On the premiere episode, two of the eight novice astronauts onboard mysteriously develop heart ailments a mere hours after leaving Earth's orbit for Venus aboard the spaceship Antares. Replacing Ajay Sharma (Zahf Paroo) and Mission Commander Rollie Crane (Ty Olsson) are experienced astronauts Maddux Donner (Ron Livingston) and Ted Shaw (Malik Yoba). Already we see traces of Grey's Anatomy, as Donner's arrival creates friction with the ship's geologist Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris), who is linked to him by a strange dream and a romantic encounter from their early training days.

According to Livingston the eight characters figure out soon enough that "there's a little more to the mission than what they've been told" so along the way, the astronauts are even "forced" to discover a lot of things about themselves and each other.

Livingston, who plays a veteran astronaut who has a past with not one but two female astronauts, says the new mission is a second chance for his new character, after a Mars expedition that went haywire.

Other than the secondary mission, the other mystery, says Livingston, is who's going to end up sleeping with who. "Anytime you stick four men and four women in a closed environment, things get fun pretty quickly." He also admits that things get pretty racy on Defying Gravity, as it comes from the people behind Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy.

Defying Gravity also stars Blood Ties' Christina Cox and Andrew Airlie from Reaper.

Catch the two-hour series premiere of Defying Gravity tonight 9pm on ABC.



- Glenn Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Associated Press, ABC
(Image courtesy of ABC)