An ambitious project about an equally lofty flight to the Red Planet appears to have connected with Canadians, who handed strong numbers to the Discovery Channel’s two-part Race to Mars. The $20-million mini beat expectations when it debuted on Sept. 23 — playing to 370,000 viewers (2+, national) — and brought most of them back for part two, which reached 310,000 in the same slot this past Sunday.

The two-hour premiere aired opposite the return of Global comedies The Simpsons and King of the Hill, but avoided the premiere of Desperate Housewives on sister network CTV, which debuted a week later. It was the number one show on specialties among adults 25-54 and 18-49, and is the now the channel’s most-watched homegrown special to date. It was produced in association with Montreal’s Galafilm Productions

‘Although some of the repeat airings did not perform up to Discovery’s estimates, I think the program delivered strong audiences,’ says Dennis Dinga, VP, director of broadcast buying at M2 Universal. A rerun of the first part on Sept. 26 reached only 83,000 viewers (2+), airing in part opposite the highly rated debut of Private Practice.

Discovery president Paul Lewis tells Playback Daily they’re ‘really pleased overall’ with Mars‘ performance, and offered some reasons for the weak repeat airing.

‘We did not promote the repeat airing because we did not want people to become confused between part one and part two, but also, we built so much interest in [Mars] that people who really wanted to see the show, were drawn to the premiere,’ he says. Discovery reaches about 7.6 million Canadian homes.

Race to Mars will be followed by a companion documentary series, Mars Rising, which is set to debut Sunday in the same timeslot.

Mars has already been presold to international broadcasters including ARTE in France, Japan’s NHK, the Science Channel in the U.S., and Discovery Networks International.

‘We’re in good shape,’ notes Lewis. ‘At this point we’ve pretty much covered off the financing, and [Mars] is slated for broadcast in just about every international territory,’ he adds.