http://blogs.calgaryherald.com/2014/01/22/discovery-channels-alberta-shot-klondike-hits-ratings-gold/
Posted by Eric Volmers
The Discovery Channel’s expensive gamble on gold-rush fever — and Alberta — is paying off big time for the network, bringing it its biggest Monday prime-time numbers in the U.S.
The six-hour miniseries, which finishes its three-night run tonight (Wednesday), reached 1.9-million viewers in Canada and 3.4-million American viewers. Shot in Alberta last year, it stars Richard Madden, Abbie Cornish, Sam Shepard, Tim Roth and Augustus Prew.
The miniseries, loosely based on Charlotte Gray’s historical book Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike, tells the story of gold-rush fever in Dawson City. Reviews have been mixed — although it earned a respectable 73 per cent approval rating on metacritic, which aggregates reviews — but critics who enjoyed it were lavish in their praise.
The San Francisco Chronicle said “With a cast headed by Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden, Klondike grabs you with terrific performances, an unusually rich script, magnificently sweeping visuals of jagged mountains overlooking valleys of ice and snow, and such a convincing attention to period detail, you’ll believe you’re back in Dawson City at the end of the 19th century.”
While the Hollywood Reporter said it mixed “sweeping, awe-inspiring images of nature with the up-close ugliness of dank, mud-packed streets, Klondike stands out instantly with its large canvas.”
