Dean Devlin has made a career of larger-than-life sci-fi spectacles, producing frequent partner Roland Emmerich’s Stargate, Independence Day, and Godzillaand leading the more recent ones Geostorm. So even though it debuts on Syfy instead of theaters, The ark fits comfortably into his body of work, in that it’s yet another tale of apocalyptic planetary threats and humanity’s desperate mission to avoid extinction.
Unfortunately, it’s also a disaster-oriented show that is itself a disaster.
The ark is set in an undetermined future where Earth is about to become uninhabitable. In response, humanity has built a collection of massive ships known as Arks, intended to reach a distant planet suitable for colonization.
If you’re hoping for additional details regarding the eco-catastrophe that fueled this venture or the specific cosmic destiny of these travelers, you’ll have to stop, as Devlin’s series doesn’t – at least in the first four episodes to go to press – fill that in. gaps. Instead, it simply assumes viewers to agree with this scenario, as it’s as familiar to genre-friendly concepts as warp speed and teleportation.
Devlin’s saga begins in chaos, with alarms blaring indicating that an unexpected impact from the ship has resulted in a breach in the hull, awakening Sharon Garnet (Christie Burke) from cryosleep just in time to rouse her fellow crew members and make them to safety before the whole bay is in danger. destroyed.
These men and women survive by the skin of their teeth, but their commanders aren’t so lucky, leaving only three lieutenants – Garnet, prickly Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie) and confident James Brice (Richard Fleeshman) – to take control of their to take over. That’s a thankless job, since this incident leaves the craft with only minimal food supplies and even less water, and certainly not enough of either to reach the terminus of their alien world, which is still a year’s journey away.
Garnet, an eager leader who takes charge, immediately assumes the job of chief commander, much to Spencer’s chagrin. issues.
Angus (Ryan Adams) is a horticulturist who deftly snuck a giant box of super-fertile soil onto the Ark (just in case their new home turns out to be less bountiful than tests indicated), and in the blink of an eye, he’s fitting a storage space into a greenhouse where he can grow enough food for everyone.
As for acquiring water, the first assignment is to retrofit the ship’s water recycling system, a job that falls to Eva Markovic (Tiana Upcheva), a tough engineer who is conducting a secret (because it’s illegal) affair with Harris . Beckner (Dominik Cicak).
Aleksandar Letic/Ark TV Holdings, Inc./SYFY
Eva’s secret connection to Harris is not The ark‘s only romance; Angus soon develops feelings for Alicia Nevins (Stacey Read), a garbage disposal worker who is actually a super genius, though she eventually takes a liking to Baylor Trent (Miles Barrow), who was involved with his much older superior until she perished. along with the rest of the high command.
This trio brings a touch of YA love-triangle melodrama to the show. Alas, it’s undermined by the fact that Angus is an insufferable cartoon nerd and Alicia an even more excruciatingly cute biker whose every utterance makes you yearn for a magical black hole on the horizon of the Ark.
Since the expedition was brutally interrupted by a mysterious accident, The Ark is in constant danger during the early chapters of the series. Devlin and his creative team strive to keep things dangerously tense through mechanical and logistical dilemmas as well as interpersonal conflict.
The most notable of these involves a man named Jasper Dades (Chris Leask), who turns out to be an imposter and – after blackmailing Garnet with potentially destructive dirt – is subsequently murdered. The ark is therefore a whodunit of sorts, with chief of security Felix Strickland (Pavle Jerinic) leading a murder investigation complicated by the possibility that other crew members may also be operating under assumed identities.
The ark routinely throws suspicion around, only to quickly dispel it and move on to other potential suspects. At the same time, it weakly tries to flesh out its numerous characters. They include Cat Brandice (Christina Wolfe), a superficial celebrity therapist who is the high-profile face of this costly endeavor, and Dr. Sanjivni Kabir (Shalini Peiris), the only qualified medical professional still on board to deal with the rash of physical and psychological ailments plaguing her comrades.
Together they form a superficially diverse bunch, but they all resonate as one-dimensional types, their personalities pared down to a few checklist traits and their plight as dull as the Ark’s pristine gray interior. It doesn’t help that the show’s cast is similarly bland, their performances corny, broad, and wholly unconvincing, whether they’re bickering like schoolchildren, behaving slyly, or lashing out beyond the ship in an effort to discover and remedy the root cause of their intergalactic travel problems.
Aleksandar Letic/Ark TV Holdings, Inc./SYFY
There is a lot of rushing in through corridors The ark, as well as crew dissatisfaction, hints of sabotage-oriented conspiracies and lead dialogue. What’s missing is compelling action, actionable CGI, and a sense that this is all taking place in a larger context. Even worse, the show is infinitely more fixated on pressing sci-fi misadventures and obstacles (The doodad is on the fritz! The whatchamacallit is leaking!) than on intriguing human relationships or thorny socio-political ideas. There is nothing under the hood of it The ark except for a lot of ho-hum parts borrowed from better journey-to-the-she sagas.
The arkThe first season of ‘s will be 12 episodes, so it’s always conceivable that the show will ditch its misfortune-of-the-week format – which is fundamentally lazy considering that The Ark, by definition, must survive – and focus on will focus on developing its protagonists in new ways. However, as it stands, there’s no reason to count on such an evolution as the fourth episode revolves around a wannabe bombshell reveal about Garnet landing with a thud.
Far from Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, Devlin’s series is devoid of any major concerns or inventive tension. It’s a regurgitated sci-fi formula that goes unimaginatively where countless ancestors have gone.
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