Re: “Defying Gravity" 13-episode ABC sci-fi astronaut space series
The BBC has it listed as a BBC Two commissioned drama. I don't understand why it's playing overseas before here.
It's an international production, backed by production companies in the US, Britain, Canada, and Germany and produced in Canada. It doesn't belong to any one network. Although, ironically, the US is the only country where it isn't showing on the network of one of its production partners; the US producer is Fox Television Studios, part of the same Rupert Murdoch-owned conglomerate that also encompasses the FOX television network, but it's showing on Disney-owned ABC.
I found it rather disappointing. I guess I shouldn't have expected good science from a TV drama, but the
Voyage to the Planets thing it's inspired by was pretty good in that regard, so I was hopeful. But it was too much to ask for.
First off... we do NOT explode like pinatas when exposed to vacuum. If they didn't do enough basic research to debunk that stupid, profoundly wrong myth, that pretty much scuttles any hope for solid science. There wasn't anything else quite as bad as that, but there were some problems -- mainly with gravity, ironically, considering the title. I mean, if the magnetic pull on the nanoparticles in their jumpsuits is the only thing holding them down, then why was Christina Cox's ponytail hanging downward?? Even in the supposedly free-fall sex scene, they made no attempt to hide the fact that her hair was sliding downward past her ear. Very careless. And then there were the shots in episode 2 of Laura Harris out in space in the Venus suit. When she was getting woozy from nitrogen narcosis, her head was lolling downward as if under gravity. They just aren't even trying.
In the same shots, the sun was reflected in the middle of her visor, meaning she was looking right into it, but she didn't have her sunshield deployed, just the clear helmet wide open to the light. She should've been blinded and severely burned by the unfiltered UV. Not to mention that in the reverse shots where we were seeing her POV through the helmet, the sun was nowhere to be seen.
I'm also not happy with the portrayal of Ajay's Hinduism. The terminology was wrong.
Karma doesn't mean fate. That's a myth arising from confusion of
karma with the Arabic
kismet, which does mean fate.
Karma means "deeds." It's the exact opposite of fatalism -- instead of believing that your future is fixed no matter what actions you take, the Hindu belief is that your deeds, your
karma, determine the course your future takes. When Ajay was talking about the path he believed himself to be on, the word he used should've been
dharma. In Hinduism, righteousness is defined by matching your
karma, your actions, to your
dharma, your rightful path. It's not about fate, it's about being true to your proper path.
The constant flashbacks aren't working for me. They can be confusing. I didn't even realize the first scene with Laura Harris mentioning her pregnancy to Christina Cox was in a flashback until the next flashback in that sequence came along.
The character drama isn't all that interesting, and I could do without the prophetic dreams and hallucinations and the mysterious thing in Pod 4 that's apparently calling the shots on this mission and is presumably alien in origin. Why can't we just have a straightforward drama about exploring space? That's a grand enough adventure that it shouldn't need mystical embellishment.
Maybe they don't count the Jewish guy as white?
Great, now they are using Urge's bad science.