ABC’s new outer-space drama debuted on Sunday night. Will Defying Gravity be allowed to complete its mission or, like so many shows before it, be lost in space?
Defying Gravity follows the adventures of eight international astronauts as they fly a spaceship named Antares. On a top-secret mission, their lives are being recorded and telecast on Earth as part of a documentary. Despite the fact that the crewmembers wear libido-suppressing devices, there are plenty of romantic entanglements.
The show features the talents of Andrew Airlie, Christina Cox, Paula Garces, Laura Harris, Peter Howitt, Florentine Lahme, Karen LeBlanc, Ron Livingston, Ty Olsson, Zahf Paroo, Eyal Podell, Maxim Roy, Dylan Taylor, and Malik Yoba.
The sci-fi drama’s storyline is strangely similar to the failed pilot for Virtuality that aired a month ago. Defying Gravity is a Canadian series that’s co-produced by CTV, Omni Film Productions Limited, and Fox Television Studios. Filming has been completed on all 13 episodes of season one and Defying Gravity is currently airing in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States.
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The show has been pitched as “Grey’s Anatomy in space” but unfortunately it hasn’t attracted the same level of viewership for ABC. Defying Gravity debuted on Sunday with a pair of episodes and was outperformed by competition of predominately repeats. The first hour attracted merely 3.83 million viewers and only a 1.1/3 rating/share in the 18-49 demographic. The second hour dropped to 3.56 million while the demo numbers stayed the same.
Defying Gravity moves to its regular timeslot of 10pm this Sunday night. Based on these numbers and the expected drop in ratings for the show’s second night, it’s very doubtful that ABC will continue to air the series for very long.
One has to wonder if ABC really expected the series to last very long anyway. As of now, the network has only scheduled some of the 13 episodes. By the time that Brothers & Sisters returns for its fourth season, at most only nine episodes of Defying Gravity will have aired.
Whether ABC intends to move the show to a new night (normally Saturday but there’s college football coming) or pull it altogether remains to be seen. Either way, with numbers like these, it’s inconceivable that the show will be coming back for another year on ABC.
What do you think? Should the show have a future or should ABC just pull the plug and cancel it already?
Image courtesy ABC.
I love this show. It would be a shame for such an innovative show like this to be pulled before we get a chance to know and love the characters. So many shows get canceled before the public has a chance to catch on to how good they are. Keep it on the air! Please!
Please don’t cancel this. I love this show so much. Please! I want to see what is in POD 4. Please oh please! This was the only show my boyfriend and I watched together that we both enjoyed very much.
Please dont cancell.
Let ABC know your comments, to hopefully reverse the decision
http://abc.go.com/site/contact-us
this show was the only reason i even watched something affiliated with ABC. Hulu.com rapes cable. and I GUESS i’m not suprised at the poor tastes of whoever thinks such an imaginative pioneering voyage through the stars wouldn’t take. We all want to get outta here. Make space ships, not war. 😀
I must be cursed with ABC. It seems every time I start to enjoy one of their shows, it gets cancelled (i.e. Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, Life on Mars), and now, Defying Gravity. After enough seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, and Desperate Housewives, repeating the same old routines, and one cancellation after another of show that can be truly appreciated, I stopped watching ABC completely. Then came Defying Gravity, and finally a sci-fi show that has a soul. It wasn’t about chasing down the next space alien that threatens Earth, but a grounded approach about humans exploring the… Read more »
This who thing is just a bunch of hog wash.. The low rating should be blamed on the limited to any at all marketing and a terrible time slot. Like seriously Late Sunday nights!! You can definately do so much better then that!
Why do network execs always cancel any shows with a modicum of intelligence or creativity, and uplifting dramas with good values? And then they inevitably replace it with mindless dribble such as The Bachelor, Shark Tank, Supernanny or other “reality” shows that have little or no resemblance to actual reality. I don’t watch TV to be reminded of real life, but to forget about it, and the “reality” is nearly always faked, and NEVER entertaining. Or better yet, they will spit out yet another version of a popular show – there are now 5 variations of CSI and 3 of… Read more »
They have never kept a decent shop on the air, they always cancel, for no apparent reason. I think they should cancel ABC, fox and others close the damn network down, its a disgrace to viewers, that cant get to enjoy a decent show with out it being pulled out from under us! want examples? (firefly, life on mars, journeyman, enterprise) the list goes on and on and on….better to start reading books, at least no one can remove the last 20 pages, so there is a conclusion…totally useless network jerks!
I\’m going to quit watching new shows because they all get cancelled right as they start to get good! SyFy needs to pick some of these shows up! F— ABC/NBC/CBS!!!!
Keep the show! It’s one of the few shows I watch on ABC. To ABC execs, you are losing viewers. Obviously this is one show you need to keep on the air.
Once I read it Defying Gravity was a “Fox” show it made total sense. Just like other Fox shows sci-fi shows it was set for failure. The most recent to come to mind was Firefly. I hope Sci-fi or SyFy pick up this show. I’ve invested too much time to get to know these characters and their storires. Boohiss to ABC and Fox!
It’s a well done show. Sell it to the SyFy Channel and it will do very well there. I’d much rather see it that ECW. Why do they have wrestling on a Sci-Fi channel? The details on this show are fantastic — I’d compare it to 2001 in this regard.
Isn’t this just damn typical. Make a good show then yank it because a minority number of households sampled don’t like. If it comes down to “Bad Scifi” or another fracking reality show, We’ll take the SciFi.
Stop canceling shows before they have an ending and give scifi a chance to catch on… throwing it to the wolves on a Sunday night isn’t a great indicator is it? Most folks are getting ready for the coming work week… 10 pm is awful late… give it a chance, its not a bad story!
People being people never learn from history. Let us not forget a 60’s era show about space and people going where no man has gone before. Sound familiar? It should because it became a world wide phenomenon after it was canceled during the third season. I believe if the network execs. weren’t such idiots Capt., excuse me, Admiral Kirk would still be crushing the galaxy. My opinion. So to the execs. at ABC, ya frackin idiots, don’t follow in the same footsteps that another group of frackin idiots laid down 40 years ago. If you continue to cater the lowest… Read more »