Parents' Guide to Zero Chill

With its naturally ramping-up stakes and easy-to-understand rivalries, the competitive sports world is made for episodic drama, no matter what sport is the focus. Zero Chill could just as easily be set on a football field or a tennis court, but the ice rink, the home of two such varied sports as figure skating and hockey, makes a nice middle ground where all of its characters can meet. It is a bit puzzling why the MacBentley family moved away from Canada, arguably the ice hockey capital of the world, to England so that Mac can further his hockey career, but leaving that aside, Grace Beedie's Kayla and Dakota Taylor's Mac are easy to empathize with.

Kayla has the rawest end of the stick, dragged to a strange land against her will; confident (and sometimes arrogant) Mac finds that in England, too, he's the most talented member of his team, and all signs point to future success. Of course, as the show goes on, Kayla begins to find herself in her new home, quickly making friends with fellow skaters and worming her way into the competitive circuit, while Mac finds that his golden boy status doesn't win him many fans on the team or at his new school. Could it be that these two athletes chart a course for sporting success, with pitfalls and lessons learned along the way, that ultimately culminates in shiny medals and trophies and the roar of the crowd? To answer that ventures into spoiler territory, but even though this harmless, amiable series offers few surprises, it's still solid entertainment, especially for young skaters or sports enthusiasts who'll thrill to the soapy drama and the many, many scenes of blades on ice.