Le galassie del cuore

This show appears to be another evolving mystery like Lost. Right away, we are presented with a plausible near-future scenario. Yet, there are obvious hints that something of earthshaking extraordinary significance is lurking in the shadows.

The acting is acceptable. The characters seem too capricious for astronauts, but I say this with reservation. When Lisa Marie Nowak made her cross-country trip in a diaper, the image of the cool-headed, courageous professional was somewhat tarnished.

Their justification for filming primarily in a one gravity environment is a bit embarrassing. Star Trek's gravity plating would have been too advanced for this show, but the explanation they settled on is too problematic. It would have been better if they had adopted a revolving habitat like the space station in Kubrick's 2001. In their defense, they probably rejected a revolving habitat so that they could have more inspiring views through the ship's windows. In that case they should have adopted a ship that was constantly accelerating at one gravity. Then, they would only have to justify the large power requirements. They couldn't have the casual view back to earth, but they must sacrifice something in the way of art to make a show that will sit well with their presumed audience.

I definitely intend to follow Defying Gravity. The recent debut of the sigh-fie channel's noxious Warehouse 13 left me wanting. Perhaps this will make up for that disappointment.

I had no expectations for this show. I'd never heard of it till the week before its eighth (and maybe last) episode. I have no television: I watch shows online. I was looking for something with Ron Livingston in it, after watching "Band of Brothers".

The science and junior-high atmosphere are ridiculous, of course, but I enjoy the slow pace and the wonderment of space. In one narration Donner says, "How the hell did I get here?" I think, if I were aboard Antares as a trained astronaut, I would wonder how I got there, often. After an all-hands meeting, Mintz suggests that they take a moment to remember where they are, then he lowers the light so that they may gaze on Earth and the Moon. That was a nice moment. I think I would alternate between gazing in awe at what surrounds the ship, and cringing in fear at what DOESN'T surround the ship: air.

The mystery of Beta is lovely. I don't care what it is, it's enough that it makes it okay to add weirdness to the story. I'm not familiar with Laura Harris, but she is a lovely and talented actress, and makes a nice foil to Livingston's Donner. Livingston does an extraordinary job, particularly when he reacts with fear and confusion to his hallucinations.

The episodes have improved as the show progresses. At this writing the show has stopped after episode eight, and may not resume. I will be sorry not to see the remainder of the season.

A lot of reviews here have really derided this show for being completely unrealistic, cheesy, and boring, and have basically labeled it "Grey's Anatomy in Space." I highly disagree. I address some of the concerns below:

1) Some reviews make the problem with the show one of being unrealistic. First off, IT'S A SCIENCE FICTION SHOW SET IN THE FUTURE. Who is really worrying about realism? And if you are, how can you worry about what's realistic when we have absolutely no way of knowing what is real IN THE FUTURE? Plus, it's simply TV...if you want realism, watch the discovery channel, or go visit Cape Canaveral in Florida, don't come looking for it on a show on ABC.

2) One previous review comments about the female Hispanic astronaut attempting to teach in space via video communication, and how she switched in and out of Spanish when talking. I kind of got offended at that review, as they said that she was simply making up random, nonsense words in Spanish when talking. I'm a native Spanish speaker, and all of what she was saying made complete sense. Second, why is the concept of multilingual teaching so hard to accept? The show is set 41 years in the future, and at the rate Hispanics are growing in this country, Spanish is fast becoming a critical secondary language in the US. Not to mention, various educational programs via the internet are doing the same thing, so it is far from nonsensical. It's simply a very bigoted view.

3) Before making assumptions about the show, or passing judgment on it, watch the episodes available from start to finish. Many concerns about plot holes are addressed in subtle ways that someone not taking any effort to pay attention to the show, and instead use it as mindless background noise, would definitely miss.

4) Yes, I understand the whole "why is there a music video in the middle of the show" concern. There are a couple of points where the show uses a musical "interlude" during emotional/emotion-evoking scenes. The question is, how else would you like them to show the love between a husband and wife, or the thrill of beginning space exploration? By talking about it? By cheesy dialog between the characters trying to say something of deep meaning, but not succeeding? Please. The show tried to appease individuals looking for that sort of thing by the whole "astronaut video diary" scenes. By the way, the scenes in question are about 6-7 minutes out of a 45 minute show. Get over it.

5) This isn't Star Trek. It isn't Star Wars. It isn't your typical science fiction set really far in the future, where anything and everything is possible. It's a show about what space exploration COULD BE like sometime in the next half century, but that doesn't mean that it's how things WILL be. People who have problems with this seem to think that space travel is either via Space Shuttle, or by the Starship Enterprise, and nothing in between. Keep your mind open.

It's a nice change of pace from medical drama shows, legal/police drama shows, "teen angst" shows, and family comedies. It's something a bit different. Plus, only two episodes have aired (both of which were pretty good when you simply sat back and enjoyed it for what it was worth, rather than trying to nit-pick apart the show for every little thing). There's plenty of the show ahead, so give it some time. Plot lines take time to develop and get better.

Obviously, not everyone likes every show. I know that there are definitely shows that I've despised through the years, and I'm sure everyone has their own shows that they feel that way about. All I'm saying is, watch the show, give it a chance, and allow it to be its own show, not something else that it's not, but that you or someone else would like it to be because you were comfortable with the previous show. Additionally, Ron Livingston is the man, so there's always that.

The first things I noticed about this series, of course, were the good acting and great CG effects. Then the funny stuff started happening - contemporary clothing and cars over forty years in the future, astronauts who wouldn't have made it past a preliminary interview, trite dialogue, made-up technical details like faster-than-light instant communication from Venus, and General-Hospital plots.

I feel badly for everybody involved with this series other than James Parriott. The people and the sets are very pretty. The music cues us to laugh when the comic relief arrives. We get long music videos twice an episode. For the most part sexual innuendo is completely skipped because it's too subtle - the characters talk constantly about sex because the writers don't know what else astronauts would talk about. The editors gave us lots of long, pregnant moments to give us time to consider the incredible implications of every emotionally charged moment. We're even given lots of "Let's do this" and "when you do this thing that we do" dialogue to remind us that we're watching true heroes, in case we've forgotten. And every episode ends with an honest-to-god "You see, Timmy..." eternal lifetruth.

Admittedly, the plot holes are sometimes pretty large, but that's normal for TV, right?

The whole problem here is that audiences are sometimes too smart. This series should be a rich emotional and philosophical stew but it's really a bowl of thin watery gruel. The "Grey's Anatomy" female demographic doesn't get enough to satisfy, and the sci-fi crowd gets what's left over after the bowl has been licked clean. Without women and sci-fi fans there weren't enough people left to watch this series, and that's too bad for everybody. It's especially bad for anybody who wants to make a sci-fi series for a major network in the near future, because this one will make it tough.

There's a quote from James Parriott that I think is worth including here. "I was reading in The New Yorker how stock market swings follow Pi, the fractal equation. And that's sort of a scary thing, that it just moves. You can plot the right dips and curves that it does indeed move fractally, and that just blows me away. There's just tons of stuff we don't know."

This quote explained loads to me. The problem is that Parriott didn't understand what he was reading, and he got it completely garbled, *and then, being a TV guy, he based a new TV series on his garbled version of what he thought he'd read.* Oh no.

Now, for those who haven't seen Parriott's reveal of where the series would have gone next season, I'll summarize (and no, I'm not making this up):

• Nadia turns into a man. - Donner's vasectomy reverses itself for the second time, so does Zoe's hysterectomy, and he gets her pregnant. - Wassenfelder becomes autistic, making him extra, extra smart, because everybody knows autistic guys are extra, extra smart. - Arnel loses his leg in training, forcing them(?) to recall Zoe. - Jen is forced to kill her bunny in order to have the guilt necessary to see the "fractal objects". - Eve realizes she's supposed to be on the ship, so they put her on a "resupply mission". - Rollie goes to jail again, but when it's necessary to get Eve to Mars Rollie leaves town in a big way. - Goss realizes the "fractal objects" made him a bad guy. - We never find out what the "fractal objects" are, or in fact, what makes them "fractal objects", because frankly, I'm a math guy, and I didn't see no "fractal objects". - Sharon and Walker may still be alive on Mars, but that wasn't completely decided.

There's some good news about all of this that means a lot to me, even though it probably won't mean much to most people. This series has cured me of television for a while. And, as the script writers say, that's a Good Thing.

Okay, so I also agree that it is hard to conceive of how the producers will keep this alive given the trajectory of this program, but is the program really that bad? The sexuality between characters: were men to take horribly long space engagements it is believable that a level of sexuality might be tolerated; it is human nature after all. Suppress it for 6 years, I think not.

I like this show, and am enjoying it. I can't think of anything better to watch on television, really. My greatest fear is that like the X-Files, it will come to a speeding cataclysm of a wreck, with poor writing and insufficient funds. The problem is not in the drama, or the relationships. The problem is in maintaining Nielsen ratings, where more and more outrageous plot twists are added to attract viewers, which can be fun, but never realistically brought to a coherent conclusion.

I think folks should give this one a chance, but given their short attention, I'm fairly certain they will not. Just keepin' it real, monkeys.