Zero Chill - General Discussion

[jewel21]

Quote

ZERO CHILL, Comedy, Netflix: A 15-year old figure skater’s life is up-ended from Canada to the UK, when her twin brother gets a place at a legendary hockey academy. Premieres March 15

 

[paulvdb]

Trailer:

 

[jewel21]

Has anyone had the chance to watch this yet? It premiered yesterday but this week has been kind of crazy thus far. I'll probably only get around to watching this weekend but I'm curious as to what people think.

[paulvdb]

I've watched the first couple of episodes. The premise seems a bit unrealistic to me. As far as I know ice hockey is not big in the UK so it seems unlikely that a Canadian would go there to play his sport. And why would a Swedish guy establish his academy there instead of in his own country or in a country where he'd be more likely to find local talent? I know it's not as unrealistic as shows with vampires or werewolves but I guess these things bug me a bit more on shows that are supposed to be set in the real world.

The two main characters have a few too many unlikeable moments for me, but I do like some of the supporting characters, especially Sky and Ava.

[jewel21]

So I was finally able to watch the first three episodes and I'm really enjoying it. Of course, growing up I was a sucker for 'The Mighty Ducks' and 'The Cutting Edge' so I'm not surprised I like this show. I am surprised it hasn't gotten any traffic though since I think it's pretty decent. 

As for hockey not being big in the UK, my old boss was a third back up goalie with the Montreal Canadiens when he was young (sometime in the '40s or '50s)  and wanted to study to be a physiotherapist. The Canadiens send him to England to study physiotherapy and he got to play hockey there. There's a picture of him being awarded a trophy that was presented to him by a young Prince Phillip so it seems they did enjoy hockey and had a team. Not sure how much hockey is played there today.  

[Mabinogia]

On 3/17/2021 at 3:59 AM, paulvdb said:

The two main characters have a few too many unlikeable moments for me, but I do like some of the supporting characters, especially Sky and Ava.

I'm about half way through the season and yep, can't stand Kayla and Matt, Kayla a bit more since she feels very much like a retread of self involved Kat from Spinning Out. Though she is so far up her own ass she makes Kat seem altruistic in comparison. The actress is good though. Not sure about the actor playing Matt though, as I really feel like he is just "there" most of the time. 

But I am loving Ava's story, and Sky as well, and I don't find Anton (the coach) very hard to look at (Yeah, I'm too old to be watching this for yoots). I'm not hating this. The hockey team stuff is a bit boring (new flashy player is hated and hazed by the rest blah blah.) But the other storylines have offered some stuff I'm engaging with. 

 

[jewel21]

I've watched 8 episodes so far and I'm continuing to enjoy the show. I agree that both Kayla and Matt have some pretty annoying and unattractive qualities. However, I continue to prefer Kayla over her brother. 

I also am enjoying the secondary characters. I really like Bear, and his brother, as well as Ava and Skye. Jacob ended up being a disappointment so I'm glad he's gone. Although I wouldn't be surprised to see him again at some point. 

I'm looking forward to watching the final two episodes. 

[Mabinogia]

19 hours ago, jewel21 said:

However, I continue to prefer Kayla over her brother. 

At least Kayla has some personality. She is incredibly self absorbed, but she's also fairly charming. Matt is just a charmless lump of typical "jock". 

I do like Bear and his brother as well. Actually, there were a lot of good background characters with their own storylines, all of them more interesting than Kayla and Matt. lol 

[jewel21]

I just finished the last two episodes. I really enjoyed the series. I'm actually really happy Matt turned down the hockey offer and put Kayla and their family first. I would love to see more of Kayla and Skye skating together. And I'm pleased that Bear, Sam and their dad actually got a happy ending. 

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, jewel21 said:

I'm actually really happy Matt turned down the hockey offer and put Kayla and their family first.

That was nice. As annoying as a Kayla could be I kind of understood where she was coming from because it felt like their parents always put Matt's skating above hers. He was the reason they moved to UK, he was the reason they were going to pick up and move again just when she finally found a reason to stay in the UK and when she put her foot down they just decided to split up the family rather than consider making her an actual priority. 

I guess they felt a hockey career would be more lucrative than a figure skating career but I can 100% see why she would feel like just baggage in the family, someone who was expected to drop everything and follow her brother wherever he wanted to go. 

2 hours ago, jewel21 said:

And I'm pleased that Bear, Sam and their dad actually got a happy ending. 

For a little bit there I wasn't sure it was going to go that way but I, too, am glad it did. In general I like how they wrapped up all the storylines with levels of finally listening, understanding and forgiving one another. It sent the message that just because someone screwed up you don't give up on them. Ava's story went there as well. The most I liked Matt was when he went after Ava after she admitted taking the book and rather than chew her out for all the grief he got over it, he pretty much told her he'd protect her from facing the same. That was a great moment. 

This was a lot better than I expected. I enjoyed it even if the main characters annoyed me. 

[paulvdb]

After watching all episodes I can add Bear and Sam to the characters I liked most. I hadn't mentioned them in my earlier post because they hadn't had much to do in the episodes I'd watched at that time. But it was nice to see them getting their own story because I liked them most of the players on the team.

I'm also not surprised that Kayla dropped Elena as her coach. I knew from the beginning that Elena's coaching style would be as bad for Kayla as it was for Ava. Maia seems like someone who will work better with Elena. I guess we'll be seeing more of her if we're getting a second season. Although Elena wasn't a major character outside of her relationships with Ava and Kayla. So maybe they'll be mostly off-screen.

[jewel21]

3 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I guess they felt a hockey career would be more lucrative than a figure skating career but I can 100% see why she would feel like just baggage in the family, someone who was expected to drop everything and follow her brother wherever he wanted to go. 

I think the problem was that Kayla wasn't interested in skating competitively. For her it was something fun that she really enjoyed. It's part of the reason Jacob's parents wanted him to drop her even before the family moved to the U.K. Skating is expensive to just be a hobby. I guess her parents figured if she didn't want to go pro, then it didn't matter where she would skate, Canada or the U.K. 

I'm not saying I totally agree with them but with Matt's hockey taking off, it made sense for them to move to the U.K, even if it sucked for Kayla. 

Again, I'm glad that Matt chose Kayla this time even if the family was willing to split up to make both kids happy. I didn't see that working at all and I would have been unhappy had the season ended on that note. 

[CarpeFelis]

Why is everyone calling Mac Matt? Closed caption and IMDB both refer to him as Mac.

I didn’t think very highly of the parents. It seemed like they really did care way more about Mac than Kayla. Even though their reasons for the move to the UK made some sense, they were also often really dismissive with her. I felt sorry for Ava because Elina was even worse.

I can buy the idea of relocating to another country so a 15-year-old can go to an intensive hockey training academy (or whatever it was called). But a 15-year-old getting an offer to play on a pro team?! Isn’t that a little too young?

[twoods]

Mac is Matt’s nickname on the ice because of his last name. 

Liking this show so far but sort of annoyed that every single male character is in love with Skye. Don’t get me wrong because she’s awesome, but come on. I do prefer her with Bear, but that may be because I like him way more than Matt.  I’m only at episode 4 so saw Ava backstabbing Matt because she’s pissed at her dad, and I’m sure this is going to have a lot of fallout.

I don’t blame Jacob for not sticking with Kayla because she didn’t want to become a professional skater, so why would he spend so much time and money into something if he doesn’t have the same endgame that she does?

Matt is such an ass and I’m sick of his parents catering to his every need. 

I am enjoying the fact that they seemed to have hired actors with professional skating skills for this show instead of the usually annoying body doubles we usually see. I saw that the actress that plays Kayla used to be a figure skater, and it seems as if Jacob is one as well.

Edited April 5, 2021 by twoods

[jewel21]

Yes, Mac is a nickname and even on Wikipedia or IMDB it's written as follows: 'Mac' MacBentley with Mac in quotations. 

However, I don't know whether his first name is actually Matt. I can't find a mention of it online and when I wrote my post first using the name Matt I was going off of Mabinogia's post because I was too lazy to look up his name and couldn't remember it for the life of me, heh. 

I read despite having experience on the ice, they all still went through a 9 week training camp of sorts. 

Quote

Producers of Zero Chill wanted to cast real skaters for the series, since it brought "authenticity" that "CGI trickery" could not. Regardless of their skating experience, the cast members were sent to a nine-week training programme prior to filming. Executive producer Angelo Abela stated that the cast members got to try out both sports, so ice skaters could play ice hockey and vice versa. Dakota Benjamin Taylor explained that for the ice skating scenes, cast members were not permitted to do jumps on the ice.

Source

[paulvdb]

Cancelled

[Pristine]

On 3/23/2021 at 11:13 PM, jewel21 said:

As for hockey not being big in the UK, my old boss was a third back up goalie with the Montreal Canadiens when he was young (sometime in the '40s or '50s)  and wanted to study to be a physiotherapist. The Canadiens send him to England to study physiotherapy and he got to play hockey there. There's a picture of him being awarded a trophy that was presented to him by a young Prince Phillip so it seems they did enjoy hockey and had a team. Not sure how much hockey is played there today.  

Physiotherapy, kinesiology, exercise sports science, etc... are still way ahead in the UK, compared to the US.  In fact, my daughter and I are going to the UK to check out three schools, over Spring Break.