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.
why watch network shows if they are never given a chance to have people discover it.(remember shows like cheers, friends, seinfield, coach and many more, neither of which had big ratings till they were discovered) most of the all time great shows would havenever made it today. shows like King and defying gravity are actor driven shows and both have great actors but neither were given a chance or a push. put gravity on after grey’s anatomy= ratings surge!!!Morons!!!! or create a saturday sci-fi night and hire the creators and writers of battlestar to create a new show and create… Read more »
The show needs time to develop its characters just like LOST did. Each show has added some substance to each character and I for one would like to give it a chance. With 400 channels on cable, it takes a show more than a couple weeks to catch on. I found it by accident but have watched every week since. As far as I know, there were no ads about it before it’s first airing. Please keep it going!
i think the show is great give it a chance
I really like this show and it would be a shame if it didn’t come back. I didn’t even hear about it at all. I found this show one Sunday night and loved it.
As of Tonight the 13th I now love this show. They need to let it build. I don’t get it. Nothing is ever given a chance to gain an audience. Being that this is a Canadian production I am shocked that SyFy didn’t buy it. If they treated Sienfeld and Cheers like they treat shows now then they would have been cut in the first year also. If the networks intend to survive they need to let us find a show and then get into the story. Instant success is just impossible 99.9% of the time. Whoever grew up and… Read more »
They could have at least told us what was in the damn pod. I am tired of getting sucked into these showes only to be let down. TV producers have become the crack dealers of the airways. They promice a good show, get you hooked and then leave you hanging.
ABC, give the show a chance, Sunday night is a horrible time and its on two late.
move it to the week and put it in prime time. Move the story along faster.
You have got to give a show a chance to attract a following.
Just like all show that have great potential ABC will cut it, cancel it before it gets its own two legs to stand on, and just not giving it a real chance to gain momentum. A story needs a chance to grow in its own way to gain a life of its own and Defying Gravity reguardless of its so called Disappointing Ratings has great potential, leave to grow and let us who like Defying Gravity enjoy the show
What’s the use? ABC keeps bringing in good shows that are not run of the mill only to pull them before they get a chance. Life on Mars, Pushing Daisies???
Don’t get me started on how they Lost me on Lost. I dont watch that show due to all bad scheduling they did a few seasons back.
So I give up, they do what they want when they want, eventually they will luck up on something.
WIth them killing SGA this has been the only thing worth watching on the air right now. You better not kill this too!!!!
If ABC would have targeted LOST fans from the start, this series would have had higher ratings. It seems ABC has a bunch of monkeys determining their marketing strategy. A show like this should have been announced well in advanced, during LOST episodes, more heavily in May.
I do hope they give it another chance, “relaunching” would be nice, and I would also put encore episodes on another day, earlier time (it airs 10pm here in the EAST coast).
Please do not cancel this show. It’s one of the highligts of my week.
they have to keep the show. it’s the best that’s show that’s airing right now. And as gwen says, all the good shows keep getting cancelled. if it gets cancelled, then i will almost loose the faith of american television.
Keep it, keep it, keep it! So sick of good shows getting cancelled.
I love the show, but it figures that the ratings are low. I can’t remember a Science Fiction
Show on any of the 4 Major Networks that has made it past the first season. I sincerely hope that ABC renews the show, or better still, give it to the Syfy Network, and let run with it. For God’s sake, do us all a favor and let them complete their 6 year mission !!
I hope that ABC doesn’t prematurely ejaculate and cancel the show without bringing it to a logical coclusion…Please don’t leave us hanging…