Defying Gravity: Premiere

By Lisa Fary

Supposedly, Defying Gravity was pitched as “Grey’s Anatomy with astronauts”.  I’ve never seen Grey’s Anatomy, so I wouldn’t know how accurate that summation may be; however, ABC’s new sci-fi drama does have all kinds of emotional baggage and love parallelograms.

And, to my surprise, I liked it quite a bit.

Set in 2042, Defying Gravity centers on the crew of the Antares and its six year/ seven planet exploratory mission. Life on Antares is pretty mundane: the crew biologist and geologist spend their days in the lab performing experiments, other crew members meticulously check equipment for malfunctions, another crew member records daily life for broadcast to schools and such, doing her best to make it all terribly exciting.

This crew has a lot of baggage:

• Maddux Donner (Ron Livingston): He went to Mars in 2032 and had to abandon two crew members on the surface. The whole world knows about and he’s forever tainted by it.
• Ted Shaw (MalikYoba): Ditto.
• Dr. Mintz (Eyal Podell): A drunk. Such a drunk he was drinking before the launch.
• Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris): May or may not be knocked up. She was knocked up and considering her options, but her decision wasn’t made clear.
• Steve Wassenfelder (Dylan Taylor): His job on the mission could be done on the ground at Mission Control. No, including him, is really sure why he’s even on board.
• Jen Crane (Christina Cox): Her husband is on the ground at Mission Control for the next six years.
• Nadia (Florentine Lahme): Not sure what her issue is yet, but she’s horny all the time.
• Paula Morales (Paula Garces): Mostly just annoying.

Among all that human drama, there is a mystery: the mission isn’t being directed only from Mission Control. Something identified as Beta is directing the mission, right down to who gets to be on the crew. If it doesn’t get its way, things go awry. Whatever Beta is, it has the ability to screw with crew members’ medical readings and open an air lock door at will.

Parts of Defying Gravity are heavy handed (the knowing looks of doom when discussing Beta, pro-life discussion). Some parts didn’t work (primary culprit: Ron Livingston – I like the guy, but he doesn’t suit the role he’s given). But, despite those problems, it’s really enjoyable so far.

If you’re looking for hard hitting sci-fi, you’re not going to get it here. Defying Gravity doesn’t have an urgency to the mission like other sci-fi shows we’ve seen. Antares isn’t about saving the world (that we know of, yet) or seeking out alien life. It’s mostly about relationships. In space.

You know what that means. Bring the cheesecake.

Defying Gravity premieres in a two-hour event on Sunday, August 2nd at 9PM on ABC. Regular air time will be Sundays at 10PM to accommodate the obligatory zero-grav sex on the observation deck.

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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.

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