Defying Gravity 101 – Pilot

Christina Cox & Ron Livingston in Defying Gravity

I took the summer off from blogging, but will be back with a huge back catalog of shows that I watched over the summer. But now its time for new shows this year. Not to many have caught my eye yet, but this was passed on to me so I had a peak last week at ABC’s new space drama “Defying Gravity” from producer and writer James D. Parriott (Grey’s Anatomy, Sons of Anarchy, Bionic Woman (1977), The Incredible Hulk (1978) to name a few).

The show follows the space ship Antares and eight astronauts four male, four female in their six year tour around the solar system. Set in the year 2042, Man has been to mars and is now doing a wider tour of the universe. The show is split between the current happenings as the mission is launched, and the training 5 years prior, giving us the history and background of the characters.

I am not blown away by the series though. But the pilot certainly had me hooked. Interesting backstory concerning a previous mission to Mars and the team selection of the current drives the pilot. With such an ensemble cast, a few of the characters seem to have fallen through the cracks, but they may develop more as the show progresses.

The show is a refreshing science fiction insofar as its not aliens or weird stuff (which I love), but is certainly tamer scifi for the ABC view audience, perhaps playing off of that childhood desire to be an astronaut. It certainly will not be Sam Rockwell’s “Moon,” but it may be a network, milk toast version of Space Odyssey 2001. This is not to say the show does not have mature themes, or will not be complex or interesting. The sexual tensions of the crew and love triangles do develop. But fortunately there is more to the story than that. The characters are given back stories and the best back story belongs to the main character Maddux Donner played byRon Livingston (Band of Brothers), who is haunted alongside Malik Yoba‘s Ted Shaw, of having to leave to members on Mars.

Unfortunately, I find the show follows tropes of drama a little too well, doing nothing excitingly new or interesting with them, and I will leave the qualifying statement, yet. We the general cast of characters including the foreign floozy, the denied lover, the geek/super whiz, the separated spouses, the psychologist with a psychological condition (and alcohol problem), the man who killed girlfriend. Ok, so the last one isn’t that cliche, but a tortured past. Its not done poorly, but it doesn’t excel yet. As the series progresses, one rogue element seems to be driving the mission, creating the drama as it were (triggering flash backs, ship failures, genome shifts in biology). Without this element, the show would certainly be left to its own miring of human drama, that could be set in a hospital or an police station or (insert other cliche locale). The fact that its in space certainly has be still watching.

Overall, a pleasant network outing for a new show. It has potential for a network drama. The mysteries increase as you continue to watch and seem to be worth it. I have watched five episodes now and it continues to draw me in. Defying Gravity can be seen on Sundays @ 10/9c.

Here also is the trailer for the show if you haven’t seen it.

Episode Verdict: B

Dollhouse 110 – Haunted

Another solid episode from Dollhouse. It also was one of Dushku’s best performances (barring Spy in a House of Love, the last episode).

Basic plot, wealthy rich horse woman dies. Comes “back to life” via being imprinted on Echo. Her paranoia of being killed for her money, has led her to come to the Dollhouse every month to have herself “backed-up” as it were, in the event she was killed. Back in Echo’s body, she decides to solve her murder.

The general murder mystery is an interesting, perhaps solely because she is investigating her own murder. She gets to see what all of us dream about, to see our funeral, to see how people remember us, to see how many people care. But for her, its a painful ordeal. Seeing people she loved, bitter, angry, and having felt rejected and distanced by her. From her young husband who is truly broken up about her death, though there is speculation otherwise,  to her children, who felt abandoned and unloved by their overbearing mother. Her son even tries to kiss her (remember, different body) which of course repulsed her.By the end she uncovers her killer, but she also is able to reconcile some of her hurt relationships. Touchingly and in an uncheesy way. I think the performance by Dushku was superb: believable and real.

Meanwhile Ballard struggles with the fact that Millie is really November, a Doll. He struggles with how their relationship is fake, but both have a chemistry and seem to love each other. Even leading to a passionate, if not a little rough intimacy. It is unclear whether its true passion or if Ballard is taking out his frustration ever so slightly. Definitely we are seeing Ballard facing some definite crisis of identity, fighting those living these fantasy’s, trying to take down the Dollhouse, all the while having to live a fantasy.

Topher’s character also got some good screen time, creating the ultimate best friend, out of Sierra (Dichen Lachman) playing chess, laser tag, discussing advance science and science fiction. Its both entertaining as well as a little sad. The great wise cracking Topher moments are almost doubled having a perfect friend. Sierra suggesting they play with sleepies, Topher doing a Michael Bay trailer voice over “In a world, where all men are guilty until proven dead, One man, stands…” Adelle, The head of the Dollhouse, allows it because she knows that its not good to be lonely, and she herself had been doing a very similar thing, (previous episode).

The whole episode floated along smoothly, unstilted. Dialogue was natural, emotional, but not cheezy. I also was afraid that the whole “life after death thing” was going to be too complicated for them to explain, but it was done in a manner that was believable and didn’t leave any gaping holes in the mythology like I had thought it would. That said, the episode was a fairly straight forward story. No big government intrigue, or dolls going haywire. I think it was a well told, well performed episode.

I am certainly excited for next weeks episode with Tudryk (Firefly, Knights Tale).

Pushing Daisies 107 – The Smell of Success

Death By Scratch and Sniff

Death by scratch and sniff. Definitely another interesting death to be investigated by the Pie Hole crew. (Plus an appearance of The Spleen…I mean Paul Reuben’s reprising his role as a nasally displeasing character.)

In the intro of Ned’s childhood that is now a staple of the series, we find that Ned baked pies as a child because the smell reminded him of her, yet another “Aaawwwww” moment. The case for this episode is, as I mentioned, that of death by scratch and sniff. Basic plot: Olfactory pioneer Napoleon LaNez’s assistant Anita Grey is killed by an apparently sabotaged book. LaNez played by Christopher Sieber, (aka Sir Galahad and  The Black Knight in Spamalot) lives in a environmentally sealed environment due to his sensitive nose. The suspects in this case are a popup book maker whose book was knocked from the release chart by LaNez’s book, by the same title as the episode. And Oscar Vibenius played by Paul Reubens (Mystery Men as “The Spleen”, Batman Returns), LaNez’s former partner, but they fell out because Vibenius felt that all smells should be experienced, even the worst ones because it gave one a better appreciation for smell, while LaNez shielded himself from smell. And per usual, I won’t tell you the culprit because, that takes the fun out of watching it.

The episode also shows Olive trying to get the aunts out and swimming once again, but ends up making them more depressed, and they give away all their mermaid gear. But at Chuck’s suggestion, Olive takes chlorine tablets to the aunts house, and the smell brings back memories as well as memories that Aunt Lily’s eye injury wasn’t the real reason they quit. Then a great song from Vivian, and they realize the joy that swimming brought them, and they are back in the water.

I realize this is a rather short and uninteresting run-down of the episode. But overall, I wasn’t wowed by it. It was a neat episode and certainly entertaining, but not nearly as captivating as some of the other ones. Though of course there were fun quotes like “Follow the yellow thick hose.”

Though it may be worthy to note that this episode was nominated for two Emmys:

-Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Camera Series for Daniel Curet (department head hairstylist) and Yuko Tokunaga-Koach (key hairstylist)

-Outstanding Makeup for a Single Camera Series (non-prosthetic) for Todd A. McIntosh (department head makeup artist), David De Leon (key makeup artist), and Bradley M. Look (additional makeup artist)

If the non-prosthetic makeup was for that burnt woman up top, I would bow down in amazement to those makeup artists.

Verdict: (B+) A nice episode. Nothing special to note, just some classic crime solving from the Pie Hole Crew.