DEFYING GRAVITY 1.4 - "H2IK"

[SPOILERS] This was the first episode I found myself half-enjoying. "H2IK" was a more typical space-faring story with a clichéd dilemma at its core, but all that was preferable to the soap melodrama that's choked the series from the start. The Antares is struck by a perplexing power loss that even causes localized weightlessness, and everyone's at a loss to explain the fault. Is the mission over before it's really begun, and a return to Earth on the cards? Or can the recupering Ajay (Zahf Paroo) on terra firma offer some assistance, as flashbacks reveal he was part of the team that build the ship's malfunctioning systems?

"H2IK" (an acronym for "hell if I know"; no, I don't get it either) was pretty weak and predictable, but it was a formula Defying Gravity could ape with the minimum of fuss and provide a fairly entertaining hour. The flashbacks clicked with the present-day story more snugly, the explanation for the malfunction was plausible, and I liked getting more information about the tragic Mars mission that has blighted Donner's (Ron Livingstone) career. The sequence where a space-walking Donner was confronted by the ghosts of the two crewmen he left behind (one of whom we learn was his girlfriend) was handled very well, and it now seems clear that the "Beta" cargo they're carrying is something able to make past tragedies come back to life in the minds of the tormented.

Overall, "H2IK" was a pleasant enough viewing experience, possibly helped by the fact I'm getting better at ignoring Donner's trite voice-overs and I'm looking through the sucky relationships at the few things that interest me: the ultimate aim of the mission, the weird Beta mystery and the hallucinations it elicits, and the fact there appears to be a Mission Control-led conspiracy. It's still a poor show crippled by its syrupy tone and stilted dialogue, but there are toeholds to keep you hanging on.


5 November 2009
BBC2/BBC HD, 9pm

written by: Brett Conrad directed by: Fred Gerber starring: Ron Livingston (Maddux Donner), Malik Yoba (Ted Shaw), Andrew Airlie (Mike Goss), Paula Garcés (Paula Morales), Florentine Lahme (Nadia Schilling), Karen LeBlanc (Eve Weller-Shaw), Ty Olsson (Rollie Crane), Zahf Paroo (Ajay Sharma), Eyal Podell (Dr. Evram Mintz), Maxim Roy (Claire Dereux), Dylan Taylor (Steve Wassenfelder), Peter Howitt (Trevor Williams), Christina Cox (Jen Crane) & Laura Harris (Zoe Barnes)