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ABC Cancels ‘Defying Gravity’

Sep 14, 2009  •  Post A Comment

ABC has canceled its futuristic romance drama "Defying Gravity," according to TVSquad.com.

Low ratings were the culprit, with the show premiering Aug. 2 to just 3.83 million viewers and declining from then on.

The Fox Television Studios show, often described as "’Grey’s Anatomy’ in Space," starred Ron Livingstone.

–Allison J. Waldman

20 Comments

  1. Never fails. I like a show. It gets cancelled. Hopefully the rest will come out on DVD so I see how it ends. I’m sure a better time slot would have saved it. 10pm on Sundays is a death slot.

  2. Right you are WF.

  3. Too bad they’re not counting Hulu views. I haven’t watched a single episode on broadcast. But, I haven’t missed one either, thanks to Hulu. If they’re not giving consideration to internet viewing, why bother releasing the season there?
    It is a great show and deserves better than the treatment it recieved… Sunday nights at 10? Are you kidding me? BTW, I hate Grey’s Anatomy.

  4. I was just getting into the show too – watching them all recently. Are time slots really important anymore? Does anyone still watch a show “live”? I will stop the DVR FF for an interesting commercial, the first time. Oh well, I’m sure that the replacement reality show “How to Become A Billionaire’s Mistress” will do much better in the time slot.

  5. I work for an ABC Affiliate and I enjoyed the show. You are right when you say maybe they should look at the other viewing options people are watching. But face it, ABC is an idiot. They’d rather put on below average game show crap then something that might actually provoke a thought in a educated viewer. This is why I an normally watching another network. ABC, pass this on to your affiliates.

  6. From the very first episode, I thought that this show was far too intelligent for the average American TV viewer. ABC did a huge disservice to the show, its producers, and its fans by not even bothering to advertise it. How do they expect to gain viewership if no one knows it’s on?
    The other huge mistake was debuting the show in August which traditionally has the lowest viewership of the year…ABC really didn’t want this show to succeed, did they? God forbid we viewers actually want to watch an intelligent character drama that doesn’t have to hit you over the head to make its point.

  7. I too finally had time to catch the show last night for the first time. (You know it launched at the wrong time of the year.) About half way through I set my DVR to record the series. I guess I can delete that one. With all the reality crap on broadcast, I think people are forgetting that shows like this still come on broadcast. I guess I’m with WF. I’ll wait for it to come out on DVD or even better, show up on SyFy HD.

  8. This happens to us (me and my wife)every time a good show comes out !!! Pushing Daisies, Veronica Mars (VERY good show), that one about the Army guys/girls in Iraq, a few years back, etc. These idiots gear their shows to idiots, that’s why a decent show like this goes by the wayside, and they go back to all of those stupid reality pieces of s*#t !!! No wonder people don’t watch regular TV any more. I agree w/BC, and hope it ends up on SyFy. Oh, and killing Star Gate Atlantis didn’t make me too happy either ! Sorry, this really makes me mad.

  9. This is getting more interesting.
    Futon Critic quotes the showrunners as saying it is not canceled:

    Nicole Marostica, the show’s publicist for the network, has confirmed the Alphabet hasn’t pulled the plug on the show and is still mulling scheduling options going forward.

    Due to its late start this summer, ABC didn’t have the real estate to air all 13 installments from its first season. “Gravity’s” shortened run was made clear from the start: the network announced back on July 22 (read the story), “Brothers & Sisters” would return to its Sunday, 10:00/9:00c slot on September 27, leaving “Gravity” just eight weeks of potential air dates.

    This coming Sunday, ABC will air the 2005 feature “King Kong” rather than put originals against CBS’s coverage of the Emmys.
    http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=8293

    However, as of this point ABC has no future episodes scheduled.

  10. I am deeply disappointed with ABC. They set this show up to fail.
    This is like Firefly all over again. All it needed was a decent time slot and a little advertising. I know of several serious SF fans that didn’t even know it was airing!
    The networks never learn.
    If it comes out on DVD, I’ll buy it and if it’s aired on SyFy, I’ll watch.

  11. It’s great to see that momentum is starting to pick up for this great show! I’m anxious to get the official official word, but the rumors of it not getting cancelled are encouraging! There’s another campaign going on over here to make sure the show doesn’t get cancelled: http://defyingravityonline.com.

  12. I was just going to end the series recording I had for Defying Gravity. That’s when I found out it wasn’t on any more. No loss to me. I didn’t find the characters interesting and I thought the plots were juvenile. Intelligent? Battlestar Galactica was intelligent, not this show.

  13. Defying Gravity, did just that, it was a little off beat, made the audience think and had cliff hanger endings! Too much for the general public to understand or take an hour to put aside and dream. ABC must have done their research, with live audience test marketing because this was not an inexpensive show to produce. Knowing this, why did the producers not go directly to Syfy or HBO from the start? As stated by the other comments, there was also a lack of serious advertising. This is why as a rule I watch very little commercial television.

  14. No wonder it was cancelled. Commercials every six or 8 minits. I got tired of them. But, to cancel just when we get to see what “BETA” is and the secret in pod #4 sucks. Put the series back!!!

  15. Figured, just as they get to revealing something … and I’ve been hooked since the first visit … they abort the series. I’d at least like to know more of the story … geesh.

  16. I have been watching the show from the beginning, however like many of you, i don’t like the comercials, i boughtthe season pass at amazon. guess it goes to show you how little the networks now about the internet.

  17. ABC really needs to take into account other forms of viewership. There is this thing called the internet – they really need to understand a large part of their audience watches online. What they need to do is start taking those numbers into consideration. Also, if you are going to cancel a show every few months, stop making them altogether. Whats the point of us viewers investing time and energy only to have a series canceled mid show – I am truly starting to resent this type of network mentality !! Any half way decent show that does not involve dancing or reality just gets canceled – maybe the people need a union of some kind – we need to boycott networks that keep pulling such stunts without doing a proper count of their audience. I know a lot of people feel the same way i do.

  18. ABC really needs to take into account other forms of viewership. There is this thing called the internet – they really need to understand a large part of their audience watches online. What they need to do is start taking those numbers into consideration. Also, if you are going to cancel a show every few months, stop making them altogether. Whats the point of us viewers investing time and energy only to have a series canceled mid show – I am truly starting to resent this type of network mentality !! Any half way decent show that does not involve dancing or reality just gets canceled – maybe the people need a union of some kind – we need to boycott networks that keep pulling such stunts without doing a proper count of their audience. I know a lot of people feel the same way i do.

  19. Episode 9: http://www.ch131.com/defyinggravity109.htm
    THIS never aired!!!

  20. This makes me not want to watch ABC at ALL, No MORE ABC’s shows…

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