DEFYING GRAVITY 1.5 - "Rubicon"

[SPOILERS] I'm not sure how long I'm going to continue with reviews of Defying Gravity. It's taken me five days to get around to watching this fifth episode and, despite the fact the announcer claimed it won't be back for two weeks, my digibox recorded an episode that aired late on Saturday (which I assume is the sixth episode), so are the BBC in a hurry to burn this show off now? Or has my box recorded a repeat, silly thing.

"Rubicon" wasn't a terrible episode, comparatively speaking. It's just that Defying Gravity's the kind of show where blondes answer the door with tubs of Häagen-Dazs, and mothers use Tarot cards to pry into their daughter's love-lives. There's also a drinking game in how many times characters say "nominal" on this show! I started to notice that quirk a few weeks ago. It's like the writers have no deep knowledge of space terminology, but they've latched onto that word as something that sounds authoritative and realistic. Oddly, "nominal" means "ostensible", "titular" or "insignificant" in my thesaurus, but is bandied around as meaning "normal" here. Maybe the word takes on fresh meaning in the mid-21st century.

I quite liked how the flashbacks revolved around personal possessions the characters felt attached to, which were later put into a time-capsule aboard Antares to mark the "point of no return" for their mission (a.k.a "Rubicon"), and it seems that the visions Donner (Ron Livingstone) is experiencing can be quite helpful, as he hallucinates Martian dust on equipment that proves to be faulty. So is this "Beta" cargo they're unwittingly carrying not quite as malevolent as we'd been led to believe? It was also a nice twist that footage of the tragic Mars mission came to light that proves Donner's nemesis Mike Goss (Andrew Airlie) was responsible for the misfortune -- because he lost his cool under pressure -- but he's hidden the video evidence and pinned the blame on Donner. The scoundrel.

So yes, there are a few bright moments, but it's still a very drippy television show. I can't see sci-fi fans really enjoying it because things are quite clichéd, nor can I imagine the target demographic of young women choosing to watch it purely for the relationships (which are the least compelling thing about Defying Gravity). It's a syrupy mess, really, but brainless entertainment if you have 43-minutes to kill and a tolerance for irksome dialogue and daft voice-overs. And I'm still intrigued about this "Beta" thing, God help me.

This show doesn't get many comments here -- so is anyone watching, or am I the lone viewer?


12 November 2009
BBC2/BBC HD, 9pm

written by: Meredith Lavender & Marcie Ulin directed by: Marcie Ulin 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),Eyal Podell (Dr. Evram Mintz), Maxim Roy (Claire Dereux), Dylan Taylor (Steve Wassenfelder), Christina Cox (Jen Crane) & Laura Harris (Zoe Barnes)