The pilot episode of The Baldwins, TLC’s new reality show about actor Alec Baldwin and his family, is one of the darkest and most bizarre hours of television to appear in recent memory. In look and approach, it plays like a combination of The Osbournes and a TLC reality show from the 2010s, the heyday of the channel’s “oh, wow, these people have a lot of kids” programming such as 16 Kids and Counting and Jon & Kate Plus 8. This alone makes The Baldwins a concerning prospect: A brief browse through the history of families featured on these shows might suggest that choosing to be on one is akin to putting your foot in a wood chipper.
What makes The Baldwins spectacularly upsetting, however, is that it’s not just about Alec and Hilaria Baldwin and their seven children and eight pets all living in…
