TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: Feb. 29
A select viewing guide for Wednesday, Feb. 29
DOCUMENTARY Nunavut Quest APTN, 7:30 p.m.ET; 6.30 p.m. PT Welcome to the real Great White North. Debuting tonight, this documentary series chronicles the annual dog-sledding marathon that takes place each spring across Baffin Island. The format focuses sharply on the 17 sled teams comprised of Inuit natives hailing from such remote locales as Iqaluit, Repulse Bay and Clyde River. Tonight's opener details the myriad preparations leading up to the big race – some teams have an 11-day trek just to make it to the starting line – with the Arctic landscape providing a serenely beautiful backdrop.The Associated Press
REALITY Millionaire Matchmaker Slice, 8 p.m. ET/PT Patti Stanger still believes everybody has a soulmate out there – somewhere. The indomitable L.A.-based professional matchmaker remains the entire reason to watch this popular reality series, now in its fifth season. Two hour-long episodes air in succession tonight. In the first, Patti tries to find love connections for two bodybuilder brothers with plenty of baggage: One is just out of prison, while the other is recently divorced. In the second show, Patti deals with a 25-year-old dotcom millionaire in serious need of a dating confidence boost. Her solution: A coaching session with actress Jenny McCarthy!
SCIENCE NOVA PBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT One year later, many people forget that the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan was the fourth-largest earthquake in recorded history. Tonight's edition of this revered PBS series deconstructs the events of that catastrophic day with new perspective from the scientific community. The seismic shock wave created by the earthquake released 4000 times the energy of the largest nuclear bomb ever tested. And by shifting the earth's axis by six inches, the earthquake actually shortened the day by a few millionths of a second. The program features eyewitness accounts of the disaster, much of it shown for the first time on television.
DRAMA CSI CBS, CTV, 10 p.m. ET/PT Still holding up remarkably well in U.S. and Canadian ratings – and how many other shows in their 12th season can make that claim? – this no-frills crime procedural is on a roll with innovative stories of late. In tonight's new episode, the entire city of Las Vegas is plunged into a blackout. All is calm until a child is abducted, which forces new CSI boss D.B. Russell (Ted Danson) and his lab rats to resort to old-school forensic methods. Break out the candles and leeches!
MOVIE Jaws Spike TV, midnight ET; 9 p.m. PT Director Steven Spielberg could pretty much write his own ticket in Hollywood after making this 1975 thriller. The film version of Peter Benchley's bestselling novel was filmed on a budget of $9-million and went on to earn more than half a billion dollars in its initial box-office run. The story, in case you've never seen it, involves a massive great white shark attacking beachgoers on the fictional summer resort town of Amity Island. The local citizenry's solution is to send out police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), along with the crusty old sea dog Quint (Robert Shaw) and oceanographer Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) on a ramshackle fishing boat to capture and kill the beast. Even with the big rubber shark, it's a roller-coaster ride.