Welcome The Ark Science Fiction Lovers,
When we here at Team WHR heard that Dean Devlin created a new science fiction space based series called the “The Ark” that was given the green light on January 24, 2022, we were ecstatic! Our ecstasy turned turned to joy after watching the first episode for which we have given the creators, actors, crews and network a STRAIGHT A!
First because Devlin is bringing a scripted space drama series back to SYFY for the first time in over a five years when the network decided not to renew it’s top rated series, The Expanse for a fourth season. This subsequent to not renewing the top rated Stargate Universe space opera for a third season in 2012, leaving space drama series fans disappointed to say the least.
Second, other than SYFY’s runaway time travel hit series 12 Monkeys, no scripted space or time travel series has survived for longer than a fourth season on that cable network since the beloved series Stargate Atlantis which ran for a total of five seasons ending on January 09, 2009.
NOTE: Click Here To Visit CTV-SciFi Website in Canada
Nevertheless, we are therefore hopeful that viewers will support the awesome series “The Ark” so that it can run at SYFY for least five seasons to become one of the most popular science fiction series in the past twenty-five years!
Science fiction movie and television series fans have admired Devlin since 1994 when he produced the original Stargate movie.
Dean’s work ultimately set the Stargate franchise foundation that led MGM Studios and SYFY (at the time known as The SciFi Channel) to seventeen epic years of television science fiction series success across three revered television series; Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe.
Devlin went on to great success with hit movies and television productions including Independence Day, The Triangle, Leverage, Geostorm, The Outpost, The Librarians, Bad Samaritan and many more including executive producing over 240 episodes of one of our favorite, and famous podcasts “Inglorious Treksperts” with Mark A. Altman!
Now Dean returns to his science roots with The Ark selecting Stargate SG-1 creator and entertainment industry veteran Jonathan Glassner with whom Jonathan worked on with Dean on the hit series The Outpost as his executive showrunner for The Ark.
Working with Rachel Olschan, and Marc Roskin of Electric Entertainment, as well as Jonathan English of Balkanic Media and Steve A. Lee as series producers, all these fine content creators have worked tirelessly to bring this outstanding space based adventure drama series to our screens in 2023 and beyond!
The Ark features a superb ensemble cast. The main characters and stars are: Lt. Sharon Garnet (Christie Burke), Lt. Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie), Lt. James Brice (Richard Fleeshman), Dr. Sanjivni Kabir (Shalini Peiris), Alicia Nevins (Stacey Read), Angus Medford (Ryan Adams) , Cat Brandice (Christina Wolfe), Eva Markovic (Tiana Upcheva), Felix Strickland (Pavle Jerinić), and Lisa Brenner, spouse of Dean Devlin who portrays Susan Ingram, but unfortunately (apparently?) perishes in the pilot episode.
In addition to a great cast with human interactions that properly sets the tone, good dialogue, excellent special effects, cool costumes and believable sets, the SYFY series description itself is an absolutely exciting enticement for space drama series lovers!
“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 on a spacecraft known as Ark One encounters 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 stay on course and survive.”
In the fabulous pilot episode, when calamity strikes threatening the lives of everyone on board, the three most senior survivors; Lt. Sharon Garnet, Lt. Spencer Lane and Lt. James Brice assume command of the colony ship known as Ark-1.
Things quickly go from bad to worse for the young officers as they try to ensure the survival of not only themselves, but all of the passengers alike in the exhilarating first episode of The Ark!
Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship:
The episode begins with an Ark-1 computer video screen accompanied by an audible warning that an impact of some sort has occurred has occurred somewhere aboard the ship. We do now know where the impact has happened at this point in the developing drama disaster.
However, the clear warning sound and screen leave viewers with no doubt that a disaster is unfolding, and that it must be well beyond an ordinary anticipated event the passengers expected to encounter on their journey to wherever they are going.
The scene pans to a person who we later learn is Lt. Sharon Garnet in a stasis pod followed by a pan backwards showing a room where row after row of stasis pods are located, apparently numbering in the many thousands.
This is followed immediately with scenes of structural beams on the Ark One ship impacting the stasis pods likely causing instant death to some of their inhabitants. It is at this point that viewers become painfully aware that not all the passengers on Ark-1 are going to survive.
Lt. Sharon Garnet’s stasis pod is activated as a result of the emergency and she is revived from her sleep to confront the growing circumstances of the crisis.
Moving immediately to the computer console, Sharon discovers that a hull breach of Ark-1 is in progress!
Although the source of the impact breach is unknown, Sharon immediately begins to revive the crew members in her area, informing them of the serious situation confronting all of them. It is at this juncture, as more survivors emerge from their stasis pods, that all of them are young and in the same age group as Sharon. So where are the adults? Are there any adults or older people on Ark-1?
The answer is yes as we follow Sharon to an area where many other cryogenic stasis pods are located. It is here that we see adults, one in specific named Susan Ingram still asleep in her pod.
While trying to revive Susan, the devastating disaster gets worse when Sharon and a few of her fellow shipmates feel another impact worse than the first one. The roof overhead begins to buckle as this section of Ark-1 begins to tear away from the main body of the ship.
Sharon’s friends scream that they cannot save anyone else and that they must flee that section before they too are killed. Outside, we witness that section being literally skewered and torn apart. A huge piece of debris wedges into the artificial gravity ring causing weightlessness that now begins to affect all the survivors.
Sharon and her friends barely make it to a hatch and seal off the area where the adult stasis pod had previously been located. All are floating weightless but thankfully survived due to their environmental suits and helmets which saved them from asphyxiation in the vacuum of space. Tragically, and apparently, none of the adult passengers survived.
As the survivors proceed to the next safe compartment, Sharon is able to reverse rotate the gravity ring to free it, thereby restoring artificial gravity. Sharon next turns on life support systems in the safe area of the ship and proceeds to the Command Stasis Pod area.
Things suddenly get much worse. Sharon is blown away when she witnesses that there is no Command Stasis Pod area! It was ripped away from Ark-1 by whatever impacted the ship!
We segue to the medical station 12 where Dr. Sanjivni Kabir is tending to the survivors who are being examined and exercising due to having been in extended cryogenic stasis sleep for four years which caused their muscles to severely atrophy.
Dr. Kabir is also heard chastising Cat Brandice for spreading unsubstantiated rumors about what has happened to Ark-1, and berating crew member Angus Medford who arrived late for his examination.
Meanwhile, Sharon arrives at Med Bay 12 to meet with Lt. James Brice informing him that everyone in the Command Pod is dead. Although Lt. Spencer Lane and Lt. Brice are the same rank as Sharon, it is clear that Sharon has command presence that they do not exhibit.
Sharon decides to call all the survivors to a meeting to give them the bad news; that they are likely the only people left alive aboard Ark-1 subsequent to the impact disaster that killed the majority of the colony passengers. The remaining passengers are in shock when they hear the facts and that the technical specialties they each have will be required to be extensively utilized if they are to survive the final year of their journey to colony planet. Subsequent to the meeting, those on Ark-1 deal with the following issues that affect their long term survival: Air, Water, and Food!
Unlike other past space drama series that dwell on such items for many episodes, The Ark deals with the ongoing crisis’ in a forthright manner not lingering on details that would likely slow down the dramatic fun of the series.
Most agree to cooperate, but some labor fakers like female minx Cat Brandice shirk their responsibilities and go so far as to hoard scarce water so she may take a shower! Fortunately, the security guard stops Cat even though she stripped down to her birthday suit in an attempt to use her feminine charms to use rationed water to shower.
The food shortage is being addressed by Angus Medford who has smuggled aboard several containers of enriched soil just in case the colony planet biosphere is not as rich as had been projected by long range scans.
Subsequent to some arguments between the three leaders on utilization of the ships energy and water, critical priorities for survival, Lt. Sharon Garnet, Lt. Spencer Lane and Lt. James Brice agree to leverage the soil smuggler Angus’ super soil factor to help save the passengers.
This growing of food in space is somewhat similar to the movie The Martian which turns out to be a saving grace for the survivors who will starve to death long before Ark-1 reaches the colony planet unless food is grown quickly onboard the colony ship.
The growing of food onboard the ship also has the added benefit of converting carbon dioxide which the passengers expel into oxygen that is desperately needed for the welfare of the survivors.
Next we are with Eva Markovic who is performing maintenance on the space suit helmets to ensure that they are all topped off with oxygen in the event of further problems with the ship requiring the passengers to don their helmets. This maintenance will become a critical factor later when an air leak is discovered aboard Ark-1. Not all helmets will have been topped off by the time the ark leak locks down the ship.
We move to Alicia Nevins who turns out to be a hero on two accounts; first Alicia, who works in the bowels of the ship on the waste management systems contributes to saving the survivors by integrating the colony water reclamation systems to help purify water on Ark-1.
Secondly Alicia turns out to be a computer geek who while on the bridge of the ship identifies a computer programming glitch that locked up the system. Alicia is immediately promoted from waste management to systems engineer!
Lastly, the title of the episode is a perfect choice when we learned that chicanery and bribery was apparently used by several passengers to gain access to the Ark-1 colony ship.
Lt. Sharon Garnet is accused of being one of those by another individual who impersonated a person to gain access to the ship.
Near the end of the episode this imposter was found dead in a storage locker. Was Sharon involved? Or was another survivor blackmailed and the imposter paid the ultimate price with his life? We do not know at this juncture.
Details on the extent of this development will certainly be explored in future episodes of The Ark and we eagerly look forward to episode two “Like It Touched the Sun” tonight on SYFY in the United States and CTVSciFi in Canada. We leave you until next time with a sneak peek of tonight’s exciting episode!
We will be back in the near future with more of The Ark as well as our favorite television series and movie analysis. In the meantime, please feel free to share this article with your friends, co-workers and or family and leave your comments! We look forward to you visiting our dedicated review and analysis web site here in the future! Or as many of our readers and visitors often do, visit TeamWHR on Twitter, or visit me on Twitter by clicking the text links or images avatars in this news story. I and TeamWHR look forward to Seeing You on The Other Side!“
Thank you. 
Best Regards,
Kenn of #TeamWHR
