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.

"Defying Gravity" is broadcast in 720 Progressive (720P), ABC's selected HDTV format, with 5.1-channel surround sound. A TV parental guideline will be posted closer to airdate.