The Ark: The Young and the Restless

In the future, the Earth has a limited time left before it becomes unlivable, and colonization of other worlds is our only hope.  The crew on Ark 1 are the best and the brightest, chosen because Ark 1 has the highest chance for success.  Once a colony has been established the remaining population of Earth will travel to the new planet to begin life anew.  But more than a year out from their destination, a catastrophic event of unknown origin damages Ark 1 and kills the entire senior leadership.  Only 150 crewmembers remain and one of the surviving officers, Lt. Sharon Garnet (Christie Burke) assumes command, without anyone asking her to.  The two other officers, Lt. Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie) and Lt. James Brice (Richard Fleeshman) allow her to remain acting Captain, at least for the time being. The first episode shows the crew trying to deal with what has happened and to come up with solutions to the shortage of food and water that they will need to survive for over a year.  Ark 1 was the ship everyone wanted to be on, and many lied or cheated to get their placement on this command, and now with the very existence of humanity on the line, their secrets are being exposed which puts the mission in jeopardy. Throw in a murder near the end of the episode, add a bit of intrigue and you have what could be an interesting drama.

The first thing that struck me about the episode was how young everyone looked.  Apparently future Earth is inhabited solely by young people, I was assuming that everyone was in their teens or early twenties, but maybe it is because I have gotten old, and everyone just looks younger, because the actors playing the three remaining officers are all in their mid-thirties. There are some very young crew members, which makes sense if you were trying to repopulate the human race.  The next thing to strike me, was how much this felt like the live action Saturday morning kid shows I used to watch in the 1970s (Space Academy and Jason of Star Command immediately come to mind). The storyline is a bit more adult and some of the plot points would never have been done then, but the overall look and quality is reminiscent of those shows and make me wonder if this is being targeted specifically to a younger audience and thus the reason all the actors look so young.

The production value of the show wasn’t terrible, but also wasn’t up to par with what we see on a lot of other shows.  Some of the special effects looked a bit too computer generated and just didn’t have a realistic feel.  The acting is pretty good, I mean, I don’t think anyone on this show is going to win an Emmy for their performances, but most of the characters were compelling and likeable.  The exception to that is Christie Burke’s Lt. Garnet.  Her assumption of command and her general disposition gives her a bit of an edge that makes it harder to connect with her.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it gives the character dimension and by the end of the first episode, we do see some cracks in her façade. It also gives her room for growth. I really liked Lt. Brice played by Richard Fleeshman, but I may be biased as he is absolutely gorgeous with a great accent. I did find his character the easiest to connect to with an open and likeable personality.  Lt. Lane played by Reece Ritchie is also interesting, he is the one that takes the most opposition to Garnet assuming command without any consensus between the remaining officers.  This leads to some great confrontations and good drama.  Also sporting good performances are Pavle Jerini as Felix Strickland head of security, Shalini Peiris as Dr. Sanjivni Kabir and Tiana Upcheva as Eva Markovic as head of engineering.  The two characters I liked the least were Alicia Nevins (Stacey Michelle Read) as a waste management engineer who ends up being a 19 year old genius who talks way too much and way too fast, and Angus Medford (Ryan Adams) as a horticulturist who is trying to figure out a way to grow new food for the crew.  Their performances weren’t bad, I just found their characters a bit annoying.  This might just be because I am a grumpy old man!

The storyline is interesting but a little predictable and some of the dialogue used for exposition felt forced, but once the episode gets going, the script seemed to level out and the dialogue felt a lot more genuine. I liked the inclusion of a murder within the first episode and as I love mysteries, it would be interesting if this became a “whodunit in space” type of show, but not holding my breath.