Buying Unhappiness: "Shitting in Frozen Buckets" 

Some people are drawn to certain places and they don't know why. I have a theory: It's literally in our DNA. How else to explain my interest in all things British, despite its gloomy weather, bad food, and storied history of bad teeth, bubonic plague, and bear-baiting? When I finally did my Ancestry.com search, I saw that I am about 99 percent English. I knew it.

So what is in the DNA of the crazy couples on Buying Alaska who want to live in a shack with no running water or electricity, in one of the most forbidding areas of the country? I'm guessing deer urine.

Buying Alaska is on a channel you have probably never heard of unless you have the mega-pack of channels in your plan and accidentally tripped over it late one night on your way to Cinemax: After Dark. It's on Destination America, which is owned by Discovery, the media company that has made an empire out of niche arcana like Who The Bleep Did I Marry?! and Naked and Afraid. Destination America has a pretty funny story. The network was originally purchased from Treehugger.com and was launched as Planet Green, a channel entirely devoted to the fascinating world of clean energy. Two hundred and fifty hours a week of ecological excitement. People all over the country were mortgaging their homes in order to be able to afford the cable bundle that featured Planet Green, and when the power went out in Sante Fe during Suki's Solar Sell-A-Thon the 911 lines were jammed with angry viewers who reported the emergency. Oh wait, no, that was in the alternate reality that the Discovery execs dreamed up. On this plane of existence, no one actually gave a shit.

Undaunted, Discovery turned Planet Green into Middle American Adam-and-Eve-Not-Adam-and-Steve gold and began to cater to the "Obummer gonna put us in FEMA camps" set. Hizzah. And no state in the Union is full of more of these types than Alaska.

Buying Alaska features couples with usually limited budgets who go look at three different properties and then decide which one they want to get. The cabins or houses are generally away from towns and often off the grid. Some of them have outhouses and water that needs to be delivered and stored. Other obstacles include bears that will rip your face off for your beef jerky, and being snowed in for a month or possibly buried in an avalanche.

The home buyers seem nice enough; these are never trophy wives or guys named Todd. The dudes are in Levis and padded flannel coats, the women the same. In some ways it reminds me of Naked and Afraid, because these are people who are willing to be uncomfortable, something I have no concept of or interest in. One couple had a snowshoe-string budget and looked at three ridiculous properties, none of which was larger than two rooms. The first one had a Flintstones-style electrical system composed of something like caribou poop and pine cones. The second had a potbellied stove but they needed to take a snowmobile from a frozen lake to get to it. The third place was one room, no power, one stove, with an outhouse several paces away. With temps getting down to several degrees below zero, I would never drink any liquids after 3 p.m., folks.

None of these things, however, seems as daunting to me as being stuck with one person in a small space with limited resources. To me, that would be the real reality show to see: What happens after these fresh-faced outdoors types have been shitting in frozen buckets for three months with a person they "thought they knew so well." Who the bleep did I marry?!, indeed. The people who ended up going with the small one-room place are fucking insane. Genetic mutations in gene markings.

Buying Alaska has some sister shows like Buying Hawaii and Buying the Beach, both less interesting because the people seem to have some good sense ... except for a couple who were looking to buy in the Florida Keys with a small toddler. Why did you think it was a good idea to get the house surrounded by docks that he could fall into and drown?

The real draw of these shows is like any other "home-buying" genre show: You put yourself in the place of the buyers and then revel in or disparage their final choice, all from the comfort of your recliner. I like.