Lower Decks

The following contains spoilers through the episode “Rubicon,” originally broadcast 8/23/09.

Whatever ABC was doing with its preview last week, the show obviously had other ideas. For those who watched it, maybe they agreed with Ted Shaw’s decision to withhold the truth of the mission from Maddux Donner. Then again, I suppose this might have been a great opportunity to join the millions who, well, aren’t watching (despite the network’s routine “it’s a hit” attitude in the ads). For me, though, the episode was yet another affirmation that watching D2G (my clever acronym for ‘Defying Gravity’ that combines the logo with last week’s pet phrase I’ll be using for the remainder of my time writing about it, no matter how long that is; once again, though, ABC has its own opinions, running a preview for the new season of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ instead of a sneak for next week’s episode) is hardly a mistake, at least on my part.

“Rubicon,” as with the other four episodes to date of the series, reflects on mistakes, or at least decisions, that the characters have made. Donner’s narration points this out, just as the Antares reaches the final point of no return (which has been a common thing to ruminate on in this mission, as well as the countless emergencies that have cropped up in so short a time, which leads to Ted’s moment of truth — but the viewer is reminded that his wife back home, Eve, at Mission Control, has already spoken with Control commander Mike Goss about the inevitable revelation of Beta, which is likely to occur on Venus, the ship’s first stop). This episode we notice for the first time (or I do, unless it really is the first time) that Donner is rarely without a well-worn baseball, which is significant because Ted asks every crewmember to gather their most precious possessions for a time capsule to be shot into space. We know without a doubt that Donner’s is that ball, so we know at least part of the episode will be dedicated to explaining its significance to him. Given the constant reflections back to the Mars mission, it’s not hard to guess, exactly, or to whom it’s associated, given last week’s extended look back at his past with doomed astronaut Sharon Lewis (one of two left behind on Mars).

But, as the series has been doing, there’s more to it than that, more to explore personally. Plenty more. We learn more about the Mars mission, how the onus falls not on Donner and Ted for the big failure of the Mars mission but on Goss (Andrew Airlie), who’s been acting like the facts are anything but all this time. It’s Eve (Karen Le Blanc) who forces the truth out of him. Flashing back five years, we see how Donner and Ted have been handicapped by Goss in the preliminary rankings among potential mission members, to twelfth and thirteenth, which is pretty low considering their experience at the least. I suspect, as with all the potential D2G demonstrates, that with time we would have a portrait of these characters as intimate and grand as those on ‘Lost’ have enjoyed for five seasons now. It’s just, on a series like this, there’s a lot of room to breathe, to take your time, even as certain things hang ominously around everyone.

One resolution that does come here is what Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris) ultimately did about her unexpected pregnancy in the training period. We meet her mother in the episode, but Zoe doesn’t fill as much of the hour as she has in the past. She doesn’t need to, at this point. She’s become established, she has room to breathe (there’s that phrase again). This is a big moment, so it only really needs to be outlined. Her mother is an oddity who believes at the drop of a hat that her husband cheats on her, but believes and practices the art of tarot like fact, delivers fortunes too accurate to be ignored. She reads Donner first, and eventually, her daughter, who’s met with a doctor at last. Those wondering why the series has fixated on this issue might find the episode to be rather refreshing, at least on this point. On a side note, and the first time I comment on a specific actor not named Ron Livingston, Harris, whom I have never to this point thought so, acts a lot like ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star Ellen Pompeo this episode, lisp included. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s certainly weird to bring that much more association between the two shows. Otherwise, Harris has never really brought on such a comparison, and Zoe has never really seemed like Meredith Grey. Maybe it’s just mommy issues that brought it out this time.

We also have conversations between husband and wife Jen (Christina Cox) and Rollie Crane (Ty Olsson), which illuminate the bonds between them, both five years earlier when Jen was involved with Ted, and the present, where the frustrations of being unexpectedly split apart start to show over the embryo of a rabbit named Rufus. They share a scientific interest that stems from a world faced with food shortage and overpopulation (hence the extreme importance of that whole fertility issue), where global climate change is a fact (those looking for a definite position on the current political scale will perhaps leave befuddled). The funny thing is, we don’t get anything significant about whatever personal possession she might have been thinking about; she chooses a picture of them.

Paula Morales (or Garces, as the actress goes by), has more fun with Steve Wassenfelder (Dylan Taylor), who picks on her “everything is dear to me” collection of seemingly endless religious tokens, saying that her faith can’t be so great if she needs all that to remind her of it. Maybe that’s what Donner (Livingston) thinks of about the baseball. He encounters eventual Antares shrink Evram (Eyal Podell), who prods the ball’s past from him, suggesting one version of it to help him along. It was a ball caught by Sharon Lewis, not long before the Mars mission, that he ended up keeping, but its significance reawakened, he tries to finally return it to her mother, only to get it back, because it means more to him. Ted (Malik Yoba), in fact, returns everyone’s possessions, too, saying he doesn’t want to be like Goss. I think it’s decisions like this that will make the difference in this mission, and with Beta. Ted doesn’t tell Donner about it, and Donner doesn’t tell Ted that, in effect, he owes Beta, whether he knows it or not, in finding the latest problem. Beta is proving to be an ally, not a boogeyman, as it’s seemed previously. It does what’s needed, whether those affected realize it or not.

There’s also Nadia. There’s always Nadia (Florentine Lahme), I guess, the sprite of a woman who proves irresistible. She lands first on that preliminary ranking (Zoe ranks twenty-eighth, Steve last) and during the episode, woos Donner both five years earlier and in the present. She’s as much the wild card as Beta, always proving useful without providing a specific function or role, just to be there and work her magic. She’s not there to obstruct Zoe or ensnare Donner, that’s just what happens to happen, just as Zoe isn’t there solely to have a complicated relationship with Donner, or Donner to gloomily pine over a dead girlfriend and lament a failed mission. Everything works together and it spins in its own direction. That’s, in effect, what I love about this show. Everything’s simple, and it’s all jumbled into a complicated whole. If you’re not watching because you fear that it’s one thing or another, or for what it’s not doing, it’s those things and doing more, and a joy to follow all the same, as the best shows are.

It seems I catch onto something D2G has been doing all along every week. There’s a character I’m pretty sure is always to the side of the cameras I’m always hoping to catch, and that’s the story of this show, too. It’s going to be one of those easy to watch again, so you can catch what you didn’t the first time, follow developments you didn’t quite know were happening, and see how the magic really works, because as straightforward as the series seems to be, there’s a constant slight of hand going on. It’s like the baseball Donner cherishes, easy to have there and not to see, unless it’s pointed out. Even the frames where we know in “Rubicon” he’s holding it, the camera doesn’t really let you see it. Ben Sisko always had one on his desk in ‘Deep Space Nine;’ it was an unconscious, famous element that was only really pointed out a couple of times through seven seasons, most memorably in its absence. That’s the kind of show ‘Defying Gravity’ is.

“Rubicon” was a no-turning-back point all its own. Promised one thing, given another, a moment to cherish the past in its hold on the present, decide how important it still is. Intriguingly, D2G decides that the past isn’t so unwanted after all. It’s still useful, if it’s understood, made to be something positive. It makes everything else so much sweeter, including the things still waiting.