• Network: ABC
  • Series Premiere Date: Aug 2, 2009
  • Season #: 1
Metascore
55 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 15 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 15
  2. Negative: 2 out of 15
  1. Reviewed by: Paige Wiser
    75
    Defying Gravity is taking its time to get off the ground, but I plan to tune in at least until Saturn.
  2. Reviewed by: Michael Starr
    75
    Gravity has an intriguing premise and its pacing--the action cuts back-and-forth between the present and five years in the past--heightens the drama and foreboding.
  3. The first ep feels ridiculous; maybe it's the fact that despite being on a futuristic space mission, everyone acts like they're on "Private Practice." Then again, it's summer, and at least this isn't another cop/doctor show.
  4. If you're in the mood for some outer space, I wouldn't warn you away. Livingston and Harris work well together, and though it's too soon to know whether this will go anywhere interesting, it's also too soon to say it won't. I do wonder what's coming.
  5. Defying Gravity, about four men and four women sent into orbit with entangled romantic pasts and removable libido-suppressing devices, has high-tech props and a spooky sci-fi mystery, but it is layered in feminine concerns and the mawkishly sentimental pop music that frames plot points on "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice."
  6. Reviewed by: Brian Lowry
    60
    All told, there's still plenty here to hold an audience through the first two hours. Fulfilling that six-year charter, however, will depend on exhibiting a clearer directional sense, because in both TV and space, gravity can be a real bitch.
  7. 60
    Defying Gravity is a perfectly decent bit of sci-fi soap - some cool "Star Trek'' futurism, plenty of pretty "Grey's Anatomy'' ensemble melodrama, and a twist of eerie "Twilight Zone'' mysteriousness when characters refer to the high-tech spaceship as if it has a will of its own.
  8. Fans of relationship-driven story-telling might just get hooked on this silly, lighter-than-air summer series.
  9. Reviewed by: Matt Roush
    58
    Gravity may be weighted down by cliche, but it's not without interest.
  10. 50
    To ensure you understand the magnitude of all this emotional mayhem, Maddux helpfully narrates in generically navel-gazing voiceover.
  11. Defying Gravity--an international production with American actors--feels too slight, or silly, to treat as anything but the cheap, disposable summer programming it is.
  12. Reviewed by: Verne Gay
    42
    Defying Gravity is a glorious, glimmering glop of foolishness--a spitball magnet of the first order that elicits jeers when it wants tears and catcalls when striving for philosophical heft.
  13. 40
    Unfortunately, Defying Gravity will have to be listed as one of its well-intentioned mistakes, another of the many peculiar oddities churned out by broadcast and cable every year, every week, every moment of our earthbound little lives.
  14. 30
    Nonlinear storytelling, with so many flashbacks and flash-forwards and dream sequences that pretty soon you can't even remember the last time you saw a naked chick bobbing around the cabin. My advice: Rent Barbarella instead.
  15. 30
    While I can understand why Parriott and Co. might be tempted to simply swap out the high-pressure hospital setting with a high-pressure intergalactic setting, the stupidity of Defying Gravity really knows no bounds.
User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 85 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 45 out of 62
  2. Negative: 13 out of 62
  1. I love this show! It is so disappointing that ABC never gave it a fair chance. It was broadcast with no advertising fanfare in the middle of the summer when most families are on vacation and not expecting new programming. This was a clever, well-acted show that was perfect family fare. I hope that some wrap-up book is offered to fill-in the gaps of the prematurely terminated series. Full Review »
  2. Poor writing, poor acting, despicable characters, and a supremely unrealistic story. Designing a manned mission to multiple planets in the solar system would be a scientific miracle (even in 2050), let alone one manned mission to one planet within our century. The science advisors to this show have clearly never cracked a textbook - it takes 3min for light to travel from Venus to the Earth but our Astronauts can make instant phonecalls to their loved ones to argue about such trivial matters as why a spouse on Earth "lied" to them. They explain artificial gravity (again a ridiculous idea) but where is our explanation for Faster than Light communication? This show is full of self-serving religious BS and it suggests an unrealistic & unethical future where abortion is illegal, yet sexual promiscuity is clearly popular behavior. The on-board physicist brought his comic book collection on a journey through the solar system - time to grow up kid leave the comics at home with Mom - I'm sure this may appeal to an adolescent viewer but I find it hard to believe that these people are going to successfully land on Venus let alone circumnavigate the solar system on some pseudo-religious adventure. This show is laughable. If it lasts a second season I will be very surprised Full Review »
  3. DavidW
    8
    A great series of sci-fi action, with depth and visuals to please the geeks and the intellectuals. After a strong start DG gets a little slow and direction-less in the middle but the last four episodes are excellent with a fantastic finale. Full Review »