ALL SCI-FI

[Pow]

From The Futon Critic:

The Syfy Channel has cast their brand new series, The Ark , and begun production at PFI Studios in Belgrade, Serbia.

The show is the creation of Producer Dean Devlin,("Independence Day," & "Stargate.")

Schema: The Ark takes place 100-years in the future when planetary colonization missions have begun as a necessity to help secure the survival of the human race.

The first of these missions is on a spacecraft known as Ark One. The spaceship has encountered a catastrophic event causing massive destruction and loss of life.

With more than a year left to go before reaching their target planet, a lack of life-sustaining supplies and loss of leadership, the remaining crew must become the best versions of themselves to remain on course and survive.

The Crew: Low-ranking officer, Lt. Sharon Garnet is not one to embrace the spotlight but she finds herself rising to the occasion when tragedy strikes Ark One.

Lt. Spencer Lane, another low-ranking officer, believes that only the strongest will survive and is resentful when his leadership skills are questioned.

Alicia Nevins is a brilliant young woman on the Waste Management team who is being wildly under-utilized.

Angus Medford is an insecure young man, except when it comes to his specialty: horticulture and Farming.

James Brice oversees the Ark One's navigational system.

Sidebar: I've enjoyed Dean Devlin's SF films, and this new series sounds intriguing to me.

Sidebar: It does have elements of Harlan Ellison's The Starlost, and Disney's Earth Star Voyager, and Star Command for sure, but that doesn't indicate that this show will be different in its own manner.

Sidebar: With today's state-of-the-art CGI they should be able to make such an ambitious concept like Ark One a handsome looking reality.

[Bud Brewster]

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This sounds like a terrific series, Pow! I'm looking forward to it.

I can't find anything about it on IMDB, but the SyFY website (<— link) has an article about it.

From that website I discovered the the series is actually called "The Ark", and the spacecraft's name is Ark One. So, I altered the title of this thread accordingly. You might want to revise your post a little to reflect the difference between the series and the ship.

Here's what the article by The Futon Critic states.

[Pow]

The Ark will premiere on SyFy in February of 2023.There is a brief — and I mean brief — trailer for the series on Youtube. From what little I could take in so rapidly, the spaceship looks impressive, the interior sets as well. Appears to be exciting, so I'm looking forward to this new SF show next year.

[Bud Brewster]

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It does sound good, Mike.

You're right about the trailer being too short and fast. I'll wait and post a better one when it becomes available.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

So I've followed the first 3 episodes of this series and have, for the most part, been entertained by it.

It isn't perfect, the science accuracy isn't as spot-on as it should be, and some of the characters are on the cliche side.

A friend of mine pointed out how unrealistic the very first episode was when the crew has been suddenly awakened from their cryonic suspended animation after five years. These people wake up like they've just come out of a refreshing nap. No lethargy, no kind of cryonic hangover, no gradual coming to out of a fog . Bam, and they're off to the races, running around all helter skelter, punching buttons, talking to one another at a mile-a-minute as they jump out of their pods. Yeah, right.

This week's episode three had the Ark getting ice from a comet. The visuals were breathtaking, the science was non-existent.

Still, I'm rather enjoying it. Maybe because its the only current science fiction TV series about a spaceship. So I might be desperate. This show won't replace Star Trek: TOS, Battlestar Galactica (reboot), Space: Above & Beyond, or the magnificent Farscape, at least for me. However, it'll do for now. The potential is there.

[Pow]

Tropes

As I continue to follow The Ark each week, I noticed how it shares similar themes with some other science fiction television series/pilots that have gone before it.

The Ark (2023): Constructed to take humans in suspended animation to Proxima b for habitation because the Earth is dying. A mysterious event causes severe damage to the Ark and awakens the crew from their sleep pods after five years into its trip.

The Starlost (1973): The Earthship Ark has been constructed in order for humans to flee from Earth due to an unnamed catastrophic event. A unexplained event 100 years into its journey has wrecked a part of the ark, killed the bridge crew. 405 years have passed by when Devon, Rachel, and Garth have emerged from their biosphere known as Cypress Corners.

Earth Star Voyager (1988-pilot): The ESV has been built in order to take its crew on a decades long trek to the planet Demeter so that it can be explored to see if it's suitable for humans to relocate there to live. The reason is due to an Earth that is polluted and toxic.

Mission Genesis (1997): The Deepwater Black starship has its crew of clones in suspended animation awakened after being attacked by an unknown spaceship 500 years into their journey. All life on Earth has been killed by a mysterious disease known as the Pandora Virus. The DB has been placed into a massive orbit into outer space that will return it it back to the Earth after the virus is projected to have burned out.

The Earthship Ark, Mission Genesis, and The Ark all share the same plot device of having their ships massively & mysteriously damaged along the way. While ESV doesn't exactly have that same situation with their ship, there is an on board saboteur murdering individuals.

Suspended animation also comes into play for ESV, MG, and The Ark. Although on ESV it is utilized in a more limited manner as the crew uses it to slow down their aging process periodically on their voyage but not in a continually sustained method as the other series do.

The Earthship Ark has another scenario. The human beings on this vessel are not in suspended animation within their individual biodomes during its flight through the centuries. They all are living generation after generation inside their lock downed and sealed off biodome communities. When the key characters emerge from their biodome it is many centuries after the vessel left Earth. Once the ship was damaged and the biodomes shut down, all of these societies became unaware of not only one another, but the very fact that they were even on a massive generational ship.

So in a way, we can make a case that Devon, Rachel, and Garth have been "asleep" inside their Cypress Corners.

None of this is to criticize any of these productions. They share certain plot devices but manage to all give it their own imaginative twist to it and make it original. I am a fan of all of them.

[Morbius]

I've been watching, seems OK.

[Pow]

I was pleased to see the news that The Ark has been renewed for a second season by the Sy Fy Channel.

Some fans & critics have gone after the series for its cheap production values. I don't know what the budget is for the show, but I'm sure it isn't near the $8.5 million that Star Trek: Discovery has. Still, I've felt that the show has a decent overall appearance with its sets. The Ark star ship design is a handsome one & the CGI is pretty darn good. The visual effect for the ship in FTL is awesome looking.

The cast is likable, and I have my favorites, but they all do a good job with their characters. They aren't written to be perfect humans and they have their flaws. But I like that, keeps things real & interesting. I am delighted that they'll be returning again with more adventures to entertain us.

[Morbius]

Agree the series is entertaining.

[Krel]

I tried watching the show, but its one of those that has someone describing EVERY SINGE THING THAT IS HAPPENING on the screen. When that happens, I immediately change the channel, so I didn't even last fifteen seconds.

I did notice from the photos that their spacesuits are based on Dava Newman's Bio-Suit, which is an update of the 1960's Space Activity Suit. These suits use mechanical pressure, rather than air pressure. The problem with the ones on the show, is that they are loose, baggy. Mechanical pressure suits MUST BE skintight to work, there can be NO voids in the suit where there can be an air pocket. The problem with the skintight suits, is that the right type of fabric does not yet exist. Also because the suits are skintight, unless you are in perfect physical condition, they won't be that flattering to wear.

I would think that when the skintight suits do finally come about, you will wear a protective over-suit, maybe even color coded like the over-suits in "Destination Moon".

Skintight spacesuits, the spacesuit of the future for over fifty years.

David.

[ralfy]

For a moment, I thought that they were going to re-imagine the kids' sci-fi TV show Ark II.

[Pow]

My idea for a rebooted Ark II TV show was to have the Ark this time around be a futuristic looking airship. An airship is capable of carrying larger crews & equipment than the original vehicle. The airship can travel far more distances, fly over water, cross terrain that is impossible to drive over. It can land without requiring any runways, and even carry an Ark II-like vehicle.

Most importantly it won't have a talking chimp.

[Krel]

An airship doesn't even have to land. It could lower platforms, vehicles, lab and living space modules by winch. A large enough airship could even have a hanger on top to launch helicopters or auto-gyros.

David.