Defying Gravity
I've been sort of passively watching this new Sci-Fi show for a while now, and it's kind of decent show. Not really outstanding compared to other shows, but certainly much better than most Sci-Fi shows I've seen, mostly because it actually recaptures what to me a Sci-Fi TV Show is about, which is the imaginary wonderment of the future. I'd tentatively say that that was the aspect that made Star Trek great, until it eventually imploded in on itself with pretentious melodrama.
Defying Gravity is treading a very fine path at the moment. It's is purely character driven, with the overarching story and the plot planted firmly in the background until the characters bring it to the surface. In a nutshell the story is about a group of astronauts on an epic tour of the Solar System operated by an apparently privately owned space organization. The twist however is that they're carrying something onboard the craft that's causing each of them to hallucinate scenes of their past guilt, which in turn mentally paralyzes them. Because of this, the show is flashback heavy. I'd say that so far each of the episode is about two-thirds flashbacks as it applies to each character when they're faced with a personal choice of sorts on their mission. The other angle of course is the characters figuring out why they're having such debilitating hallucinations, and what ground control is hiding from them.
So far it seems it's been hinted as an apparent 6 season epic. One season for each leg of their tour in the Solar System. The downside to this however is the infernally slow pace of the show so far. The, I think, 8th show of the first 13 episode run has only just aired and only now has the plot advanced somewhere beyond the point of having left Earth. So that's presumably 5 more hours of TV until they reach their first planned stop on Venus. So yeah, really heavy on the character stuff, and very little so far on the plot. The other problem though is because it's so heavily character driven there's a fair bit of character drama every episode. At the moment it's not constant melodrama, but it sort of teeters on the brink of doing so. It's almost like the writers want to keep it as dry and light to watch as possible, but sometimes can't help themselves in dramatizing things more than is necessary.
The show is pretty light Sci-Fi -- hardly any theatrics or action -- but there's definitely something heavy brewing underneath it, as the 8th episode that aired proved. Because this show was an international production it is not limited by the networks in the US. Unforunately, ABC, who was carrying the show there have decided to put the show on an "indefinite rescheduling hiatus" at the WORST possible moment. The 7th episode that aired was the precursor for the first big jump forward in the plot (it may as well have ended with 'To Be Continued...' at the end) but the 8th, which aired here in Canada, was caught in that "hiatus" and won't be shown on ABC until a new time-slot for the show is found. Really shitty move by ABC, I think.
The episodes that have aired however can be viewed online... just don't expect much in the way of plot advancement cause there wasn't much of any through them. I'm not sure if CTV (the show's carrier here) has their stuff region locked, but there's little chance of the show being cancelled here, as stations won't cancel something if Canadians had a hand in making it -- which this show had. The show is also planned to air on BBC2 in the UK; no start date yet as far as I can see, but it'd be interesting if the show was shot with commericials in mind or not since the BBC has no ads during programs.
I think this could be a really good Sci-Fi show, but it demands the viewer to have an exceptionally long attention span to get into because it moves along slower than a snail. Though given the state of a lot of American TV, I'm not surprised it being taken off ABC's airwaves.
Defying Gravity is treading a very fine path at the moment. It's is purely character driven, with the overarching story and the plot planted firmly in the background until the characters bring it to the surface. In a nutshell the story is about a group of astronauts on an epic tour of the Solar System operated by an apparently privately owned space organization. The twist however is that they're carrying something onboard the craft that's causing each of them to hallucinate scenes of their past guilt, which in turn mentally paralyzes them. Because of this, the show is flashback heavy. I'd say that so far each of the episode is about two-thirds flashbacks as it applies to each character when they're faced with a personal choice of sorts on their mission. The other angle of course is the characters figuring out why they're having such debilitating hallucinations, and what ground control is hiding from them.
So far it seems it's been hinted as an apparent 6 season epic. One season for each leg of their tour in the Solar System. The downside to this however is the infernally slow pace of the show so far. The, I think, 8th show of the first 13 episode run has only just aired and only now has the plot advanced somewhere beyond the point of having left Earth. So that's presumably 5 more hours of TV until they reach their first planned stop on Venus. So yeah, really heavy on the character stuff, and very little so far on the plot. The other problem though is because it's so heavily character driven there's a fair bit of character drama every episode. At the moment it's not constant melodrama, but it sort of teeters on the brink of doing so. It's almost like the writers want to keep it as dry and light to watch as possible, but sometimes can't help themselves in dramatizing things more than is necessary.
The show is pretty light Sci-Fi -- hardly any theatrics or action -- but there's definitely something heavy brewing underneath it, as the 8th episode that aired proved. Because this show was an international production it is not limited by the networks in the US. Unforunately, ABC, who was carrying the show there have decided to put the show on an "indefinite rescheduling hiatus" at the WORST possible moment. The 7th episode that aired was the precursor for the first big jump forward in the plot (it may as well have ended with 'To Be Continued...' at the end) but the 8th, which aired here in Canada, was caught in that "hiatus" and won't be shown on ABC until a new time-slot for the show is found. Really shitty move by ABC, I think.
The episodes that have aired however can be viewed online... just don't expect much in the way of plot advancement cause there wasn't much of any through them. I'm not sure if CTV (the show's carrier here) has their stuff region locked, but there's little chance of the show being cancelled here, as stations won't cancel something if Canadians had a hand in making it -- which this show had. The show is also planned to air on BBC2 in the UK; no start date yet as far as I can see, but it'd be interesting if the show was shot with commericials in mind or not since the BBC has no ads during programs.
I think this could be a really good Sci-Fi show, but it demands the viewer to have an exceptionally long attention span to get into because it moves along slower than a snail. Though given the state of a lot of American TV, I'm not surprised it being taken off ABC's airwaves.