Defying Gravity
ABC | Release Date: August 2, 2009
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
10
Negative:
2
Watch Now
Buy on

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Chicago Sun-TimesPaige Wiser
Season 1 Review: Defying Gravity is taking its time to get off the ground, but I plan to tune in at least until Saturn. Read full review
75
New York PostMichael Starr
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyWhitney Pastorek
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
60
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
60
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: Fans of relationship-driven story-telling might just get hooked on this silly, lighter-than-air summer series. Read full review
60
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
60
The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley
Season 1 Review: 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.” Read full review
58
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: Gravity may be weighted down by cliche, but it’s not without interest. Read full review
50
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
50
PopMattersCynthia Fuchs
Season 1 Review: To ensure you understand the magnitude of all this emotional mayhem, Maddux helpfully narrates in generically navel-gazing voiceover. Read full review
42
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
40
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
30
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
30
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 92 The Pitt: Season 2
2 90 The Celebrity Traitors UK: Season 1
3 87 Hacks: Season 5
4 87 Industry: Season 4
5 87 Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal:...
6 85 The Beatles Anthology
7 85 The Traitors [UK]: Season 4
8 85 Bait: Season 1
9 84 Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!
10 83 Lord of the Flies
11 83 Riot Women: Season 1
12 83 For All Mankind: Season 5
13 81 The Muppet Show (2026)
14 80 Outlander (2014): Season 8
15 80 The Other Bennet Sister: Season 1
16 80 The Mighty Nein: Season 1
17 80 The Comeback: Season 3
18 80 The American Revolution
19 80 One Piece (2023): Season 2
20 80 Dark Winds: Season 4
SEE ALL