8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's Solaris........, August 26, 2009
This review is from: Defying Gravity Season 1 (Amazon Instant Video)
Initially, I stuck with this show because I wanted to support a new science fiction series, of whatever kind: there aren't a whole lot of those on network television these days. It starts out a little rough; the acting and the motivations of some of the characters at first appear to be something out of 1950's movies like, "Plan 9 From Mars", and the later, "2010"--they're going to colonize, only there aren't weird hairdos or an obelisk; some of it is a little hokey, and possibly overdone.
Stick with it, though. The people writing this aren't showing their hand all at once.
After the first episode or two the series hits its stride and starts to make sense: this is an allegory for the development of human emotions over a long arc; the space travel is the vehicle for the heroes' journey into the Underworld; a betting man would say that Venus is a level of Hades yet to be gone through.
And, then, about the fifth episode, it hit me why this becomes almost haunting--the videographer, and possibly the scriptwriters, have been watching novelist Stanislaw Lem's 1972 Russian masterpiece, "Solaris", which is a ghostly, dreamlike vision of a Russian cosmonaut who may be going insane aboard a dying spaceship as he spends the film talking to his dead wife.
A lot of the shots feature ghosts that appear in the same type of shot you see in "Solaris", where the camera stays steady, but one minute, nothing is there, and then something is. The visual cuing on this is even the same tempo as parts of "Solaris", meaning it's cued to make the viewer feel disjointedly, dreamily and menacedly nervous.
Particularly if you are expecting boilerplate,surface level, stock characters with a lot of explosions and space monsters, this is not your series. However, if you are willing to put up with some unexplained, elliptical storylines, this is an emotionally rewarding show of surprising, almost ethereally lyrical depth.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasantly Surprised, August 4, 2009
This review is from: Defying Gravity Season 1 (Amazon Instant Video)
I actually enjoyed Defying Gravity more than I expected to. Thanks to Amazon for allowing users to view the pilot for free. I'll most likely purchase this show when it comes to dvd (hopefully in a complete season set).
Defying Gravity is an internationally produced space travel television drama series that first aired on television August 2, 2009. Set in the year 2052 with flashbacks to five years earlier, the series follows eight astronauts (four women and four men from five countries on a six-year space mission through the Solar System) where everything they do is monitored.
The show kind of reminds me of a made-for-tv movie that aired back in 1996 called Star Command which was to be the unofficial pilot of a series called In The Fold. The lack of popularity that movie received canceled out any hope of the series but some of the themes have lived on here in Defying Gravity.
Considered a drama, the series was pitched to networks as "Grey's Anatomy in space" which is especially funny considering that Star Command was pitched as an American teen drama in space (which resulted in such humorous nicknames at the time as Melrose Space and Deep Space Nine-0210).
Now that Star Trek Enterprise has bit the dust and Battlestar Galactica has reached the end of its run, the world could certainly use some fresh space science fiction drama. I do hope this show continues to build in popularity.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loving it, October 28, 2009
This review is from: Defying Gravity Season 1 (Amazon Instant Video)
I really love this show. I have never been of thses kind of shows. It has drama and mystery as to what is really going on. Very disappointed that there won't be another season. The last ep left a big cliff hanger. It makes you really want to know what is going to happen next.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
