to anyone on the set, was loaded. The series was filmed in the summer of 2024, shortly before Baldwin attended a trial in New Mexico after being charged with involuntary manslaughter after the incident.

Although Baldwin’s charges were dismissed, reviewers have argued that the series is a poor attempt at trying to rehabilitate his public image in the aftermath of the accident and that its existence is insensitive to Hutchins’s loved ones. The 42-year-old left behind a husband and son.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the series so far. “Everyone around Alec has seen his mental health decline,” Hilaria says of her husband’s state since the incident. According to his wife, Baldwin was diagnosed with PTSD after the accident, which also exacerbated his OCD (shown as he scrubbed a bin clean during one scene of the show). “He says in his darkest moments, ‘If an accident had to have happened this day, why am I still here? Why couldn't it have been me?”.

In another scene from the show, Baldwin describes life after the incident as “surreal” and says that the past year “was just terrible”. He also recalls how he’d respond when friends asked how he was doing. “I said, ‘I’m happier when I’m asleep than when I’m awake’.”.

Hilaria Baldwin – who is an author, podcaster and yoga instructor – has come under scrutiny in the past, with allegations made against her that she appropriates Spanish culture. Although she previously claimed to be born in Spain and speaks with a Spanish accent, she admitted in 2021 that she was born in Massachusetts and has English, French-Canadian, Irish, Slovak and German descent. Her birth name is Hilary, changing it to Hilaria in 2010.

In the past, Baldwin has claimed that she was raised in a Spanish-speaking household and stated that she spent time in Spain as a child, although this was later revealed to be for short family vacations. In the series, she addresses the criticism she’s faced because of her accent/alleged appropriation, revealing that it put her “in dark places”. “I love English, I also love Spanish, and when I mix the two it doesn’t make me inauthentic, and when I mix the two, that makes me normal.”.

“I’d be lying if I said [the controversy] didn’t make me sad and it didn’t hurt and it didn’t put me in dark places.”. And it’s not just from the reviewers of The Guardian, Vulture or the MailOnline. “A woman lost her life but this show is him trying to get back into the public’s good graces,” one comment on the show’s YouTube trailer reads. “Slowly weasling his way back. All I hear is me, me, me.”.

“I feel like this is just one of those things like please read the room. Someone died and someone got hurt and somebody is in jail, not him,” reads another. “I don’t want to see how wonderful you’re living while this little boy doesn’t have a mommy. So tone deaf.”.