Philosaur called me Saturday night. Exciting, right? I know! We’ve been discussing stuff via email for a few weeks (or he has been, I’ve been procrastinating and apologizing) and he called me to tell me, “Check your email.” Cos in addition to other things, he wanted to make sure I saw the pilot episode of Defying Gravity, which was to expire in some terrifically short amount of time, like 18 hours or something. He told me it was a space show, with tons of character development, flashback stuff, cool tech, great characters. He said, “There’s even an episode called ‘Bacon!’” I said, “I have to get a new shtick.” Then I said, yeah, I’ll check it out.
So Sunday, with just a few hours left on the pilot window, I started watching. And kept watching. And went through the first three episodes before I had to get up and go do something else, because I knew I was heading for a devour-it-all-nighter. Monday night I watched two more. Last night I watched, “Bacon.” There’s one episode left on Hulu and a few more left to air on ABC. Doc tells me, because he knows all about this sort of thing, that it’s pretty well canceled. Its ratings are abysmal and its first 13 episodes are in the can, with no news about continuing for a full season, let alone a second.
But I don’t care. All I care about is this singing, quivvery feeling. I haven’t felt this in a long time. It’s the story of eight astronauts in the near future (2053, flashing back often to 2047 or thereabouts) on a ship called Antares. They’re on a six year mission to visit Venus, then Mercury, then Mars, then back to Earth. The main character, the narrator of the show is the Flight Engineer, Maddux Donner, played by the achingly handsome Ron Livingston. (Those of you following my tweets can pinpoint the exact moment yesterday when I fell in love with him.) They’ve also got a gruff on-board commander Ted, who’s married to a ground-control executive, Eve, whose pulling some crazy strings; hot German sex-bomb Pilot Nadia (who’s Maddux’s friend-with-benefits); jerk-off geek physicist Wass; biologist Jen, who is too practical and too emotional for her own good, probably because her husband, Rollie, was supposed to be on the flight with her as Commander but got sent back to Earth to be CAPCOM; horribly miscast Zoe the Geologist is in love with Maddux and he with her, but they’re ignoring it as best they can; Paula the annoying payload specialist, who’s gonna get it on with Wass, because they hate each other and come from different worlds and isn’t that how these things work?; Evram the alcoholic PTSD’d flight surgeon and his lover and partner on the ground Claire; Goss, whose the head honcho on the ground and is the Dickiest Dick who ever Dicked. Plus some other even more secondary characters, like Ajay the grounded flight engineer.
Are you still reading? I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. I’m not explaining things very well, because I am too crazy for it. It’s a soap opera. In what little discussion of it I’ve seen, people keep saying, “This is Grey’s Anatomy.” I’ve only seen one episode of that, but I spent it thinking, “All these people do is whine and screw. When do they see patients?” So yeah, you could totally be forgiven for thinking, “All these people do is have UST and flashback to when they were actually screwing. When are they gonna do spacey stuff?” But there’s a good amount of spacey stuff. They check widgets and they reboot things and they have EVA and puke jokes. It’s character-driven. I enjoy watching Nadia check systems, but I more enjoy the flashbacks that show us just how hard she threw herself at Maddux.
There’s a different, non-tech genre element to it as well. Everyone on board Antares and the major players on the ground all have a tragic past of some kind, or are connected to one. And they’re being influenced, down to the crew members on board at the last minute– Ajay and Rollie swapped out for Ted and Maddux. Eve and Goss apparently take its orders, as does Ted. Maddux and Ev are practically being tortured by it, but no one’s letting them in on what it is, how it works, or why it’s doing any of the things it does. Philosaur and I are speculating a little bit on what it is. He says alien tech. I can’t disagree; seems life-like, too– cruel and capricious. Maybe a little like Q, only more mysterious.
There’s still time to get in on it before it’s canceled. And maybe if the ratings tick up they’ll flesh out the season? I know better than to get my hopes up. Nevertheless, I haven’t felt like this in a long time. I don’t even think I fell this hard for Sylar. This takes me back to plunging into fascination with Severus Snape. This takes me back to the starry-eyed, no-appetite, can’t think or talk about anything but it Firefly. No kidding. As for Ron Livingston? Just typing his name makes my eyes roll back in my head a little bit.
Defying Gravity is on ABC Sunday nights at 9/8.
