Date of airing: August 23, 2009 (ABC)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.66 million viewers, 1.8/3 in Households, 0.8/2 with Adults 18-49, 1.1/3 with Adults 25-54
written by: Meredith Lavender, Marcie Ulin
directed by: Fred Gerber
In which the crew of the Antares is further away from Earth at the end of the episode than they were during the beginning of it, because the Rubicon point happened to be an important plot device for this show. As always, DEFYING GRAVITY is all about character strength, and the crew of Antares saying goodbye to their past, sacrificing parts of themselves, and trying to cope with the fact that Earth is nothing more but a small blue dot in the sea of black above their observation deck windows, was more important and necessary than working towards the next big reveal, or the identification of who or what Beta is. In some instances, DEFYING GRAVITY reminds me more of LOST, since even in 2004 that show was defined by the strengths of its characters during the first stages of its first season. Back then, the mystery of the monster in the forest was only teased upon, and it was not even the talk of the town among the survivors. Instead, they were dealing with each other.
The same can be said about DEFYING GRAVITY, and while I grant you the fact that the crew of Antares does not know about Beta (minus Ted), so there would not even be anything to talk about when it comes to supernatural stuff around them, they also do not talk about the hallucinations and visions they have been getting, fearing repercussions if they do so. Ted keeps his trips to Mars in Pod 4 a secret, Donner keeps the hallucinations of Sharon and Jeff a secret, and Zoe did not seem to be hearing the baby’s cries lately, which was probably due to the fact that the writers focused on Evram and his visions for a change and there was no room for even more hallucinations for some of the other astronauts. Although Evram’s hallucinations could easily be explained by his alcohol withdrawal, giving him an additional edge of character depth and something else to fight against, in case the mystery stuff was not working with the character.
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| The ASCAN charts are out! |
The passing of the Rubicon point showed once more that DEFYING GRAVITY was not at all interested in pushing forward the narrative, and instead continued to grow the characters first before sending them into a crapshow of science-fiction and mystery, which is always something you should do with a genre television show. In the beginning, I would always love to know everything about the characters, so I can feel with and for them when they get into the thick of the adventure, and their lives are suddenly in danger. And in Donner and Zoe’s case, I would love to know more about these two lovebirds before becoming a proper couple on the Antares, which might or might not be the case in the future, depending on how the show’s narrative is going to allow a functioning relationship to flourish on board the Antares. Sex might be easy because it is just in and out with a little bit of thrust (except of course emotions are involved, but it always looks like Nadia is not able to have emotions like that), but a relationship is a whole different thing to work on in an enclosed space where you can’t hide from anyone for six years.
All of this and more happened while the crew of the Antares was working to get past the point of no return, and I was quite happy to see that an argument about returning the ship and “giving up” was being held, even if it was just between Donner and Ted. What would have been great if it had been a conversation between all eight crew members, it was at least part of the story here, and it needed to be, simply because it is what you think about when crossing the point of no return. Still, I would have loved to hear Evram and Jen’s opinion on that, as both of them have reasons to just break it off and return home. Jen seems to be getting lonelier with each episode and now she even stopped talking to Rollie, while Evram is probably being haunted by his own past and would love to take a bottle and down it with pleasure, just to take away from the pain of his failure to save the girl he sees in his hallucinations. Did these two characters have a larger point of view to discuss the point of no return than Ted and Donner had, because both saw visions they cannot explain?
A lot of plus points for Paula getting some attention in this episode and the writers giving her some depth, even if it happened quickly and pretty much without words. The question of religion has been quietly brought up before, but now that her belief has been established, DEFYING GRAVITY created the opportunity to be a bit more esoteric, to bring religion into the story, to have God account for the things that are happening here. Not that I am expecting Paula to use God as an explanation for all the science-fiction mysteries that are happening, but now it becomes an argument. It even becomes a conflict among other characters – either because the other seven crew members are not that religious and therefore cannot connect to their belief system like Paula can when things get a bit more complicated, or because the show is going to turn into a science-versus-faith duel, which by itself is also interesting.
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| Donner is ready to play ball with the solar system. |
The best part of the episode was the notion that Donner tried so many times to lose the baseball, and it came back to him the same amount of times, which was a story that eventually connected to him discovering the hidden failure in the water filtration system – that part of the story was thrown at Donner multiple times and he always tried to think it away, to get rid of it. But just like the baseball, it always returned to him, and at one point Donner realized that there is something important to what he is seeing and experiencing. Although maybe the thing with the baseball is a bit weird in hindsight, because it continues to connect him to Sharon, and here I was, thinking he would slowly move on from her death, as teased in the previous episode. Still, DEFYING GRAVITY is proving that it had a great writers room, as the connection between the baseball and the water filtration system was not as easy to discover as the fault in the filtration system without the visual assistance.
