Date of airing: September 4, 2009 (CTV); September 6, 2009 (ABC)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.00 million viewers, 1.4/3 in Households, 0.6/2 with Adults 18-49, 0.8/2 with Adults 25-54 (on ABC)
written by: Chris Provenzano
directed by: Jeff Woolnough
The show was still young (albeit two episodes before its ultimate demise on American network television), the characters were still being fleshed out, the hallucinations have upped the ante, and it seems like now is the time for the characters to learn the truth about the truth of the Antares mission. It did not happen in this episode and it might not happen in the next, it might not even happen in the one after that, but as the Antares gets closer to Venus, so do the characters who are nearing the revelation of the secrets the ISO executives in suits and fancy offices have been keeping from them, and it all begins in this episode with the astronauts realizing they are experiencing hallucinations; with Donner and Zoe talking about their months-long dream; with Eve and Mike slowly realizing that the secret might not be a secret for much longer after Beta essentially ruined the financing of science projects during the mission, which should even piss Mike off to the fullest. Mike might sound like he does not want his mission to be directed by Beta, but the fact that he just lost $10 billion should anger him as much as it does Jen and Zoe on the Antares and it should lead Mike to think about revealing the secret, simply because Beta cannot be directing the entire mission, and at one point the mission still has to be financed, even if it is already ongoing. If Beta can make money rain within the walls of the ISO, everything is fine, but I do not think Beta is interested in making money available for the astronauts it is manipulating.
This episode was fine. Some reactions to the hallucinations may have been off for me, but it was fun looking at six of the eight astronauts and one of the ISO folks downstairs being stricken with guilt of their past, and how those hallucinations happened to finely define this Halloween episode of a science-fiction drama. The hallucinations were certainly scary, and the depictions of the Mars footprints in the airlock (which Donner saw), the constantly creepy crying baby (which Zoe heard), and the Martian storm (which Ted faced when stepping out of the airlock) certainly had something horror-tastic, fitting well into a television episode that was also supposed to be a Halloween episode, although it did air in the wrong month. I would not be counting this episode among the better Halloween offerings of broadcast television, but it is certainly not a failed effort. This hour had a haunted house-type theme, and while it kind of feels very much added onto this episode for the sake of celebrating Halloween, it brought DEFYING GRAVITY an opportunity to flex some genre muscles.
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| Three Ds half-naked in a bar full of drunk wannabe-astronauts. |
This episode successfully managed to include two more astronauts into the world of hallucinations, with Paula and Nadia starting this process as well. Paula’s might have been a bit too convenient for my taste, since she even played out her hallucination and fully believed she was witnessing Hector die yet again, but I guess that was necessary for this narrative, due to it having been filled up with hallucination developments already – at least one of the new ones needed to be introduced quicker, just so the viewers can follow the narrative and witness that the hallucinations are indeed becoming a potentially life-threatening issue for the astronauts. Still, Evram reacting to his and Paula’s hallucinations while being able to communicate his inability to move seemed a bit off for me. When you are able to realize you are experiencing a hallucination, would you not be able to move past it and forge your path through the hallucination to your own safety? Evram was experiencing a hallucination, but he knew he was and he was able to both hear Claire on his comms while also seeing the girl he has been haunted by these past few episodes. Is it still a hallucination when you know you are having one?
Paula looked like she was ot able to separate her hallucination from what was really happening, which contradicts what Evram was going through. The same goes with the hallucinating astronauts in the airlock, with Ted being forced to stand still on the spot, while Donner was able to communicate with the people around him, even though he was kind of speaking to Sharon, even mentioning her name once. It looks to me like the victims handle the hallucinations differently, with some able to realize they are experiencing one, and others not even knowing that what they are going through is not natural and not real. I meant, Nadia should have deducted that the person she was seeing was not real? Is she not the most neutrally smartest person on the Antares? Or is her emotional disconnection from all the characters the reason she believes that the mysterious man in the hatchway is real? And with “emotional disconnection” I mean the fact that she was never interested in a proper relationship with Donner – she was always only interested in sex, not the relationship stuff around it, which says something about her.
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| Paula is getting emotional over petting her hallucination. |
Close to the end of the episode, at least two of the Antares crew members were lying about not seeing any more hallucinations (Donner still had a Martian-dusted helmet, Nadia still saw the mysterious man). And damn, those people keep secrets extremely close to their vest, and in this case, it happens to be extremely realistic because they believe that speaking the truth would get them off this mission, despite the fact that they are past the point of no return and pretty much slated to land on Venus. They want to fly (like any pilot would), but any sign of weakness and they believe they will be pumped with medication, unable to fly any longer. That is a storyline the writers have not gotten into, but a quick succession of scenes involving Donner and Nadia still hallucinating shows that they do not trust their superiors not to cut them from future missions on the Antares. Everyone is scared on this ship. I found that very intriguing in this hour of television, and it is one example of why DEFYING GRAVITY constantly gets overlooked as a TV show that existed, and others have removed themselves from ever seeing something great in the show because they could not get through some of the silliness of the pilot. It truly is a shame.
