Susan Granger’s review of “The Ark” (SyFy)
With the enduring success of Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” and its various spin-offs, it’s been established that spaceship adventures attract an audience – initially, at least. Whether or not viewers will stay with Dean Devlin’s “The Ark” for the long-haul is another matter indeed.
Best known for “Independence Day,” Devlin and Jonathan Glassner (“Stargate SG-I”) introduce their new 12-episode series with a catastrophe. Set in a future century when Earth has become uninhabitable, the show opens on Ark One, a spacecraft sent on a mission to colonize a planet that is capable of supporting human life.
Lt. Sharon Garnet (Christie Burke) is abruptly jolted out of cryogenic-sleep by some sort of crash that kills off all the senior officers/mentors…i.e.: “Everyone who was qualified is dead.”
Assuming leadership after this disaster, levelheaded Garnet, whom we soon discover is a clone, and two other junior officers – ambitious Lt. Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie) and cocky Lt. James Brice (Richard Fleeshman) – are left in charge of the 150 specially-selected scientists, military personnel and civilians.
Since they’re at least a year from their destination, food, water and oxygen supplies are extremely limited. Fortunately, dorky agricultural enthusiast Angus (Ryan Adams) stashed a crate of super-rich soil on-board so he sets about growing nutritional crops, utilizing manure. And Garnet quickly realizes that nerdy 19 year-old Alicia (Stacey Read), who chatters constantly, has a genius-level intellect.
Plus there’s over-worked, exhausted doctor Kabir (Shalini Peiris), the highly principled head of security Felix (Pavle Jerinic), Serbian engineer Eva (Tiana Upcheva), and ‘influencer’-turned-mental-health consultant Cat (Christina Wolfe). So far – they’re superficial caricatures, not believable characters.
Then there’s the discovery that billionaire William Trust (Paul Leonard Murray), who designed and built the Ark program, is still in cryogenic-sleep with his wife Helena (Mercedes De La Cruz) in a secret compartment. Everyone obviously wants to survive but, philosophically, they all have different ideas about how to accomplish that.
Filmed on-the-cheap just outside Belgrade, Serbia, the casting is obviously international. Production designer Randal Groves combines practical feasibility with the laws of physics, including the utilization of deployable, metallic solar sails that unfold from the hull like golden-hued origami.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Ark” is a cheesy 5, streaming on SyFy on Wednesday and Peacock a day later.
