Review - Defying Gravity Season 1 Episode 3 Threshold

I'll keep this review brief since essentially, nothing happened. I don't know if I'm going to continue watching, but I have lots of time. The plot was weak and advanced nothing. After the horrendous ratings it pulled last night, I'm thinking ABC might actually drop it in a couple weeks though I'm hoping there are major changes before that (highly unlikely).

There is lots of zero-gravity puking by Paula and flashbacks at a strip club with the astronauts testing the HALOS by seeing who can get an erection under the hormone inhibitors. It is disturbing and pointless. When the absurdity of the show couldn't be any higher, the writers just had to throw that one in. Oh yeah, did I mention that Paula in her bra is what did it for Ajay? To make matters worse, Shaw is unresponsive after going into pod 4, prompting Jen Crane to talk to him, in the process, showing in a flashback, that they had sex before. Donner and Zoe also talked about Donner's rule about not dating astronauts and they both agree to it. There is something wrong with the lander, and mission control fixes it without telling Donner and Zoe which was the main spaceship thing this week. Ajay is denied access to the space center and is sad about it. Yep, that's as deep as it gets. The episode was attempting to teach us something about doors with Donner's voice over, and Ajay doesn't want to open his door since he already packed everything.

We learned a little more about Beta. It changed everyone's euchromatic and heteromatic gene variations so they are exactly the same. This week the doctor is brought into the loop, but the audience doesn't learn much else. This reveal didn't do much since most people don't know what the hell the phrase meant, but the thing in pod 4 can change the genome and somehow get the people in mission control to do what it wants. What is its form of communication and what makes it so important? These questions are what keep me still interested.

I like the mystery behind the show and despise all else. The creators of the show made a grave mistake trying to make this a soap opera. They succeeded, and made a soap opera instead of a space opera and now we have Defying Gravity. What they should have done is get rid the melodrama, add a little more tension, spend more time on Beta, and get some writers that don't used the same hackneyed clichés. That would be my hope for the show, but that's not going to happen as they've already filmed a bunch of episodes.

Score: 7.7/10

Defying Gravity vs. Virtuality

Earlier this summer, Fox aired a movie/pilot named Virtuality created by Ronald D. Moore, the master behind the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. That show has a very stark resemblance in some regards to Defying Gravity. Now I'm not going to claim that one show copied from the other, but I would like to point out some similarities and differences.

Both shows involve long term space travel, but the goal in Virtuality is to find an inhabitable world outside our solar system. In Defying Gravity, they are on a preset course around the universe. It seems more in reach, but nonetheless challenging for all.

First of all, the reality show. The Virtuality reality show is shown in a Real World/Surreal Life/Big Brother sort of way. There are hidden cameras and quality cameras used to record the person speaking to the audience. It's much more surreal in the fact that it's a fucking space mission, but it's also a show for huge profit with a huge audience. The Defying Gravity show is more toned down, less intrusive, more instructional. It's not about showboating or revealing the despair of the travelers. In this regard, I think Defying Gravity did a better job.

The characters of each crew has both men and women, but where Defying Gravity has the usual cliches, Virtuality has a very broad base of characters. There are unusual people and personalities in Virtuality. I know they;re not really astronaut material, but neither are those in Defying Gravity, so the hell with it. If you're not going to portray realism, go all out and be crazy.

The "scifi elements" are very different. There is almost no discussion of science in Defying Gravity, and we don't know the propulsion or the sustainability. All we know is that they have the capability to go around the solar system within 6 years and stay alive. Virtuality explains the oxygen production and how they will get out of the solar system.

The way each show deals with the long term nothingness is very interesting. Defying Gravity deals with it in a way that shows a disturbing lack of creativeness from the creators. Essentially, the astronauts will have to spend 6 years with the same people doing god knows what. They are specifically given "Halo" patches that decrease libido, but what are they supposed to do? If someone offered me the chance to spend 6 years doing research on a cramped ship I'd decline in a heart beat. I don't dream about the stars and I certainly wouldn't want to come back to Earth with 6-years passed by. Virtuality takes a page from Ron Moore's other new show Caprica with the virtual reality. The astronauts put the devices on and they can enter any scenario of their choice. This leads to some wild experiences and insight into the character.

Both shows have a twist with a little mystery behind it. The Defying Gravity ship Antares has something on board that controls people. The Virtuality ship Phaeton has a virus or something on board that is hurting people in the virtual world, even raping a member. In the end, the captain kills himself, but "downloads" himself into the virtual world.

The human reactions to the journey are different and odd. In Defying Gravity, the astronauts seem fine, upbeat, and even indifferent even though they will engage in a journey with probably dire consequences. Virtuality takes a much deeper tone reflecting on the real psychological impact on how people would react to long term space flight bolstered by weird virt modules.

Review - Defying Gravity Season 1 Episode 1 Pilot Season 1 Episode 2Natural Selection

I was hesitant to watch this since it was touted as Grey's Anatomy in space. I'm definitely not a fan of Grey's Anatomy and other prime time soaps. I might watch it once in a blue moon, but never regularly. I am however, a huge fan of scifi and seeing a space show on one of the main networks skewed me into watching.

There is a huge flaw in advertising this as Grey's Anatomy in space. Scifi fans don't watch Grey's Anatomy, and Grey's Anatomy fans don't watch scifi. I have no clue what ABC or the producers were thinking. I think they could have pitched the show with more Lost in mind. Admittedly, Defying Gravity isn't traditional scifi, but ABC has to know what kind of audience they want and judging by the overnights, they were way off the mark.

The plot revolves around an unrealistic portrayal of astronauts as they go on a 6-year journey to a bunch of different planets. 4 men and 4 women great idea... They also have HALOS patches that supposedly inhibit libido, but we know that's not going to work out.

There is a pretty big conspiracy/mystery behind everything which I will go into after explaining the plot of both episodes along with commentary.

The main character is Donner played by Ron Livingston. He's an all-American hero, he left some people behind on Mars, he's kind of impulsive...we've seen him before. Throughout the show, he gives little commentaries a la Meredith from GA, and like most TV monologues, there weren't any insightful things said. We kind of just learned a little about how he thinks. There was nothing profound, different, or special about it.

At first, Donner and Shaw who was with him on Mars are just the alternates. Simultaneously, Ajay and the commander Crane have some kind of heart condition that make them unable to make the journey safely. Donner steps in as flight engineer for Ajay, and Shaw becomes the commander.

Interspersed through the show are video clips of the members talking that are shown to the public. It's similar in style to Virtuality which I will go into in my next post. The astronauts muse fairly unrealistically about their thoughts and is kind of bland as well. The "reality" show involves Paula going around with a camera asking people questions. It's not very intrusive and I actually liked the fun tone it brought to the show. Maybe it's just Paula, but I like her character.

The main problem of the pilot is Ajay who puts his spacesuit on a walks out of the ship. When Donner and Shaw get there, Donner manages to talk him down. I was hoping for something dark, maybe Ajay dying or going crazy, it seemed Donner got him back too sudden.

There are flashbacks showing Zoe Barnes during training. It turns she became pregnant from some guy who said he had a vasectomy but didn't really. Jen Crane, the wife of Rollie Crane, the commander helps her get an abortion which from my impression are now banned. Everyone seems overly promiscuous so I really don't get it and this show doesn't seem to be one that will delve into social issues since they'll be in space with 5 other people for 6 years.

When Donner gets his physical, the doctor tells him that scans show he doesn't have a vasectomy even though the chart says he does. This is a pretty big clue that he was the one who had impregnated her which is confirmed in the second episode.

There is an ongoing thing with Zoe hearing sounds of a baby. It probably has to do something with her abortion. Ghosts? Her mind? It's interesting and I'm hoping it can shed light on the abortion ban. Also, Donner has dreams of being on a spacewalk while Zoe is naked and floating out of the spaceship. This happened when he wasn't even slated to be on the ship, and later he brings up "fate" to Shaw.

In the second episode, Zoe is testing her suit, but the door suddenly opens and she flies out. To make matters worse, there is a leak in her suit and pressure is dropping. Luckily, Donner had, as a result of his dream, attached the tether to her suit even though it was unnecessary. He manages to pull her in, saving her.

The flashbacks show how Donner semi-stalked Zoe until she slept with him. Right after that happened, she gets a call saying she is part of the space program. The flashbacks also show how physicist Steve Wassenfelder had some self-confidence issues and failed the swimming portion and how Ajay helped encourage him.

Jen Crane is working on natural selection with bunny embryos, looking at natural selection and then destroying them. Paula asks her some questions about doing that and she gets a little testy.

And finally, the conspiracy/mystery/what makes this show interesting. There are references in the show to "it" deciding things. How "it" decided it didn't want Ajay and Rollie and miraculously gave them heart murmurs, putting Donner and Shaw on board. "It" got Steve onto the ship even though he bombed the swimming. Somehow the mission commander Mike Goss and Shaw's wife Eve follow it's orders more than tests or qualifications. Later, Eve says it is onboard the ship and called it "Beta." 

It's possible there is alien influence which is kind of lame. What would be cool is if it were some kind of entity of fate, a physical manifestation of destiny that influences everything. Zoe seems to imply that this Beta is stored in pod 4 and Shaw has to get to it. At the end of the episode, he goes into pod 4, the door closes behind him and he starts screaming.

I have some issues to gripe about. The show is set in 2052 except nothing is modernized. Bathrooms look exactly the same, bars look exactly the same and mission control looks exactly the same. The visual effects were decent for a low-budget TV production, but there were some times when the ship going through space looked pretty bad.

Other than the twist with the thing controlling everything, the show is basically a rehash of things we've already seen. There wasn't too many soap opera elements, but from the set up, I can see where we can get huge doses of it, something I certainly do not want. I will continue watching and review the show since I want to see exactly what's on the ship.

Score: 8.0/10

I will have a post named Defying Gravity vs. Virtuality in a couple hours. Stay tuned.