John Reardon knew that change was afoot at Arctic Air when he showed up to begin filming the third season and noticed that everything in his wardrobe was a size smaller.
"My vest looked like an eighties muscle shirt," the Vancouver-based actor recalls during a media junket held in the depths of the CBC's downtown headquarters. "The clothes got a lot tighter."
Reardon portrays ace pilot Blake Laviolette on the popular CBC action-drama, which follows the romantic exploits and cold weather adventures of the staff of a scrappy Northern airline.
For the past two seasons, Reardon's character has been caught up in a complicated love triangle with Pascale Hutton's Krista Ivarson and Adam Beach's Bobby Martin.
But season three finds Blake, Krista and Bobby moving on from the messy triangle and stakes being raised for all of the characters in two critical areas: action and sex.
Action gets an adrenaline boost when the titular airline introduces a search and rescue component.
"You're going to find that a lot of episodes, now that we have the search and rescue, it's not about us," says Beach. "It's about the environment. It's about the incident. It's about life and death."
As for sex, the show has never shied away from depicting gorgeous people engaged in sweaty liaisons; just expect more of it in year three. "There are some sexy times this season," says Hutton, whose sexy times involve a new character portrayed by Primeval: New World star Niall Matter.
"I hate him," laughs Beach. "He's too handsome, he's too charismatic, and he has muscles."
There's a steady stream of laughter during the cast interview; the actors clearly like and admire each other. Perhaps theirs is a camaraderie forged on location in faraway Yellowknife.
"It's almost like a paid vacation. The last trip we went up, we worked from 9am to 4pm. We couldn't work anymore because it got dark fast and you got to just take your time and relax," says Beach. He pauses thoughtfully. "They need hot tubs. One of these years I'm going to start a company up there and I'm going to have about 12 hot tubs."
Hutton is proud of the spotlight that Arctic Air has shone on Canada's North. "It's a part of the country that's not easy to get to, and I think we've really opened Canadians' eyes to the diversity of Canada," she says. "We've illuminated the romanticism of the North."
"Damn. That's beautiful," says Beach.
Arctic Air airs Tuesdays at 9pm on CBC Television.
