So, in A Night at the Movies, I mentioned Pathfinder as an appalling example of racism in cinema. I promised to write it up more fully. And I meant to, I really did!

But the problem with this movie is that writing about it doesn’t do it justice. It’s one thing to write, “The Native American characters are useless.” But it really doesn’t capture the true flavor of a director who said, “You know who needed saving by a white guy? Those Native Americans who let themselves get killed because they were a bunch of helpless whiners!”

And thus, Pathfinder was born. Because if there was anything that would have stopped that genocide, it was one white dude who Just Wanted to Belong.

And yet, even this picture of a tribe full of childlike, passive Native Americans cowering before the mighty sword of the white man doesn’t give the full effect. (Fun fact: this is the only promotional photo that even shows a Native American, so basically it’s a movie in which the Native Americans are only important to give Karl Urban something to save.) The full effect is that of slackjawed, creeping horror.

Luckily, it looks like we can’t blame this on Karl Urban. He’s giving us serious Hostage Eyes in this picture. (Oh, Karl, you had better have lost a bet or something. Seriously.)

There is some comfort, I guess, in knowing that the movie is shitty on every possible level, and is not simply a well-executed movie with weird racial undertones. This is the kind of movie where a blond, blue-eyed twelve-year-old can grow up to be Karl Urban.

This is the kind of movie where every line is delivered with all the portentous, ponderous clunking of a steel-tipped fortune cookie. This is the kind of movie where someone cuts someone’s eye out and we get a five-second close-up on the bloody eyeball rolling around in the mud!

This is the kind of movie where the bravest, most skilled warriors in the tribe are entirely wiped out because they fail to recognize one of Karl Urban’s traps – a trap that they would have had to teach Karl Urban how to make in the first place. A trap that Karl Urban somehow made overnight, despite the fact that it’s about ten feet by ten feet and in a wooded area far away from his cave hideout, and also he really doesn’t look like the Viking kid he was when they picked him up when he was twelve and where did he get the eye makeup and OH GOD, MOVIE, WHAT THE HELL.

While it takes the full two hours to really understand how horrible this movie is, I tried to get it in under the seven-minute mark.

To get right to the cringing, enjoy the Abridged Classic below.

(Check out more Abridged Classics at Defenestration, ‘s joint, and home of Eileen who makes me watch Shakira videos.)

I came up with so many possible subheads for this review. “Defying Gravity Falls Flat.” “Defying Gravity: Snark Matter.” “Defying Blah-vity.” None of these made it (lucky you), but if you’re looking for the tone of the review—well, this is going to be it.

“Defying Gravity,” ABC’s new summer drama, takes soap opera into space with all the fervor of a network that didn’t realize it was going where many have gone before. (Fun fact for the casual TV-watcher: the mission of every starship ever televised was 20% exploring space, 80% longing glances.) However, the genius marketing pitch for Defying Gravity was apparently “Grey’s Anatomy in space,” which is both accurate and—if you can recognize an oncoming train wreck when you see one—terrifying.

The show stays true to the premise, at least. As the mobile space station Antares prepares to launch on a six-year mission, the green and comely crew (inexplicably chosen for the taxing mission above all the more seasoned available astronauts) suffers some major setbacks.

Ajay and mission head Rollie both come down with a case of artery calcification that ground them just hours before launch. Rollie grumbles, has zero-gravity sex with his wife (who’s a biologist on board the Antares), and goes home. Ajay, meanwhile, paints his face with “traditional” warpaint, straps into a suit, and shoots himself out an airlock with his Ganesha statue in tow. Because he’s Indian, see?

Your show, ladies and gents!

Other cast highlights:

1. Our hero, the burnout astronaut who’s been haunted ever since he had to leave two astronauts behind during a Mars mission. It’s a chilling backstory that doesn’t bleed through into Livingston’s lackadaisical performance, even though he’s a better actor than the show requires. Your bemused look speaks for all of us, sir.

2. The feisty biologist (she sasses superior officers and gets away with it! She’s so lovable!). She likes having sex with her husband, until he has to go home. Then she just mopes around, poking rabbit DNA and providing best-friend services to the heroine.

3. Our heroine, the frailest of them all. She slept with our hero once. Then she got an abortion; now she has to stare longingly at Ron Livingston, and she hears a baby’s cries echoing constantly through the space station. Oh, won’t that teach her a thing or two!

4. The physicist. He’s slightly overweight; therefore he’s a porn addict who can’t swim! He also saves the day, on command, after the sexually aggressive German lady demands that he do something. (Nooooo comment.)

Despite having to be careful in case any of these two-dimensional character-shaped cutouts snaps right in half, the plot lumbers forward, throwing out a handy, illustrative flashback any time there’s a risk of suspense or tension.

The show does manage to hit two extended-plot points: the first is to kick Ajay out of the program because of his little interlude. I think this is a little harsh; I mean, I’d like to kick the showrunners off for thinking that Ajay’s Ganesha statue would rest snugly in his open hands in space, but hey, we all have to compromise.

(Also, the station has gravity because of nanofilaments. Also, dark matter. Also, Venus has 90 atmospheres of pressure. Also, in space, your Ganesha statue has Earth gravity, but just your Ganesha statue. It’s a thing.)

The second big plot point is the acknowledgment of some sort of vague, shadowy presence that can calcify your arteries and force you to put that overweight physicist guy on the team for some vague, shadowy reason. This tied with the other big plot point, which was that if you spit into your spacesuit, it will form an impermeable barrier that seals off leaks and is totally unaffected by the sucking, unforgiving void of space.

Emphasis on “sucking.”

In the inevitable comparisons with Virtuality, the crew-in-space pilot that Fox threw away earlier this summer, Defying Gravity comes up short in every respect. Naturally, Defying Gravity is the show that has another episode next week. Have fun with that, show! I’ll be watching (something else)!

[This piece originally appeared at Tor.com.]