'Defying Gravity,'
among other things
ABC drama is a bit of everything, little of it original
By Tom Conroy
Jul 31, 2009
“Defying Gravity” is a somewhat innovative attempt to combine the romance and sex of a typical nighttime ensemble drama with the action, suspense and special effects of science fiction.
But it also contains a load of supernatural mumbo jumbo that throws everything off balance. By trying to appeal to fans of “Star Trek,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Lost” all at the same time, it will probably appeal to no one.
Set in the year 2052, with plentiful flashbacks, the series chronicles the voyage of the Antares, a spacecraft on a six-year mission to explore seven planets. This already sounds a little ambitious—the Enterprise was only on a five-year mission (which lasted only three seasons).
The difference between “Defying Gravity” (premiering this Sunday at 9 p.m. on ABC) and more traditional sci-fi dramas like “Star Trek” is that in the new show many of the characters are involved in sexual relationships, and the space action is constantly interrupted by portentous flashbacks that illuminate the characters’ complex personal lives.
The two main characters, Maddux Donner (the always enjoyable Ron Livingston of “Office Space”) and Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris), have a romantically charged mentor-trainee relationship that recalls the on-again, off-again dynamic of Meredith and McDreamy in “Grey’s Anatomy.”
In fact, Donner and Zoe meet cute in a flashback that will have viewers flashing back to that series’ premiere. (The creator of “Defying Gravity,” James Parriott, was a writer and executive producer on “Grey’s.”)
Adding more romantic entanglement, but not more intrigue, Donner’s best friend, Ted Shaw (Malik Yoba), is married to their boss (Karen LeBlanc), who runs what is apparently an international space agency. Also traveling on the Antares is Nadia Schilling (Florentine Lahme), a German pilot who has a purely physical relationship with Donner.
(By the way, the scene of zero-gravity sex that has been hyped in ABC’s commercials turns out to be rather modest.)
The backstories are unoriginal. Donner (understandably, few people call him Maddux) is tormented by memories of being forced to abandon two fellow crew members on a previous mission to Mars. He also has an approval-withholding, drunken father who provides him with much material for his voice-overs.
Another view into the characters’ psyches comes through scenes shot in a reality-TV-style “confessional,” in which they share their thoughts and fears to a camera, having been assured that nothing they say will wind up in their permanent records. This device, unfortunately, was already used in “Virtuality,” the failed space-travel pilot that ran as a TV movie on Fox earlier this summer.
The more conventional plot exposition falls back on overused movie and TV tropes. The astronauts unwind and hook up in a rowdy bar. Waking from nightmares, two different characters gasp and sit upright in bed. Just when you think a guy has struck out with a girl, there’s a quick cut to the two of them in a passionate embrace, slamming each other up against the wall.
Most egregious is the obvious, and apparently unironic, rip-off of the shot in “The Right Stuff” in which the backlit astronauts walk in slow motion toward the camera. This is one of those clichés that by now are more parodied than copied.
The backstories come to us in bits and pieces that gradually make more sense the longer we watch, much as they have for the past five seasons of “Lost.”
The difference is that on “Lost,” the characters’ pasts were fresh and so quirky that they made us wonder how they could all fit in with the larger plot. (Whether they do or not on “Lost” is another matter.)
A greater similarity to “Lost” is the show’s supernatural element.
In the first two episodes (which will both air Sunday), we begin to learn about an ominous something that keeps disrupting the space agency’s plans—or may have plans of its own. This unexplained whatchamacallit may be behind the characters’ recurring dreams, which have a way of foreshadowing later events.
Viewers who don’t sigh and roll their eyes during those endless “Lost” discussions about whether “the island wants you to stay” may find this interesting.
The various plotlines raise questions, some addressed in dialogue, about such weighty subjects as fate, what makes us human and even the ethics of abortion. That weight is far too much for such a leaky space vessel.
Rather than allowing the producers to head off in so many directions, ABC should have made them choose whether they wanted their show to be “Space Anatomy” or, er, “Lost in Space.”
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