Defying Gravity Defies Originality
Source: By CHRIS JANCELEWICZ
Posted: 07/27/09 4:25PM
Filed Under: Television
The creators and producers of the new ABC space drama Defying Gravity have been pitching the show as "Grey's Anatomy in space." They proclaim that it's not your typical science-fiction show, but a new animal, something we've never seen before. This is problematic for two reasons: one, it's not original. We have seen it done before (and better); Two, it's a fairly transparent rip-off of sci-fi cult hit Battlestar Galactica, minus the ingenuity and intrigue.
The show follows the adventures of eight astronauts, four men and four women, on board the spacecraft Antares for a six-year mission. The astronauts' lives are recorded and broadcast back to Earth as part of an ongoing documentary. Complicating the mission is a mysterious storage pod/entity that's on board the ship, which inexplicably has a secret impact on their destination and functionality. Any more details about that little tidbit are being kept tightly concealed.
It's no surprise that the networks want to strike while the iron is hot. Superheroes, comics, space, and the supernatural (in other words, all things geeky) have never been so popular, both on TV and the big screen. On paper, the idea is foolproof: take a winning formula and make it more accessible to a wider audience (i.e. dumb down the 'nerd' elements, add more dramatic relationships). But something doesn't translate here.
Top Ten TV Shows in Space
Battlestar Galactica,2004-2009
We can't say enough good things about this space drama. Hopelessly dark and brooding, BSG followed the trials and tribulations of mankind's few survivors on the ill-fated Battlestar Galactica - and that's just on the surface. The show also explored the questions of God, fate, immortality, love, and any other existential fare you can think of, all the while keeping us hooked with hot, sexy, and compelling characters. It's only been off the air for a few months, but we still feel the ache.
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Star Trek,1966-1969
This, and the subsequent sequel show The Next Generation, were smash hits for the same reasons: interesting characters, great (and very cheesy) plotlines, and lots of aliens. The debate rages on as to whether Captain Kirk or Picard was better, but there will be opposing sides until the end of time. All we really need to say is that Spock rules, Data rules, and that's that.
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Firefly, 2002-2003
Created by Buffy mastermind Joss Whedon, this show was like a western in space. The series is set in the year 2517, after a group of humans finds a new star system. It follows the adventures of the renegade crew of the ship Serenity, which ekes out survival at the outer fringes of the galaxy. The shoe was a ratings disaster, and it was taken off the air a year after it premiered.
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The Outer Limits, 1963-1965
We've all heard it before: 'There is nothing wrong with your television. Do not attempt to adjust the picture.' This popular catchphrase opened every episode of The Outer Limits, basically warning us that we're entering unfamiliar territory. Every episode featured a new cast and story; the show generally focused on things like time travel, human evolution, and space.
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Doctor Who, 1963-1981
A British favourite, Canadian adults can probably recall the creepy theme song from their youth. The show was always cheesy, especially in terms of costumes and special effects. But the point of it was to suspend disbelief and enter the magical universe of the Doctor, who travelled through space and time aboard the Tardis, a phone booth he made into a time machine. Imaginative, to say the least.
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Taken, 2002
Long considered one of the great sci-fi miniseries, Taken spans five decades and four generations, and centres on three families: the Keys, the Crawfords, and the Clarkes. As the decades go by, the heirs of each family are affected by the machinations of the aliens, culminating with the birth of a girl, Allie Keys (played by a young Dakota Fanning), the final product of the aliens' experimentation and the key to their future.
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Lost in Space, 1966-1968
Both mocked and revered, this show was the first and only sci-fi sitcom set in space. Set in the future, in this case 1997 (ha ha), the world is dangerously overpopulated, so the Robinson family sets out to colonize nearby Alpha Centauri. (Never mind that it's only one family - how are they to populate without being incestuous?) It all ends up being of no consequence, since they crash land on an alien planet and their ship is destroyed. Each week was an exercise in space comedy.
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Buck Rogers, 1950-1951
You've probably heard of him: Buck Rogers is/was an integral part of the American culture, especially in the 1950s. Based on a comic book character, Rogers represents everything a swashbuckling American should be: confident, brave, and virtuous. This pop phenomenon paralleled the development of space technology in the 20th century and introduced Americans to outer space. It didn't last very long, since it fluctuated from lead actor to lead actor, but it was eventually brought back in comic book, TV, and film forms.
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Futurama, 1999-2003, Returning in 2010
This brilliant Matt Groening creation has an amazing cult following. Featuring the bizarre and oft-hilarious adventures of this maligned crew of misfits (including a lobster-like man creature and a sarcastic, drunken robot), Futurama pokes fun at sci-fi while being a sci-fi show itself. It was recently resurrected due to incredible DVD sales and the popularity of the series' TV movies.
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Flash Gordon, 1954-1955
Flash Gordon is based on the characters of the Alex Raymond-created comic strip of the same name. Diverging from the storyline of the comics, the series set Flash, Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov in the year 3203. As agents of the Galactic Bureau of Investigation, the team travels the galaxy in their ship the Sky Flash, battling cosmic villains under the order of Commander Paul Richards. Immediately popular, the show mirrored a lot of the anti-Communist and capitalist sentiment in the United States.
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Starring lovable Office Space star Ron Livingston as Maddux Donner (Sexy space moniker? Check!), Defying Gravity is generating a lot of buzz on his name alone. Unfortunately, the character's excessive philosophical voice-overs are cringe-worthy, and I yearned to see him sarcastically grin and make a funny, snide comment. No such luck.
Joining him at the helm of a wayward cast is 24 alum Laura Harris, who plays the ship's geologist, Zoe Barnes. Cue the sexual tension, which sadly does not move beyond PG Dawson's Creek-style love-hate flirting. Come on, even Dawson got somewhere eventually!
Defying Gravity is bookended by pretentious mottos, which you can already see adorning the show's cult paraphernalia. Hearing Maddux Donner repeat the sage-less words of his drunkard father is like hearing him read a fortune cookie. Twice.
Despite the gnawing voice-overs and the sex-less tension, nothing can compare to the show's blatant plot rip-off. Several elements of the story seem lifted directly from the set of Battlestar Galactica. There were many times during Defying Gravity that it felt like I was watching a diluted, mainstream version of the survivors of mankind at war with the Cylons.
Yet where Defying Gravity could have used a BSG-injection it fails to compute. Even though it was set in space, BSG's relationships were all intense, raw, and heart-wrenching. You felt the emotions. In Defying Gravity, there's sex, sure, but it feels canned and gimmicky. Seeing a couple in coitus floating in an airlock is laugh-out-loud ridiculous. What's even more unbelievable is the NASA control centre turning off the cameras so a couple can have sex. Apparently the internet doesn't exist in the future.
Another BSG success was the religious undertones throughout the series. The God argument has been screened ad nauseum, but BSG did it in a fresh and inoffensive way. Defying Gravity rehashes the old formula and uses "other" religions like Hinduism and Buddhism to make things more existential.
In one scene, a crew member takes his statue of Ganesha out on an unauthorized spacewalk and causes a panic whilst he meditates on his future. As Donner tries to talk him back into the ship with some Chicken Soup for the Soul dreck, the lost Hindu pleads, "But Ganesha and I are having a great time out here." Food for thought.
What hurts the most about this show is not that it takes ideas and plot points from a far-superior show, but that these elements are reduced to such tripe. Watered down are the questions of fate and destiny, the concept of immortality, and the mysterious entity that guides them. Two of the characters even have the same dream together, which was a recurring theme on BSG. I won't even get into the leading blonde 'sexpot'.
It's difficult to care about the people aboard the Antares, especially because we've seen it all before. The oft-repeated mantra from BSG was 'All of this has happened before, and will happen again.' I'm not quite sure that Defying Gravity was what they had in mind.
Check 'Defying Gravity' out for yourself. It premieres Sunday, August 2 at 9 pm ET on CTV.
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