From The Hollywood Reporter via IO9:




Sounds very interesting! Here's the unique stuff about the production.



With this and Virtuality, looks like sci-fi is taking a more realistic turn with stories about astronauts instead of aliens and lasers. That could be a refreshing change from Stargate/Star Trek type shows. Plus Ron Livingston!

Pro7?! Ok, that's kind of exotic. On second thought, I know that Pro7 likes the BBC movie/documentary hybrids, where pretentious wannabee attention whore-ish pundits throw in some short words of wisdom between clips of some kind of story presented in realityTV style. I don't like these kind of shows that much (too pretentious for my style) but if they drop the pundit part, it might get me interested.

More articles and such...

From The Hollywood Reporter via thetvremote.com:

A full press release from the Beeb:

Thus, the cast so far (suppose to be eight astronauts and the latest press release only lists these six):

• Ron Livingston
• Laura Harris
• Eyal Podell
• Christina Cox
• Zahf Paroo
• Florentine Lahme

Okay, now that I think about it, Ron Livingston is such a "Kirk" (and since this is a relationship drama, there has to be a Post-It joke sometime, somehow). And, for those counting, three of the six have appeared in the Stargate franchise: Laura Harris; Christina Cox; and Zahf Paroo.

This show had me* at Laura Harris, but Christina Cox as well? Icing.
*At least for one episode, even Amanda Tapping being on Stargate: Atlantis couldn't get me to tune in regularly.

As far as being a "relationship drama" (that's how the main production studio is describing it) goes, given that it sounds like the team of eight will be stuck with each other for six years, the aspect that I'm pondering most is whether there'll be any GLBT character(s) and how TPTB would play out such relationship arcs, e.g., whether TPTB want the series to be mainstream (heteros only and perhaps a token character) versus "edgy" or realistic; and if there's only one gay or lesbian character, how he or she deals with not having any potential special someone(s) -- loneliness, depression, and whether they develop any substitute relations. Of course, other characters could be loner-types or of the "free love" variety.

The big mystery better not turn out to be some sort of "The Truman Show" twist (e.g., Real World in space).

Concerning US distribution rights, I'd guess that either WGN or the CW (which is desperate for a "quality" show) ends up grabbing them. Maybe Showtime (if the show seems too edgy for network or basic cable) or perhaps Sci-FI, but I don't really see any cable networks going for this since they'd probably think that their money was better spent developing their own original series.

Anyone seen a pilot script or have any scoops?

ABC (yes, The Alphabet) will be airing the series "this summer."

From thrfeed.com:

Please stop me if I am paranoid, but doesn't this sound awfully close to Virtuality, Ron D Moore's show on Fox that got cancelled even before the pilot aired?!

I'm wondering if Eyal Podell, who was mentioned in the BBC press release, got replaced for whatever reason with Malik Yoba (who isn't mentioned at all before the thrfeed.com article--which Eyal is missing from). I mean, hey, I like Malik, but I think I would have been looking forward to seeing Eyal in a new weekly gig a bit more.

Sunday, August 2nd is the ABC premiere date -- ABC Press release:


Here's the list of cast members:

ABC's press site has three pages of promo photo thumbnails for the show. (Only those with press credentials for the site can view/download the full-size images.)

redshirtx:

Based on the cast list, looks like Eyal is still in there.

I get a similar vibe, too, but 1) Ron Livingston is a much more vibrant and watchable lead actor than that guy they had on Virtuality (who always comes off to me as a very wooden actor) and 2) while the problem with Virtuality was that there was way too much talking and philosophizing, which bored viewers and got them reaching for the remote mid-episode, looks like Defying Gravity will be packed to the gills with action n' sex!

What remains to be seen is: are they going to take too much of a soap-in-space approach? I doubt the Gray's audience is up for sci fi at all - adding sex won't suddenly change their lack of interest in the genre - and the sci fi audience is notoriously contemptuous of anything that strikes them as soapy.

The press release noted that



Maybe it's just me, but that makes me think it's going to be moderately soapy by default. Though the main cast seems charismatic enough to make it work (maybe a little less so for Paula Garces and Florentine Lahme, but a couple of strategically tightened jumpsuits can probably make folks excuse that).

io9 has a short trailer for the show and it looks waaaay to soapy for me. The premise of the show being about astronauts is totally incidental to the fact that it features young attractive people having sex. Based on the trailer, this show could have just as easily been about firefighters, police officers or any other highly stressful, potentially dangerous occupation.

Man, at first I was all excited for this. Laura Harris and Christina Cox and sci-fi? Yes, yes, and yes! But... "Grey's in Space"? No, a thousand times No.

I want to like this show, and I can deal with most of the trailer (zero-g sex aside, the rest of it looks potentially good...), but damn if my inner cynic isn't going crazy thinking "Man, you know ABC's saving up what's left of their serious sci-fi cred for V."

Ah well, I really like both Ron Livingston and Christina Cox, and I will tune in to anything to watch Eyall Podell.

Right there with you, Bruinsfan: Eyal, Malik Yoba, and Paula Garces are mainly why I'm giving this show the benefit of the doubt (okay, and if nothing else it's not more reality TV).

One thing that's really bugging me is that the promos refer to the show as being about "love at the edge of the universe". Argh!

This starts on Sunday at 9 with a two-hour premiere. Is TWoP recapping it? It's a space show with soap, sex and Ron Livingston, it's 100% recappable.

Here's a review from LA Times that has a cool photo of Paula Garces in a spacesuit, captioned as Laura Harris:




Here's Variety:

This show would have been more appropriately titled Grey's Astronomy.

Part I just ended.

Wow. That was HILARIOUS. And not in an intentional way. Putting the nonsense from Grey's into an unrealistic version of a Space mission? Comedy gold.

Where is this shot? It has a lot of Canucks in it.

RL makes the show for me.

There's a positive review from the NY Times-- this actually intrigued me enough to record the pilot tonight.

According to this Variety article, it was shot in Vancouver with money from Canadian, US, German, and British partners.

So, fifty years in the future guys are still assholes. That's comforting.

Part II is over.

I have rarely laughed this hard. Two hours of straight laughter.

"Glad" to know that in 2052 (that's from the HUD displays) that Emo music still pollutes the airwaves (and annoying montage sequences of people having Space Nookie), that people still quip Grey's style with stuff like "She's a Space Nun", that leading women are still angsty messes who ramble and whine a lot, that guys are still annoying a-holes, and that gasp! There's a MYSTERY!

How do you bring on new cast members if this goes a few years (god forbid)? I'm supposing they probably aren't going on the whole 6 year solar system tour from the hints being dropped, but even still... its a bit hard to slot in replacements.

This reminded me of Virtuality at almost every turn. I didn't catch the first hour but I think I managed to figure it out. I can definitely see how sci-fi fans wouldn't enjoy this (too soapy). And the viewers who enjoy shows like Grey's Anatomy don't typically watch anything remotely sci-fi-ish. Not sure how it'll go over. Any news about how many episodes are scheduled to air? I see Wiki is showing another one for August 9th. Any info beyond that?

By the way, really loved the use of the phrase "knockin' boots"... nobody says that anymore. I certainly hope it's long forgotten by 2052 or whatever years it's supposed to be.

The sci-fi aspects I actually liked: if nothing else, that side of things was played relatively straight. And I'm definitely curious about this "Beta" pulling everybody's strings (though now I really wish I'd seen Event Horizon at least once for some reason). The cast, in general, I like. But holy mother of God...this wasn't just soapy. It was a friggin' economy-sized box of Purex with an iPod stuck in the middle. And the bitch of it is that I can accept everything except the music...

Was it just me, Snark Shark, or did you have a hard time seeing this group as being the 'one-in-one-thousand' who made it through to make this trip? I realize that there is probably SomethingElse that is determining who made the mission for other than physical and intellectual prowess, but...seriously?

It's Melrose Place in Space.

Dare I say it, the only one who really seems "out of place" is whatshisface--Wassenfelder, the porn-hunting non-swimming engineer. I'm assuming Beta has a hell of a sense of humor.

Maybe BetaMax really likes porn?

I don't watch Grays, I didn't watch Melrose, and I'm a fan of both soaps and sci-fi. I loved it. I hope that doesn't mean it's doomed.

So apparently NASA (or Beta) consider looking like a model the primary qualification to be an astronaut? Except for Porn Loving Nerd and German Hussy, everyone on that ship looks like they stepped out of a frickin' Calvin Klein ad.

How do magnetized nanofiber suits make Pro Choice Woman's ponytail hang downwards in zero gravity?

Wouldn't you be able to test the pressure fall off in a suit over-pressurized to 74 psi just as easily in the main part of the ship at normal atmospheric pressure as in the hard vacuum of the airlock? I mean, the pressure wouldn't drop below 1 atmosphere, but you'd know you had a leak for sure long before it got to that point. And wouldn't the test work better for Venus' conditions if you had the suit at low pressure inside the hyperbaric chamber to make sure Venus' atmosphere wouldn't be squirting in through a micro-leak, anyway?

Thank you, ABC. I had always wondered what would happen if Shonda Rhimes were allowed to write her own Star Trek spinoff, and now I know.

Snark aside... I am at least intrigued enough to watch next week.

I am also glad over 40 years in the future, women's reproductive rights are still an issue. Sigh... Despite all the cheesy goodness, I'm in. It's like a combo of Event Horizon, Sunshine, and 2001 with Meredith Grey-ish voiceovers. Well, we have been complaining for years that Meredith Grey is a black hole of happiness... ZING!

So the space honchos are going to make an announcement about Beta once they reach Venus, huh? Will it be a worldwide announcement or just telling everyone else working for the space agency? My guess is that Beta somehow originated from Venus and basically plotted out the Antares mission, oh yeah, it can also reverse vasectomies. It's handy that way, like The Island.

Rule One of Soap Opera: There are no rules in soap opera. Don't be throwin' SCIENCE! at people. It worked the way that it worked because that's how the writer/writers wanted it to work. Don't bring up your psi's and your hard vacuums and what a suit designed for Venus should actually be able to do. The suit did exactly what it was suppose to do...stop questioning things, Bruinsfan.

I'm not thinking that hard science has any real place on this show and will be disregarded whenever it stands in the way of a plotpoint. Blame Beta if something doesn't make sense.

I saw this too. Having not read the reviews or seen the ads for it, I didn't know the plot but holy crap, was this ever predictable. The only shock was that abortion is apparently illegal in 2052 America. And the whole plot of the second ep was pulling Zoe back into the spacecraft, which Donner did like he was belaying a wall climber (ie very slowly). Oh, and the big mystery? Please. I bet it's another "2001: A Space Odyssey" thing.

Oh, and based on next week's promos, the two married people on the spacecraft will be getting it on. I called that one, too!

And how was Donner able to toss his baseball and catch it if there no gravity?

I'll probably tune in again next week. Sigh.

ETA: Slogan for the Show: "In space, no one can hear you scream while you're knockin' boots."

This becomes a series while Virtuality doesn't? I don't understand that. Virtuality was better in almost every way. The most glaring one being that Virtuality had interesting characters and all Defying Gravity had was cardboard. The production values and cinematography on virtuality were light years ahead, as well.

The soap was painful. I'm sure that they will have to make decisions quickly to either give up completely on the hard sci fi motif or wash away most of the soap, because those two things are like oil and water. It felt like watching two different shows.

I think that America is primed to be drawn to a show with a sense of exploration and human achievement. To listen to all the buzz that is being generated about a manned mission to mars, you would think there would be an audience for such a show. For the blink of an eye, I thought this show might be it. I am so disappointed that it turned out to be sex in space.

Don't you DARE try and make sense of any of this! Stop! Please! You are ruining it by expecting logic, sense, real world, or even "comprehensibility".

Really, the only way to approach this show is through a MST3K filter. Seriously. Hold up your hands and make shadow puppets in front of the screen, mock the fact that Emo music somehow survived another 40 years, and that Meredith Grey's daughter somehow got blonde and made it into the space program (or maybe its Izzie's daughter, although she comes off more like Meredith).

Given the promos, I was impressed that we managed to get almost 15 minutes in before a nude scene. Just looks like screwing in space to me. I may watch it again next week if I happen to find myself sitting there with nothing to do and nobody to talk to or have sex with.

What the hell kind of show is this? I thought it was that RD Moore's thing that I started watching on Hulu the other week. It wasn't until I came here that I realised it was actually a different show. All I can say is that I guess it's a good thing there isn't a lot on on Sundays, eh?

Okay, so these two Mars guys were "alternates" on this Venus mission, then when they get there, suddenly they're in charge of the whole thing? Who was in charge of it before? Also, why are they saying things like "if you see a cow on Venus"? That's a joke, right?
Speaking of which, I didn't hear them describe how they're even going to be able to land there, let alone walk around in that 900° surface temp.

Why does no one else have a problem with Beardy deciding to leave those two guys behind on Mars?

ETA: I agree that if these were the "best of over a thousand candidates" the applications must have looked a lot like the American Idol auditions.

Two other people were in charge of it before, but they developed heart conditions that forced them off the mission, so their alternates stepped in. It's fairly clear their heart conditions were not natural, but caused deliberately, somehow, by some unseen entity called Beta, which is somehow controlling a lot of the mission. One gets the impression Beta is an alien entity or artifact.




Because if they hadn't left those two people behind on Mars, they apparently would have lost them, plus two other astronauts, plus the ship, plus whatever scientific whatevers were on the ship, thus making the whole mission a failure. Apparently the whole thing was considered a tragedy but perhaps an unavoidable one.

Anyway, I'm interested in what's up with Beta, the whole airlock thing was ridiculous, the whole "Indian guy will have a big Hindu themed freakout" was pretty damned insulting, I'm already disliking Laura Haring's character pretty hard, but I'll give it a few more episodes.

Does this show remind anyone of Odyssey 5?

Word. Unfortunately the acting was better on Melrose Place. (Now there's a phrase you don't hear often.)

Ron L. earned his money on this one. He really tries to bring something to a character we've seen a thousand times before. Unfortunately the writers have given him little to work with. I know there are talented actresses out there who don't look like models/astronauts (cuz they're the same thing) and there are casting people who know who they are. This was on ABC though and they Disnify everything.
Cliches on toast.

Guys, I've got it! "Beta" is either the ghosts of the dead people that Donner and his buddy left on Mars or the Space program retieved their bodies and "rebuilt" them as partial robots, like Darth Vader. Anyway, they've returned for revenge on the guys who left them for dead.

OK, I was kidding, but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised.

I knew they had replaced the "heart condition" guys. I just didn't realise that the "heart condition" guys were actually in charge. I also understand the idea that if they hadn't left the two guys on Mars that it would have meant everyone would have died. But I just didn't think they sold it well enough. At least, not for me.

Another question: why was that tether not automated? Everything else on that ship is done at the touch of a button, but the half mile long safety line has to be manually pulled in? Hmph. And why did that whole incident take so long?

Wow, that was bad. Not only were most of the characters grating, but many of the situations were just laughable. Like I know that Beta is supposedly responsible for the (cartoonishly stereotypical) Hindu guy's freakout, but who exactly is to blame for everyone allowing him to actually attach a figurine to the hull of the ship? Considering we've seen what hard foam can do, that seems safe. How did he attach it anway? Duct tape?

And what’s up with RL’s backstory? I can see a father having pro-ball ambitions for his star athlete son and maybe being disappointed that he didn't go that route, but I'm thinking astronaut would be a fairly acceptable second choice for pretty much anyone. His behavior made no freakin' sense. Was Beta behind that too? Was Beta also responsible for RL finding a drunken, sobbing, ranting LH so dang attractive even after she bitchily shut him down? And if that's how she handles thinking she might have failed her psych eval, I’m surprised that she passed. Considering the stresses of long-term space travel, I would think that you would need a better coping mechanism than getting blind drunk and sleeping with strange men that you apparently couldn’t stand an hour before.

Speaking of drunk, I loved how the doctor thought this long and incredibly dangerous space voyage was a good way to deal with the one guy's alcohol problem. I’m sure his crew mates would be glad to know that he'll be rehabbing while they’re so dependent on each other for their safety.

I also could have dealt without the reproductive rights sermon. At first, I thought it was interesting with even pregnancy tests being outlawed and I felt for her lack of choice. But then, it just went on and on and they kept hammering at it with no subtlety whatsoever. I thought it was especially obnoxious the way the biologist was so condescending about the payload specialist's comment like the woman had preached to her or something. I didn't even take what she said as having an agenda or being particularly pro-life. I took it more like she found it rather odd that the biologist was all brightly, "My husband and i call these our children", when she just finished saying that she destroys them. That's...cute? I'm pro-choice and I thought it was weird.

Having said that, I’d pretty much watch Ron Livingston read the phone book, so I’m gonna try and stick it out for the summer. I’ll just turn off my brain and adjust the this-makes-no-sense catchphrase from “A Wizard did it” to “Beta did it” for a while.

Well, as a fan of hard science fiction, I guess I’ll give this another week or two to see where it goes. If it goes off into soap opera land, I’ll probably be done with it.

I’m still intrigued about Beta, and why anyone would be following it’s directions. (I did notice that they referred to Beta as “it” more than once, leading me to think that this is an artificial intelligence they’re talking about.)

Of course, why would anyone build a trillion dollar ship like that on the orders of an A.I.?

I’m also interested in just why this mission is deemed necessary in the first place, since robotic probes can do that much more effectively and efficiently. At the same time, I’ll be interested to see how they handle the manned landing on Venus, which is possibly the most inhospitable place in the entire solar system.

And why are they all Americans? Except for the nympho German chick, and the nutso Indian guy - who was sent home before they even left orbit - out of "thousands of applicants" only the skinny catalogue model-looking Americans were selected for a mission that will affect the entire world. Oh, and by the way one of them is a drunk, one is a couch potato who watches internet porn, and one "hears" a baby crying everywhere she goes - as if all the anti-abortion talk wasn't enough. Subtle, writers.

They're Americans because it would be annoying to have to keep reading subtitles, they're skinny because they're astronauts, and they're pretty because nobody wants to watch ugly people on TV - just a fact of life. And evidently their mission includes messed up people because the selection process was not entirely up to NASA or whatever it was called - that was one of the points of the pilot, the unlikely people who made the cut.

A lot of non-Americans speak English, so there wouldn't be a need for sub-titles.

Did they say that they were mostly all Americans or are people just assuming they are? I checked IMDB. Many members of cast are non-American, it shouldn't be that difficult to make the characters different nationalities. The easiest thing would probably be to just put small patch of their flag on the arm of their uniform, the way they do now. I really didn't notice any flags. We're just into the first couple of episodes, so maybe it will come out later.

You're right about the skinny. Astronauts need to be in good shape.

I too was wondering why the tether was not automated. But I thought he was doing it slowly because they mentioned that she had dropped from 5 atmospheres to 2, and that it was like a scuba diver surfacing too quickly and they were afraid she would get the bends. So he was doing it at a slow rate. But when the pressure was dropping, he was told to hurry up.

I'm willing to watch it again. It might be a soap opera in space, but at least it's in space. That's a different backdrop than all of the other hospital/law firm/etc shows, and at least it's not yet another cop/procedural show.

Moving the tether quickly wouldn't have resulted in greater likelihood of the bends - that happens when you move to the ocean surface too fast because external pressure changes rapidly around you and the nitrogen in your blood forms bubbles. (That was going to happen due to depressurization no matter what speed she moved at.) They also ignored the fact that you wouldn't have to keep pulling on a tether to reel someone in from outer space since there wouldn't be any resistance other than inertia. In fact, doing so would be dangerous since you'd be applying acceleration the whole way back and they might hit the airlock at a pretty good clip. But the manual approach might have been necessary for Ron L to control her angle of approach.

Or, y'know, to ratchet up the tension since I'm sure no one would have guessed that Hallucinating Barbie might survive, what with half the screen time up to that point being devoted to her character...