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Footage Emerges From ABC’s Summer Sci-Fi Series DEFYING GRAVITY!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
ABC now has a premiere date (Aug. 2) and a promo for “Defying Gravity,” a 13-hour summer series about horny astronauts on a mysterious six-year 8-billion-mile mission to Venus and beyond. (I say beyond because Venus sometimes gets as close as 24 million miles from Earth; I think Neptune, the most distant planet in the solar system, is only about 2.7 billion miles from Earth.)
“Gravity” was created by James Parriott, who also created “Misfits of Science” and “Forever Knight” but has more recently been toiling in such estrogen-soaked ABC hourlongs as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty.”
The series stars Ron Livingston (“Office Space”), Laura Harris (“Dead Like Me”), Christina Cox (“The Chronicles of Riddick,” “Blood Ties”), Malik Yoba (“New York Undercover”) and Florentine Lahme (ABC’s terrible astronaut miniseries “Impact”).
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Press release:
ASTRONAUTS EMBARK ON PROVOCATIVE SPACE THRILLER IN "DEFYING GRAVITY," A NEW SERIES STARRING RON LIVINGSTON AND LAURA HARRIS, BEGINING WITH A SPECIAL TWO-HOUR PREMIERE SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 ON THE ABC TELEVISION NETWORK
From executive producers James Parriott and Michael Edelstein comes "Defying Gravity," a sexy, provocative space thriller set in the very near future against the background of our solar system, in which eight astronauts from five countries (four women and four men) undertake a mysterious six-year international space mission covering eight billion miles. The adventure begins on SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 with a two-hour premiere from 9:00-11:00 p.m. The series will air regularly from 10:00-11:00 p.m., starting Sun, August 9 on the ABC Television Network.
Hurtling into the vast challenge of infinite space, the eight astronauts and the ground personnel who support them are on a mission that has a powerful and awesome mystery at its core. The intimate and interconnected relationships among the astronauts and the ground crew, as well as their past actions, have a strangely karmic effect on the present.
Episodes are divided between the present, as the Antares travels towards Venus, and the past, with flashbacks to earlier years when the astronauts were in the grueling selection and training process.
The series' international ensemble cast is led by Ron Livingston ("Office Space," "Sex and the City") as Antares flight engineer Maddux Donner, Laura Harris ("24") as the ship's geologist, Zoe Barnes, Malik Yoba ("New York Undercover") as Antares commander Ted Shaw, Christina Cox ("Blood Ties") as biologist Jen Crane, Florentine Lahme ("Impact") as pilot Nadia Schilling, Paula Garces ("The Shield") as pilot, scientist and on-board documentary producer Paula Morales, Eyal Podell ("24") as psychiatrist and medical officer Evram Mintz, and Dylan Taylor ("House Party") as theoretical physicist Steve Wassenfelder. The cast on planet Earth is led by Andrew Airlie ("Reaper") as Mission Control commander Mike Goss, Karen LeBlanc ("ReGenesis") as scientist Eve Shaw, Zahf Paroo ("Battlestar Galactica") as grounded flight engineer Ajay Sharma, and Maxim Roy ("MVP") as flight surgeon Claire Dereux. Episodic director Peter Howitt also plays the role of BBC journalist Trevor Williams.
Created by James Parriott, "Defying Gravity" was inspired by "Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets," a fictional docudrama produced by Impossible Pictures ("Walking with Dinosaurs") for the BBC. The series is a co-venture between Fox Television Studios and Omni Film Productions and is produced in association with Canada's CTV and Germany's ProSieben.
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Season Eight: Volume Five!! 
Two-For-$10 DVD Sale!!
From executive producers James Parriott and Michael Edelstein comes "Defying Gravity," a sexy, provocative space thriller set in the very near future against the background of our solar system, in which eight astronauts from five countries (four women and four men) undertake a mysterious six-year international space mission covering eight billion miles. The adventure begins on SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 with a two-hour premiere from 9:00-11:00 p.m. The series will air regularly from 10:00-11:00 p.m., starting Sun, August 9 on the ABC Television Network.
Hurtling into the vast challenge of infinite space, the eight astronauts and the ground personnel who support them are on a mission that has a powerful and awesome mystery at its core. The intimate and interconnected relationships among the astronauts and the ground crew, as well as their past actions, have a strangely karmic effect on the present.
Episodes are divided between the present, as the Antares travels towards Venus, and the past, with flashbacks to earlier years when the astronauts were in the grueling selection and training process.
The series' international ensemble cast is led by Ron Livingston ("Office Space," "Sex and the City") as Antares flight engineer Maddux Donner, Laura Harris ("24") as the ship's geologist, Zoe Barnes, Malik Yoba ("New York Undercover") as Antares commander Ted Shaw, Christina Cox ("Blood Ties") as biologist Jen Crane, Florentine Lahme ("Impact") as pilot Nadia Schilling, Paula Garces ("The Shield") as pilot, scientist and on-board documentary producer Paula Morales, Eyal Podell ("24") as psychiatrist and medical officer Evram Mintz, and Dylan Taylor ("House Party") as theoretical physicist Steve Wassenfelder. The cast on planet Earth is led by Andrew Airlie ("Reaper") as Mission Control commander Mike Goss, Karen LeBlanc ("ReGenesis") as scientist Eve Shaw, Zahf Paroo ("Battlestar Galactica") as grounded flight engineer Ajay Sharma, and Maxim Roy ("MVP") as flight surgeon Claire Dereux. Episodic director Peter Howitt also plays the role of BBC journalist Trevor Williams.
Created by James Parriott, "Defying Gravity" was inspired by "Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets," a fictional docudrama produced by Impossible Pictures ("Walking with Dinosaurs") for the BBC. The series is a co-venture between Fox Television Studios and Omni Film Productions and is produced in association with Canada's CTV and Germany's ProSieben.
Season Eight: Volume Five!!
Two-For-$10 DVD Sale!!
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And is it good?
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Or should I say skinemax?
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As, opposed to, you know Lost In Space.
I'm still pissed about not being first -
That is all. It even stole the Solaris sex scene.
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Just how does that work out?
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Fuck it watch it. You don't even need to understand the previous episodes. It is that good.
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But seriously, did Fox kill Virtuality because ABC had this? Ron Moore's show was a billion times better than this crap seems to be.
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Well, basically, I think Herc's math is suspect. The planets, y'know, move. You just go out there and wait for them to come around.
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Too bad it was on Fox and this is on ABC. ABC tends to give shows more lifelines than Fox. I often wonder, who'se the guy turning down stuff at Fox but greenlighting all the crap? Like don't think that maybe its just a monkey with a dartboard?
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Who the fuck cares about Venus? you can't land on it and there's absolutely nothing of value on it other then Sulfuric acid...which honestly, we have enough of on earth. This just looks cheap and corny.
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Yeah for the slow ass astronaut walk you see in every god damn thing these days.
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5 years and syndication.
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whats with all the fuckin? Besides which people have done tests on how easy it'd be to do those kinda motions with another person in Zero G, and unless you have something to push back against the first thrust would send you both goin in the opposite direction. Aside from that..WTF IS THIS????
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wow....THIS SUCKS. Poor Ron Livingston.
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Christina Cox was so hot on F/X the Series.. She would be the only reason for me to watch this new show...
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If I was trapped in some tiny spaceship with 2 guys and a girl.
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from that HBO teen special from the 90's about alcoholism? She has a drunk for a boyfriend and he tries to stick it in her and he can't get it up cuz of his drinking. Then he wrecks his car and gets paralyzed. I could be making shit up as I go along.
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If Neptune ever got that close to Earth, some very interesting and unfortunate shit would happen. Wrath of God type shit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune
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a cheesy title - does not bode well.
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I was trying to see the positive aspects of it until "in association with Germany's Pro Sieben" set off my alarm bells and I realized that this project must have been doomed from the getgo. The fact that the trailer (and the words. "The Lives, the loves, the passions"??? WTF?!) makes this look like a cheap and shallow Soap doesn't help.
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Better than Day One or Virtuosity at least.
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Does every show on television have to show people fucking? I guess I wouldn't care if I was getting laid, but I'm not. So why would I want to watch other people doing it?
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"...(I say beyond because Neptune sometimes gets as close as 24 million miles from Earth; I think Neptune, the most distant planet in the solar system, is only about 2.7 billion miles from Earth.)"I think the problem is Herc meant "Venus" the first time he wrote "Neptune".
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Just watched the final episode. It felt like a last episode of the series.
Sad if it is. -
...where no Fucking couples have cum before!
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Check over at the TORCHWOOD TB. Some people over there know a lot about it, maybe they could fill you in.
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Link please.
Thanks. -
no thanks
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Scroll to the top of this TB, the right hand column is listed as Top Ten, it's the 8th Subject Heading.
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http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41611
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Really looks feasibly watchable.
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Jul 10, 2009 7:45:15 PM CDT
This guy did VOYAGERS back in 1982, which was awesome
by darthmrbelvedere
Tru Dat
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word
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And Thomas Edison picked it out and analyzed it...seriously, that was a plotline haha
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Jul 10, 2009 7:48:25 PM CDT
The guy who played Jeffery Jones was Punky Brewsters
by darthmrbelvedere
Brother. Ever hear what happened to Punky Brewster's real father?...ya don't wanna know...
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Jul 10, 2009 7:49:54 PM CDT
I was 7 when they cancelled VOYAGERS...I cried for a week
by darthmrbelvedere
seriously, that show was bad-ass.
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Jul 10, 2009 7:51:47 PM CDT
When I invite chicks back to my apt. I put on the VOYAGERS..
by darthmrbelvedere
dvd's, seriously. The young 22yr old ones from the karaoke bar love the show. The older ones think I'm a little weird, but i usually nail them anyway haha ;)
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Jul 10, 2009 7:53:08 PM CDT
In 1982 I made an OMNI out of an old gascap and duct tape
by darthmrbelvedere
it was totally rad;)
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girls don't like it. We geeky guys can't make a show a hit just by ourselves, or at least it's very rare. By soaping it up a little, that's a small price to pay to have a show that might get some ratings. It's worth a try.
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Seriously, I can't be the only one who thought that. Right? RIGHT???
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They need to soap up the sci-fi
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Hey nice bar. No atmosphere!
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another vote for voyagers here - a good show
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Jul 10, 2009 8:05:51 PM CDT
They should just get it over with and call it "Space Fucking"
by davidduchovneys_wandering_cock
Seriously, wtf?
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who writes these promos? Gotta hope it is not the show-writers themselves, or this will suck in a 'powerful and awesome" way
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I don't want crappy romance in my dorky sci-fi and my wife doesn't want crappy sci-fi in her dorky romance. It's worlds colliding, the two just really shouldn't mix. Ever.
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From the start it was a soapy sci fi series and also one of the few success stories.
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has been gone from my consciousness for 20+ years. Shit...I LOVED that show when I was young.
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Um, NO. It was a mystery right from the start. The soapy love triangle shit came later.
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be hitting on each other during training and during the mighty slingshot maneuver?
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as in "Grey's Anatomy," "Merlin," and every other show?
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I'd like to enter the orbit of that heavenly body.
Nudge nudge wink wink . . . while DEFYING GRAVITY. -
her black hole.
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Eternal Sunshine?
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It's just good.
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it being called SyFy?
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And I liked it better when it was called Virtuality too
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The Sawyer, Jack, Kate thing which was a big part of the show from the start is straight out of romance novel crap. The wounded bad boy, the noble but repressed good guy, the fickle girl who can't decide etc.
When I say soapy, I don't mean that's all there was, it had mystery and intrigue too. And so will this new show, but first they gotta market it. I guess that's what it comes down to for me, while they might be selling it as a Grey's style sci fi show, I personally think it's likely that it will end up having mystery and cool stuff from early on too. If it doesn't have anything like that then I'll probably stop watching. We'll see I guess. -
No thanks. I hate everything that guy has worked on. Grey's Anatomy sucks as does 'Shitty Betty' as I like to call it.
Maybe if they put Sarah Palin in it, then it might be worth watching. -
Fanboys won't like it.
My prediction canceled after two episodes. -
Ahhh...Crimetime After Primetime. Remember the days when the networks actually tried original programming late night instead of promotional junkets masquerading as talk shows?
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The Earth is dying so these guys are sent out, unknown to them, on a one way trip to find and populate a new earth. SPACE:1999 on purpose as it were.
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As if someone invovled with Greys Anatomy is a real selling point for people who may be intersted in a show about astronauts. That was a terrible promo, I doubt anyone will watch this and itll get dropped the way Kings did on NBC. I'll bet you. Oh, and terrible, terrible fucking title.
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I can watch this with my girl and then pop in a Star Trek and fuck. The best of both worlds.
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this becomes a sucsess and ambitious sci-fi like Virtuality get's cancelled after the pilot.
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"...selling point for people who may be intersted in a show about astronauts."I think that's the point - try to entice viewers, who wouldn't watch an astronaut show, by telling them "it's Grey's Anatomy in space". However, how many viewers, who would want to watch an astronaut show, will be turned off by that reference?
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Everything that happens in the solar system is set against the background of our solar system. It's also set against the background of our galaxy and our universe. Could they be a little more specific? Or a little less desperate to sound Impressive?
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If you divide 8,000,000,000 by six to get the miles per year the characters travel and divide that quotient by fifty-two to get the miles per week and divide that result by seven to get the miles per day and then divide again by twenty-four to get the miles per hour, the result is 152625.152625152625152625152625...mph. That's an interesting result.
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Jul 11, 2009 10:26:22 AM CDT
Not another silly series..Hollywood is running out of ideas!!
by juwon1982
What a load of nonsense!!
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...for casting Laura Harris. Now, I have to watch it. (She is the star of Fantastic Fest fave "Severance".)
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Me no watchee. From the producers of Gays Anatomy. Nuff said.
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My inner nerd is both angry at the stupidity and turned on by the coolness.. Way to go SutureSelf
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and then punches him and walks out. What more do you need? Oh yes, some Cylon sex and we're in business. Compared to that, Defying Gravity sounds pretty boring.
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Fuck.
Flush any thought of this being good.
Piss.
Piss OUT MY ASSS>! -
and that's the end of it.
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This looks like Virtuality a bit. I would rather see that, but this might be ok.
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Would you guys like it more?
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So that means the lead in to this thing is Desperate Housewives? Yeah, my mom is not going to watch this. She hates all sci-fi.
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Seriously, how can you people hate a show you know nothing about? The trailer tells us NOTHING. Remember what you thought about the idea of a Battlestar Galactica re-imagining before you saw the show itself? I'm going to reserve judgment until I actually see it.
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Hackulent.
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In a speech at the 2007 Venice Film Festival at special screening of his seminal noir thriller Blade Runner, Sir Ridley Scott, the legendary director of Alien, announced that he believes that science-fiction as a genre is dead -gone the way of Westerns.
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A science fiction adventure starring Ron Livingston? Hell yes. I'll give it a try.
Doesn't seem as dark or claustrophobic as "Virtuality," a show I was really looking forward to, but so what? I like the actors, its production values look pretty high, and it stars Ron Livingston.
Maybe it'll surprise us. I hope so. -
Get a dictionary you retarded network morons!
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Expect the DEFYING GRAVITY complete DVD series (meaning the one season) to appear in stores sometime around six weeks after the premiere, which means of course the show will by then be axed. I give this one, maybe two episodes before it is pulled from the air and NOT reshown. This will be one of the lowest-rated shows in the history of television, meaning about on par with most network tv sci-fi series. Does anyone REALLY think this will last more than two airings?
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I think the hate is there because fanboys suffer from a real duality. They want to be accepted into a social group, and crave mainstream acceptance - while at the same time being socially awkward and hateful and venomous toward their fellow human beings. Because of this, fanboys recognize that pretty much everything they like is regarded as INCREDIBLY JUVENILE AND STUPID by the vast majority of the world (most of all, girls) and they therefore lash back whenever that mainstream tries to wheedle into sci-fi territory. They also know in advance that a show like this is doomed - that it's not even worth the money the studio is spending to pay the people making it - and they also think they could do better. The sad fact is, they might be able to make a better SHOW, but the ratings would be even lower as a gritty-toothed self-representational Mary Sue hero slaughters everyone while gritting his way through dialogue about a nebulous "mission" that's actually just the "writer's" excuse for endless violence that means nothing but "looks cool." That's the definition of sci-fi for the modern fanboy - MATRIX moves by a guy in all-black who Grrrs his way through everything, hates women and shoots dogs for fun. That's KEWL! If you can't guess, the vast majority of my hate is for fanboys - they disgust me because they're outcasts and yet they're actually LESS creative and open-minded than anyone. Note, too, that fanboys are quite possibly the biggest racists and homophobes and misogynists on the face of the ****ing planet, and certainly on the face of the internet. They're MORE INTOLERANT THAN REPUBLICANS. They are scum, the worst kind of filth and they deserve to dance around covered in napalm 24/7.
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It looks like it might be good.
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Some of you fuckers are hilarious. Slating a show after a 30 second promo!? WTF? I love me some Ron Livingston, so am well on for this.
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Right. Fucking. On. Well put, my friend
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i bet they all get raped in the ass by aliens
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...IMHO and often makes all the difference in these types of sagas.For example, APOLLO 13 would not have been as gripping without the mission control scenes such as the one with Ed Harris as the flight director and his "Failure is not an option" line.
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...but if you don't give us any sort of hints in the trailer or press release as to what it might involve, why are we supposed to care?
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All mysteries on TV have the same answer, whether it's QUANTUM LEAP, JOHN DOE, JOURNEYMAN, LOST or now DEFYING GRAVITY - it's nebulous, but ultimately it was all caused by God.
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Soliel (Punky)'s brother is named Meeno Peluce, and Phinneas WAS indeed the MAN, and that show utterly rocked. It was AWESOME! I wanted to be a Time Guardian as a kid, and I learned more about history from that show than my history books. Kids aren't stupid. Of COURSE they can tell what's real and what's fiction.
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this looks fucking silly as shite...but the women will eat it up
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....cause Gray's Anatomy is a formulatic, boring, overhyped piece of shit show. Even the advertisements each week on ABC are boring and predictable. And Shitty Betty? Don't even get me started on how horrible that show is. Why look forward to a show that looks like a lame soap opera in space being partially run by a dude with a lousy track record? That's why all the hate.
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Boom chicka wow wow!
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These guys are just followers!
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Jul 13, 2009 3:56:55 PM CDT
What, they don't run around a hamster wheel like in 2001?
by mrmysteryguest
Run off all that sexual energy?
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Jul 13, 2009 3:59:40 PM CDT
William Shatner cameos to invite the 'nauts to bone in space!
by mrmysteryguest
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... IN SPACE!!!
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...Is that all they got to tease us?
No boner here... -
No matter how good or bad, I'll watch anything with Princess Laura. A fan since her days on Nickelodeon's FIFTEEN, also starring Ryan Reynolds.
Visit my Laura Harris website at http://www.angelfire.com/mn/lauraharris/index.html - online since 1999. -
check out this leaked trailer. may answer your questions. more to this show than sex in space. in fact, I worked on it, and there were 2 sex scenes in 13 episodes. So get over yourselves and tune in. ABC is just amping up the Grey's angle to lure the broadest possible audience imaginable. vimeo.com/5753393
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