I had seen enough of the Defying Gravity pilot to be intrigued by its science fiction-related material, even if the “Grey’s Anatomy in space” tag didn’t really do anything for me. Of course, I’m not opposed to love in space; it’s just that I’m not much of one for soaps, daytime or nighttime. But thankfully, while the various romantic “connections” are enough to excite some, the storylines and complexity of the mission of the Antares made for a delightful mini-series’ worth of television.
The show is truly an ensemble, with storylines that matter to those who remain behind on Earth and those who are traveling to Venus. All of the characters are interrelated based on their career arcs, their romantic trysts, and their loyalties through friendship. The “chief” character, at least the one who provides us with voiceovers from time to time, is Maddux Donner (Ron Livingston, best known for Office Space, most recently in The Time Traveler’s Wife), the ship’s engineer. What makes Donner intriguing, besides the apparent allusion to the Donner party, is that he has his own demons to battle in space. Donner is widely believed to have been solely responsible for leaving two other astronauts behind in the last space shuttle’s mission to Mars, and his guilt hangs over him like a cloud.
Others, like Paula Morales (Paula Garces), the payload specialist, and Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris), a geologist, have their own ghosts, skeletons, and other specters to battle while rocketing toward Venus, and upon arrival. Each member of the crew has some back story (don’t we all) that gets pulled out into the open. It’s no secret from day one of the show or the mission that something strange is going on, but we soon find out that it’s the Beta. Of course, one of the great mysteries of the show is the evaluation of what Beta is, like Lost season one’s exploration of the Hatch or the ongoing struggle to find out what the Island itself is. Like the Island, this Beta has some effects on each of the crew members, but like the sister show on ABC, Defying Gravity’s conundrum is determining whether those effects are “real” or merely offshoots of a sense of isolation in space. (It’s like Sphere, only better.)
Whether Beta is “responsible” or not, the truth is that this latest sci-fi show goes to great ends to evaluate the sense of purpose and community in space. Why are we here? Why do I matter? Is my story written or a blank slate? I actually found that the show’s text seemed to be much deeper than the average soap, which may be why it was canned before all of the original episodes had been aired. Maybe if more people had seen the whole thing, then they would have bought into it. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case of an audience wanting something less smart and more titillating.
In the end, after discourses on Job and a closing recitation of the Hail Mary (the prayer, not the pass), Defying Gravity proved that we can be more than we think we can, once we finally face our demons and stare them down. Maybe courage is what we have when everything else is lost, but the show’s finale seemed to highlight that our integrity, our knowledge of the truth, is important, too. I’m a fan of the discourse and the subject matter, and disappointed that there won’t be a follow-up. It’s too bad, really, because it seems to me that our souls, in the midst of crisis, will always be the final frontier.
