THE DEBUT EPISODE of former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s reality TV show aired in the United States last night.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska shows the former governor climbing a section of Mount McKinley, jumping across dangerous crevices, watching wild bears fight, fishing for salmon, and shooting a gun.

The episode also touches on the Palin family’s gripe with journalist Joe McGinniss, who moved next door to the family last summer in order to observe them for the purposes of writing a book.

The Palins constructed a 15-foot fence between the two homes.

Palin also pokes fun at herself during the programme. Sitting atop an Alaskan mountain, dressed in a rambling boots and sporting perma-coiffed hair, she says: “You can see Russia from here! …Almost.”

What has really gotten political commentators’ jaws wagging, however, is whether “she can also see 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from her house”, as one CNN correspondent put it.

The eight-part series has led to some observers questioning whether the reality show is actually a protracted ad campaign for Palin’s speculated bid for the presidency in 2012.

Check out the trailer…