Date of airing: October 16, 2009 (Space)
written by: James Parriott
directed by: Sturla Gunnarsson
Please buckle up and prepare for the landing, as this plane is going down on Venus in this episode. When you look out the window, you can see it is a stuffed and hot day on this planet. Clouds are forming above you that will constantly give you thunder and flashes, so beware of sudden electrocutions and a quick and painful death. Also, watch out that you do not fall to the ground, otherwise, you will have it hard to get back up, as well as experience a quick and painful death. Move as slowly as possible to preserve energy, and as soon as you walked your 20 minutes, please get back into the airlock immediately, or you will suffer a quick and painful death. Other than that, have a fantastic day on Venus!
There are 286 meters between reality and a pre-recorded fake mission on Venus, just to keep the humans on Earth happy and not flipping out over a god or the devil directing the Antares mission. And with Zoe now walking the distance between reality and the created story, things should be getting pretty ugly in the season finale, especially since Paula, who is narrating the Venus mission for the folks in their armchairs, will have to juggle between looking at the screen of Zoe going for Gamma, and narrating the screen with the fake Venus rock collecting mission – which by itself is already hard for someone who believes she is dealing with something evil down on Venus. This almost is a story deserving of a two-hour finale, but you cannot fill an entire hour with the Venus landing itself (although I would have loved to watch that), because there still needs to be a narrative. And honestly, there is not much of a narrative with only Zoe walking on Venus, Donner watching her and talking to her, the crew of Antares sitting there in panic mode, watching it all, while Paula is in the middle of being a news presenter here, trying to decide whether to tell the fake story or just go with the truth. All that is quite a premise to work with for the season finale. Once more, I am disappointed that the show never managed to pick up any viewers, because I would have loved the depiction of the other landings. Especially Mercury. According to series creator James Parriott, Nadia was supposed to land on the terminator line of the planet, standing between day and night, which would have connected to her character arc in a visual and metaphorical sense, and that by itself is a scientifically awesome premise. Put in one of the fractal objects, and the whole thing turns into a thriller.
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| Eagles in the sky symbolize good things. |
This was a great episode. Lots of emotion, lots of drama, and even a little bit of thrill, because you never knew where the story was about to go. Was the Venus landing enough of a finale premise for the writers, or did they think that revealing the objects to the world through Paula’s live presentation on the ship was also a potentially good final point to the season? Was the changing of the astronauts’ genomes good for more than just Evram and Claire connecting over a shared secret, or is it going to be the beginning of an entirely new and two-folded storyline (changing astronauts, and Claire revealing mission secrets to those who aren’t supposed to know)? Is the imminent addition of the Gamma object on Antares going to change anything? After all, two fractal objects being neighbors on the ship should maybe mean something.
The emotional level of this episode was surprisingly high. There is this whole spiel of Zoe being ejected from the ISO program five years ago, obviously making you ask the question of how she became part of the program again and who had to exit in her place (Arnel, most likely, as he lost a leg in-between). I never considered that a flashback story could still work in surprises like that, as Zoe’s ejection from the program was unexpected and added a great character arc to the show, even though you know where that character arc will end up. And as it turned out, Zoe’s ejection led to her relationship with Donner being leveled up as well. It seemed like they shared more emotions and love with each other while Zoe was “post-Eagle,” and maybe that is exactly what is going to be important after Zoe and Donner come back from Venus. They shared their love five years ago, and maybe it is this kind of love that will save them in the present.
Besides that, the chemistry between Zoe and Donner was magnetic. I was already sobbing in my mind during Donner’s “It’s not gonna be the same around here without you,” and things got even worse from here, considering Zoe’s giving up on her constant rejection of Donner and just inviting him to her bed, knowing that this will be the end of their story (if only she had known). That is almost a cute romantic story, and it is an interesting way to tell a romantic storyline in a television drama. One loves the other, the other might not love the one, but they keep themselves at a distance, because they know one wrong move might ruin everything. I do not know what makes the romance to captivating, but Ron Livingston and Laura Harris might be two of the more important reasons. Seeing them together gives me life. The chemistry between the two was working.
The whole episode was mostly about Zoe and Donner’s relationship, you might almost forget that the former was cut from the program, and the latter is about to drive the former to the surface of Venus. You might also forget that they are there to pick up Gamma, which the writers had to nicely remind us of by constantly mentioning it, least alone having Paula in the story to remind us all that she is supposed to lie for ten minutes in front of the whole world. Well, I hope she knows how to do that, and she picked up some pointers from the whole Republican party, because I cannot imagine for religious people to easily start lying like that, even though it should be easier when the fate of the world is at stake. You can glance over the fact that this is still an ensemble drama, and not just a big fat romance novel. I do no know if that is good or bad writing though. I guess you are allowed to bring that every once in a while, but the way DEFYING GRAVITY has been making the Zoe/Donner relationship a mainstay makes me wonder…
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| Welcome to Venus, the solar system's version of Hell. |
There always is a bad thing about every episode, but this time I have it a little harder to come up with one. Maybe it is Ted for not showing up to help Zoe move, even though his girlfriend asked him to (giving Jen one more reason to split away from him). Maybe it is the fact that Zoe had five hours to kill before her train leaves, and she thinks that is enough time to get a tattoo (I think that takes a little longer?). Maybe it is the inconsistency of the ascans’ names between the preliminary ranking from “Rubicon,” and the 20 names that were given in this episode, which weirdly had Donner and Ted’s names excluded, in addition to Zoe's (hey producers, I found a mistake you left in!). Or maybe it is the press room not having a live feed of the happenings on the mission control floor? Because if so, they immediately would have picked up on something going on, after all of the ground crew was disappointed and mad that Donner did not land closer to the specified target. And not getting a spot in the control room during the landing for live coverage would possibly bring some reporters to ask a few questions in general about the honesty of the entire program.
