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.
Please don’t cancel Defying Gravity it gave me reason to watch TV on Sunday night.
An elite crew of astronauts that can’t follow procedure. That about sums up DG. The gamer/lamer is trying to get into the ship’s storehouse of porn in the first episode. HELLO? If you have no libido, why do you need porn? The Euroslut decided she didn’t have to wear her libido supressor. The MILFs in the biology lab are raising baby rabbits. The “fire alarm” with the fake solar event showed just how undisciplined this group is. And yet, they are somehow an elite crew selected through a rigorous training process – we see it in copious flashbacks every week… Read more »
Can’t believe that another good show has bitten the dust! Just when I was really getting into it and looking forward to episode 10…. now nada…
Just goes to show that the TV execs don’t understand what the public wants – give the darn show a CHANCE!
Defying Gravity is among the best sci fi television series having successfully created a hybrid of sci fi and family drama without the usual action thriller gimmicks. This series brings out the best and worst in humanity and focused on real issues that are relevant for human relationships today. This series is one of the most meaningful, entertaining series with heart and substance.
I never really watch TV, but I got SO into this series! I look forward to it every week!!! It’s my favorite show. I love it! I really hope it continues!
I like the show. I’m sorry to hear it’s getting cancelled. I have always loved the
sci-fi shows especially space operas. With all the thousands of channels out there
can’t someone pick this work up? Sell it to sci-fi fans. That’s the demographic.
Major network television can be left to the reality series and such nonsense.
TV execs need to start understanding multi-tiered approaches to entertainment. Just because a show isn’t in the top 10 doesn’t mean there isn’t have a market for a show. What about secondary markets, itunes, and the internet. It’s just ridiculous how short sighted these people are.
I love this show and would be very sad to see it go.
If this show is cancelled don’t just stop watching ABC! Stop watching and tell your local merchants that advertise on your local broadcast stations. Tell the managers at national retailers that they’er wasting time advertising on ABC and why. Write to the people that advertise on the networks. ABC, NBC and Fox may not answer to the viewer but they WILL listen to advertisers. Money talks!
Defying Gravity breaks the rules such as instant communications with Earth but for story tellings sake I can live with that. I love the charcters and the chemistry that exists between each of them. I was baffled by ABC proclaiming Episode 8 the season finale even though there are or were 13 planned episodes. I had to download Episode 9 from a Torrent site just so I could keep up. Maybe the problem with this show is the lack of real brainless action and instead they have thoughtful dialogue. It would be a great summer replacement series if it were… Read more »
I have really enjoyed Defying Gravity. I think the biggest reason this show did not do well particularly in the begining was lack of advertising. I didn’t even realize that this was on until the second episode when my dad told me about it. I really enjoy the sci-fi genra, but it never get the time it deserves to really take off.
Wow, it seems the vast majority of comments posted here are in favor of keeping the series going! I am of the opinion the show is captivating enough that I would very much like to see more. I’m not too concerned with scientific inconsistencies (as if anyone cares about how many Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica are full of!), but I do like the mystery that has been created surrounding these “objects” to be collected around the solar system (yes, I saw ep 9). I really want to see what happens when Donner and Shaw go back to… Read more »
This is a great show! ABC didn’t give this show a chance — there was virtually no advertising, so viewers (like myself) found this show by accident. Those of us who’ve watched, love the show and think it has a great story line. There is so much potential here – people just don’t know about it. Sunday at 10:00 pm is not a great time slot either, like mentioned, many people are getting ready for the work week. Defying Gravity was fresh, and far more original than the majority of what’s out there now. They are making a huge mistake… Read more »
I don’t know why I even bother getting interested in TV shows anymore. I quit watching most TV when reality TV become the norm. Sometimes I see something interesting pop up on Hulu and then find out it ends 5-8-12 episodes later. These people like the ones in Washington need to be FIRED. Neilson is not the end all in viewers. They have a few thousand families and we have hundreds of millions people in this country. Plus you have people watching on the internet, dvr, torrents. Here’s an idea for you idiots in the entertainment industry, start making advertising… Read more »
I cant believe they picked episode 8 of all episodes to stop airing the show… we finally get to know whats in the darn cargo container!!!! I rarely watch shows but I have really enjoyed Defying Gravity so far and have been telling all my friends about it. It has one of the worst times for a show to be aired most people have to get up early on mondays it makes no sense to me it would be aired late sunday night. I really hope this show gets a full season before its cut down by greed. This show… Read more »
I’m devastated to learn that “Defying Gravity” as been cancelled & so is my DVR! But not surprised with this coming from ABC network. It must be some type of sadistic game ABC is playing on its viewers to start a series & then leave its viewers in the lurch. I hope SyFy picks this up & Goodbye ABC in my household.