Defying Gravity – another promising sci fi show cut short
Ok, not really a movie but a tv show – bear with me.
Anyone familiar with American tv will know how the system works: A tv show creator will pitch an idea to a network. If the network likes the idea, they will order a pilot episode. If the pilot is succesful enough, they will go ahead and produce more episodes. If the ratings aren’t good enough, the show will get canceled – sometimes mid-season.
From the point of view of the network executives, this approach makes perfect sense. Why waste more time and money than necessary on a project that apparently doesn’t appeal to the viewers? Better to just pull out in time and cut your losses.
There are, however, several flaws to the typical network model. First of all, most shows take a while to get going. You can’t expect instant success; you have to give the show a chance to find its stride and the viewers a chance to warm up to it. An example is Star Trek: The Next Generation. The first couple of seasons were horrible and cheesy, even by a late 80s standard, but the network gave it a chance and it just kept getting better and better.
Secondly, the business strategies of the big networks are hopelessly antiquated. Decisions are based almost solely on ratings – most of which only take into account the original first airing of an episode, watched ‘live’. Content streamed or downloaded legally, from iTunes or from the network’s own website, doesn’t figure anywhere. Neither do DVD sales. Neither do episodes that are taped and watched later. Not even reruns! Networks simply are not up to date with the viewing habits of the 21st century.
Of the major American networks, FOX probably has the worst reputation when it comes to not giving tv shows the chance they deserve – especially among sci fi fans. Firefly is often used as an example. The show only lasted 14 episodes and yet it has a massive cult following today, seven years later. I’ve never been much of a Joss Whedon fan (except for Angel and some of Buffy), but even I have to recognize that the viewers were there – unlike the network’s patience. Other, more recent examples include New Amsterdam (8 episodes, also on FOX), a show which definitely deserved more, the remake of Bionic Woman (9 episodes on NBC), a slow starter but still with potential – and now Defying Gravity – and this was on Canadian TV, not American!
The show takes place 40 years into the future and tells the story of a multinational scientific space mission, scheduled to visit six of the planets in the solar system in six years. As the mission progresses, however, the crew slowly realizes that not everything is as it seems, and that perhaps mission control hasn’t been completely open wth them about the actual goal of the mission.
CTV, the national Canadian TV network, originally ordered a 13 episode first season, which was then sold to American network ABC – who never aired the last two episodes! Some shows at least get a chance to wrap up the story line, albeit hurriedly, after they get canceled. Not so with Defying Gravity. The plot is simply too complex, even if the writers had been warned well in advance. The show therefore ends very abruptly and on a very annoying and unsatisfying cliffhanger. If you choose to watch the show anyway, do so at your own peril! I’m still going to recommend it, though. The basic idea is solid, the writing is more than solid, and the acting is damn near brilliant – plus it’ really refreshing to see a cast consisting of all unfamiliar faces. Probably because the show is Canadian and not American, it has a much more British feel to it – it’s not afraid to take up issues that American producers would never trust their audience to be able to cope with.
If you do decide to go ahead and watch the show anyway – and it is worth the frustration of the unresolved plot threads – show creator James Parriott did reveal some of what his show bible contained and how the show would have progressed. Read the interview here – but not until after you’ve watched all 13 episodes…
Defying Gravity (2009) Starring Ron Livingston, Malik Yoba, Andrew Airlie, Paula Garcés, Florentine Lahme, Karen LeBlanc, Eyal Podell, Dylan Taylor, Christina Cox, Laura Harris. Created by James D. Parriott. Rated 14+ (Canada). Approx. runtime: 43 min excl. commercials.
The Riber Report 
April 4, 2010 at 07:41
In fact, ABC here in the States never aired the last FIVE episodes of Defying Gravity (I myself had to scour the Internet to watch them and succeeded, but with difficulty). Moreover, ABC screwed this show from the very start. First, it wouldn’t commit to airing the show until a mere two weeks before it began to air, thus leaving the production company hanging for a very long time. Second, ABC did **NO** promotion for this show whatsoever, other than a press release in which one of its own ditzbrain network execs stupidly dubbed DG as ‘Grey’s Anatomy in space’ — a move guaranteed to alienate any true sci-fi fans, the natural core audience for the show, without actually attracting a wider audience. So, of the few people who might have heard about the show a few days in advance, half were already dissuaded from watching it by the idiot ramblings of a ****-for-brains network hack who had almost no familiarity with the show at all, it not being an ABC production, after all (which made the network even more loath to spend money on promoting it). ABC never would have treated a show of its own like an ugly stepchild, but that’s exactly what it did with DG. Third, ABC treated Defying Gravity as a mere placeholder to plug a hole in its summer schedule and debuted the show at the worst possible time of year (August) in the worst possible timeslot of the week for summer (Sunday nights at 9pm Central, 10 Eastern). Brilliant: who’s going to be watching that night at that hour when it’s nice outside?? ABC would have premiered one of its own programs in September instead, and in a better timeslot. Fourth, ABC stopped airing the show after episode 8 — just as the show’s story arc was getting REALLY interesting and reaching a critical point; good way to piss off the viewers, bozos — but refused to say the show was canceled. DG may have been Canadian produced with some Euro money thrown in for good measure, but it was the promise of viewership on ABC in the States that made the production viable. Once ABC yanked the show form the schedule without explanation, support from CTV and BBC wasn’t enough to keep the show in production. In short, ABC first screwed the show, then gave it the kiss of death so that nobody else would be able to see more than the initial 13 episodes, making the notion of death by low ratings a guaranteed self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now, there may be a few even more devious, foolproof ways to doom a TV series from the start, but offhand, I can’t think of any. This was textbook intentional sabotage through systematic neglect by the network. How are viewers (the ones who did manage to find and watch the show, largely by accident) supposed to overcome THAT? Answer: they can’t, not when network execs and programmers have their heads that far up their own behinds.
More’s the pity — Defying Gravity was a great, imaginative, thoughtful, well executed TV series that would have done well, given a real chance. Which was not likely when those who run TV are mired 50 years behind the times re: how viewers watch TV today. Too bad nobody on cable (like, say, HBO) wanted to pick it up.
April 4, 2010 at 10:01
Ok, I see my information wasn’t 100% correct. Thanks for your comment and for clearing up those details… 🙂