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.
Like most science fiction series on the 4 networks don’t make it in prime time. I knew when this started it would probable get canceled. It would be great if the SYFI network would pick it up for the 6 year mission it is on. I hate series like this where we never get to see how it ends but I really like the show. What I think ABC should do is continue to use it as a summertime show like they did here. Ratings are low during the summer time anyway. Let the people who watch it continue to… Read more »
I actually found on HULU, had no idea this was a broadcast series at first. Like the show quite a bit, tends to grow on you. Hope they keep it, perhaps a re-running of first shows in the fall would help.
A really great show! Keep it on. Up at 4am catching up on episodes, may cost me my job
I suppose I’m not really surprised that one of the most intelligent and creative shows of the season is a Canadian production. I think the criticisms of the show miss the point: the astronauts are *not* “psychos”…they are being impacted by an unknown phenomenon, which the plot lines suggest that the mission leaders know more about than they are letting on. (By comparison to the real world, remember that female astronaut that went bonkers a while back in a jealous rage…she threw away her freedom (not to mention her career), but the point is that astronauts are human, too, despite… Read more »
I really enjoy this show. At first when I stumbled across the pilot I thought it sounded stupid and didn’t actually start watching until the last 15 or so minutes. I began watching the next Sunday and have been hooked since. I even went online to watch the full Pilot episode. It really is a huge let down that network execs only want to cater to brainless reality television. It seems like all you can find on the network line up anymore are doctor dramas, CSI/Law & Order type shows and reality television. I loved Firefly for thinking outside of… Read more »
Cancel this garbage as soon as possible!
It’s got as much science in it as Brothers and Sisters, i.e. zero, and should have been entitled Defying Reason.
I love the show and would hate to see it canceled especially if they don’t tie things up and give us answers. But honestly, I would much rather see this on for several seasons.
I’ve never seen an ad for this show. Just happened upon it the first Sunday it aired. If I miss the original airdate, I catch up online. It may not be correct in the science, but I’m drawn to the characters and the drama. If I wanted reality, I’d watch the neighbors. I really hope that ABC will show the whole season at least and maybe give it a chance and advertise it once in a while.
OMG this show is getting worse each character is WAY over the top I mean really what kind of world do these people live in that they let a bunch of psychos emotionally unstable nut jobs like these in to space on multi-billion dollar projects. Why is this show still on they should just canceled it and call it a day.
I am a HUGE fan of this series already I will watch it on TV then again online. I remember a TV show that almost didnt make it and now its a house hold show name….MASH… Please give this show a chance. Fox really screwed up when they pulled Firefly, Please dont make the same mistake.
To me this is one of the better shows around. I even went as far as watching the show online at ABC when I missed the original air date on Sundays. This is a very good show and why do they always cancel the good shows? I have been very disappointed with TV broadcasting this year. So disappointed in fact that my TV is my main computer monitor now.
No kidding, Jim. A little show called “Cheers” wouldn’t have made it past season one, had there not been someone in the system who believed in it beyond just the early poor ratings. It took a few seasons, but eventually, it built an audience.
But there don’t seem to be the kind of people in network television anymore who are willing to take those kinds of chances.
It’s hard to blame them too much, though. The problem rests more with a populace that’s become uneducated and virtually brain dead.
what a great show. i am hungry for great scifi. the characters are believable and the plot is fascinating.
again, along with firefly, saving grace, the unusuals all quality but i guess the networks are catering to the lower end of the spectrum crowd with reality shows, no substance.
It’s fascinating that nobody… nobody… has learned a single thing from Fox’s ridiculous screw-up of canceling Firefly. Some shows start off with a bang from episode one, with high ratings and instant appeal. Others need a little time to build, to gather interest, because they’re complex and cerebral. Unfortunately the broadcasting companies are too short-sighted to allow that, so they cancel the shows that could actually be good and get a long run with a fanatical audience in favor of low-budget, low-concept reality shows, sit-coms, and general crap, which can let the sheep keep drowning out their brains night after… Read more »
Yeah, I’m a huge fan of this show too – so much so that tonight, I thought to myself, “I’ll bet it’s already cancelled.” So here I am, online, checking, and sure enough, just like a lot of other people here, yet another show I really like appears to be gone. The heck with ABC. I can’t think of another show I actually watch on their network anyway. And I agree with everyone else too. ABC approached this show like they wanted it to die from the beginning. Minimal promotion. Odd timeslot. They treat it like a distant relative with… Read more »