"Ice Pilots" takes off

Vroom:

Some takeoff, eh? Ice Pilots NWT, History Television's bracing docu-reality series about a renegade airline that links remote communities across Canada's north using vintage Second World War-era transport planes, roared to a ratings record last week, with 459,000 viewers.

That was the most viewers to watch a homegrown-series debut in History's history. To put that number in perspective, last week's audience for Ice Pilots NWT topped that of time-period rival The Jay Leno Show (306,000), even though Ice Pilots aired on a specialty channel and Leno on a conventional broadcast network.

And small wonder. Ice Pilots NWT is a lot of fun to watch, fascinating and entertaining by turns, and a lot easier to watch from the comfort of home than to suffer through in person.

Tonight's episode, the self-explanatory Pre-Christmas Rush, finds the mercury dipping below -40, even as remote communities in the Mackenzie Valley are running desperately low on supplies. Just as important, families are waiting for their Christmas presents, but a gruff mechanic and a Curtiss-Wright C-46 flight crew are stranded in a motel room in Norman Wells, with a busted engine outside and a serious case of cabin fever brewing inside.

Debut episodes of new TV shows often draw a crowd initially, only to disappoint in subsequent weeks. There's nothing disappointing about tonight's Ice Pilots NWT, though. If anything, it's even more focused, even more gripping and more nerve-racking than last week's opener.

Ice Pilots NWT is white-knuckle viewing at its best:exciting without being voyeuristic or manipulative. Based on the evidence of its early ratings, it might also be the biggest homegrown TV success story since Project Runway Canada. And why not? These runways are real. (10 p.m., History Television)...

See this previous post for relevant links and video.