ORBzine - The Ark (2023) TV Review

Season 1

• Christie Burke as Lt. Sharon Garnet
• Reece Ritchie ( The OUtpost ) as Lt. Spencer Lane
• Richard Fleeshman as Lt. James Brice
• Stacey Read as Alicia Nevins
• Ryan Adams as Angus Medford
• Pavle Jerinic as Felix Strickland
• Shalini Peiris as Dr. Sanjivni Kabir
• Christina Wolfe as Cat Brandice
• Tiana Upcheva as Eva Markovic

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 1] Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship
Shown 01 Feb 23

A woman wakes up from cryosleep aboard a starship, averts a disaster, and declares herself Captain. Yes, this is the same as the start of Dark Matter .

The woman is Lt. Sharon Garnet ( Christie Burke ), a military all-rounder who has no speciality. There are a couple of mere males of equal rank, who she uses as her subordinates. Lt. James Brice (Richard Fleeshman) is a former pilot who she recruits as navigator. Lt. Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie - The OUtpost ) does what he did for Talon when he was a Blackblood.

The spaceship is a sublight colony ship, like in Passengers . The senior officers (AKA the grown-ups) were in a different cargo bay, and all presumably died when that bay was destroyed. Now the youngsters are in charge, like something out of The 100 . Reece Richie may be in his late forties, but he and the other main stars still look like teeny-boppers.

The bad news is that there is not enough food for seventy years. The good news is that one of the kids emulates the plan from The Martian , using human faeces as compost to grow plants.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 2] Like It Touched the Sun
Shown 08 Feb 23

One of the crew was an imposter, who faked an identity to stow away rather than die on the failing Earth. Now he has been murdered, and the others must find out who the murderer is.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 3] Get Out and Push
Shown 15 Feb 23

The disaster of the week is the ship is en route to collide with an asteroid.

Much like in Battlestar Galactica (2003) , the answer to the water shortage is to find water in space.

Knowing they might die soon, some of the redshirts raid the pharmacy and use the stolen drugs to hold a rave party. What can be expected with a crew of tweenagers?

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 4] We Weren't Supposed to Be Awake
Shown 22 Feb 23

The crisis of the week is the crew start halucinating. Some of them are haunted by dead loved ones, while others see the living in a different context. The audience gets a quick look into the minds of the characters, as each one has a conversation with their co-conspirator. Just like in Lost , each character has some kind of conspiratorial backstory.

Lt. Sharon Garnet ( Christie Burke ) is arrested for murdering the stowaway when Lt. Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie - The OUtpost ) discovers a clue to her secret. She reveals the rest of it to Security and the Doctor, but not to any of the other officers, and still demands everyone put their blind faith in her despite her unwillingness to trust anyone else.

Lt. James Brice (Richard Fleeshman) refuses to let the Doctor give him a medical checkup. His medical records have been mysteriously deleted. Yes, just as the stowaway's records were hacked and altered, and Garnet's records do not show her secret military status, Brice's records are now incomplete or misleading. How many others is this true for?

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 5] One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Shown 01 Mar 23

The drama of the week is that the murderer is uncovered. They are part of a conspiracy that will be passed on to a new conspirator.

The disaster of the week is that reactor has a leak. Someone must go in and activate the safety system manually, which is basically a straight-up suicide mission. Despite the ship having loads of expendable crew-members, the work usually falls to the bridge crew.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 6] Two by Two
Shown 08 Mar 23

The drama of the week is that the Doctor's stimulant addiction is uncovered. The same storyline was used in Babylon 5 , but it took years to develop. Here it has been dealt with in half a dozen episodes.

Likewise, Lt Brice's secret illness is also uncovered. The Serbian engineer woman tries to blackmail him with it. Not for money or sex, but just to be annoying. They bicker like two characters who are about to have sex ...

The disaster of the week is that the ship is running short of uranium fuel due to last episode's reactor leak. The good news is that there is a source of Uranium nearby. The bad news is they do not have enough fuel to get there. The good news is they can use the solar sails and gravitational slingshot to get them there.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 7] A Slow Death Is Worse
Shown 15 Mar 23

The disaster of the week is that the Away Team have to explore Ark 3. Most of the Away Team are members of the bridge crew, although there are a few redshirts along as well.

The drama of the week is that the Security man discovers what happened to his husband.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 8] Every Single Person Matters
Shown 22 Mar 23

The drama of the week is the nerdy boy-genius spends time with Kelly the survivor, and this makes the girl-genius jealous. Meanwhile, the navigator and the female engineer finally get their needs catered for.

The disaster of the week is that the Trust's secret is revealed.

The good news is that the crew are able to get the FTL drive installed. The bad news is that its designer, Evelyn Maddox, was notorious for taking shortcuts in her work. This means the device is flawed, and leads to time dilation.

In a scene reminiscent of an early episode of Star Trek: TNG , we see several versions of key characters. Just like TNG and Stargate SG-1 , this show has started with more of a Hard Science Fiction approach. They then switched away from what-ifs to more straightforward action-adventure stories.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 9] The Painful Way
Shown 29 Mar 23

The bad news is that Ark 15 will be waiting at Proxima B. The good news is that Trask has designed a force-shield for the ship. The bad news is that Garnet does not want to trust a new invention, so she diverts the ship to a different star system. Unfortunately even with FTL drive, this will take two more years.

Trask has problems with the way Garnet runs things. She has appointed herself military dictator, but makes herself seem benevolent by getting the other officers to vote on everything. They call this democracy, but it is limited to the people she selects. Not only do the passengers not get a vote, but people like Lane and Trask can be denied a vote if Garnet says so.

Trask uses Garnet's system against her. He and his allies play on the crew's fears, manipulating the ficticious democratic system like a popularity contest. Somehow they decide to take a shortcut, and go straight to mutiny.

The only one who has faith in Garnet is Angus, the nerdy boy-genius who has an inexplicable crush on her. The Doctor also takes Garnet's side, although she is suffering withdrawl symptoms so she is not necessarily in her right mind. Others begin to think they were wrong to take Trask's side, although it is his wife who is the Lady Macbeth figure.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 10] Hoping for Forever
Shown 05 Apr 23

The drama of the week is that Garnet does not trust the mutineers.

The disaster of the week is that Ark 15 sends a boarding party to capture Trask.

Garnet has to decide how to save the mutineers from Ark 15 - or if she should even bother. After all, Evelyn can offer her a good deal.

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 11] The Last Thing You Ever Do
Shown 12 Apr 23

Garnet takes a hands-on approach to problem-solving. This makes her a great small-unit leader, but she is not equipped for a strategic role. As a military super-soldier she is a terminal lance - she should not be promoted beyond lance corporal. Much like real-life examples Costas Georgiou and Adolf Shickelgruber.

When Garnet abandons her post on the bridge, the terminally-ill pilot is in charge. When he gets hospitalised by his fatal disease, he puts the Security thug in charge. The one thing they have in common, other than their apparent devotion to Garnet, is their prejudice against Trask.

The doctor tries to make the cure. Will the patient pull through?

The Ark (2023) [Season 1, Episode 12] Everybody Wins
Shown 19 Apr 23

The two sides are in detente. Ark One has a functioning FTL drive, but limited structural integrity. Ark 15 has a busted FTL drive and a disabled weapon. The only option is to team up, exchange the cure for the hostage, and agree to share the planet. After all, the human species has been reduced to a few hundred people so they can easily co-exist on a continent the size of the Eurasian land-mass.

There are a couple of loose cannons. Kelly is emotionally disturbed, and Trask blames her for the death of the woman he loved. Both have been treated like criminals by their own side, so they can be relied on to be untrustworthy. Of course, everyone underestimates them.

The Ark (2023)

The Ark (2023) [Season 2 , Episode 1 ]
Shown th October 2024

Reviewed in our special supplement

Season 2

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 1] Failed Experiment
Shown 17 Jul 24

The command crew is trapped on the bridge. The good news is that Maddox sent her security shuttle over, and they cut through the metre-thick exterior wall. The bad news is that they take the command crew to Maddox, abandoning everyone trapped in the rear section of Ark 1.

Ark 15 has problems of its own. Their maximum crew complement is 400, but a damaged oxygen scrubber has reduced that to 395. Luckily Garnet and her friends killed ten of Maddox's people, this saving her the trouble of having to choose.

Garnet decides to help Maddox further by relieving her of some excess crew members. Of course, instead of doing this openly - and pointing out that it helps Maddox - Garnet decides to do it sneakily.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 2] Kill or Be Killed
Shown 24 Jul 24

William Trust is pressganged into repairing the ship's navigation system. This requires a spacewalk, which he is in no way trained or ready for. The poor man puts up with everything, but is still basically convict labour with no rights. He even tells Garnet about Project Juno, a plan to help the colonists find suitable mates and avoid inbreeding. Of course, Garnet hates this because she thinks it is eugenics. Since the plan needs a minimum of 132 participants, and the population of Ark 1 is now lower than that, the plan itself is now moot.

Garnet puts Kelly on trial for murder. This makes previous events even clearer, but the truth is that Kelly only worked on Maddox's orders.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 3] Anomaly
Shown 31 Jul 24

The drama of the week is that the Security chief does not trust anyone. On one side is Kelly and the former Maddox minions, while on the other is William Trust and anyone who aided in his mutiny. The former Security 2iC is now demoted to med-bay assistant, while Maddox's Security boss has defected but is still denied clearance to do her job properly.

The disaster of the week is that the ship is boarded by an electomagnetic creature - basically a form of living lightning. It feeds off the ship's control panels.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 4] The Other You
Shown 07 Aug 24

The drama of the week is Brice swaps place with a version of Cat from another reality.

The disaster of the week is that the ship is trapped in a space-time bubble. It overlaps with another version of itself, so both ships are entangled. They have to try to pull free at the same time.

This is all a bit reminiscent of Star Trek: TNG - and not the good later episodes when the show had grown a beard. The problem with the early Seasons was that the conflict was all external, from some kind of weird anomaly the Enterprise encountered. This show is suffering from the same problem, instead of learning from the example of the later TNG seasons and letting the stories be linked to the characters themselves.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 5] Museum of Death
Shown 14 Aug 24

The drama of the week is fear of the infamous Eastern Federation. They were barely mentioned until the previous episode, but now we learn they were a major player in global geopolitics.

The disaster of the week is that Ark 1 was severely damaged and needs urgent repair. Luckily, Trust designed the ship to be modular. They can remove the damaged front section, and replace it with the front section of Ark 3.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 6] Pretty Big Deal
Shown 21 Aug 24

The drama of the week is that one of the crew discovers they may be a clone. Well, Garnet always knew she was a clone but now another crew-member might be one as well.

The disaster of the week is that Ark 8 has crashed on an uninhabitable world. The survivors are two groups of clones - the Generation Two clones seem reliable, but the Gen-3 ones are psychotically violent.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 7] It Can't Be True
Shown 28 Aug 24

The drama of the week is that a couple of the Ark 15 crew are hunting suspected members of the so-called Eastern Federation. This might amp up the suspense, but the Federation's evil intentions have not been established in the previous episodes, so the audience have no reason to sympathise with the crew as they become needlessly paranoid,

The disaster of the week is that someone is committing remote-control murder.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 8] We Don't Kill Our Own
Shown 04 Sep 24

The drama of the week is that certain people have kept aspects of their backstory secret from their friends on-ship. In all fairness, their secrets are shameful and not the kind of thing to be boasted about.

The disaster of the week is that the clones are revolting. Luckily, Maddox Junior has superhuman strength so she can kill them all off.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 9] Cycle of Violence
Shown 11 Sep 24

The drama of the week is that Garnet has to deal with the Trolley Problem. Can she sacrifice one life to save many?

The disaster of the week is that Ark One goes head-to-head with an East Alliance warship. With Trust's improvised defences, they are actually pretty evenly balanced. Garnet holds peace talks with the E.A. ship's captain.

Lane is upset because his father was killed by the E.A. while working as a senior military officer. It turns out that the military had a lot to answer for, since they were working on genocidal bio-weapons. As Garnet puts it, Are we the bad guys?

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 10] It Should Have Been You
Shown 18 Sep 24

The drama of the week is Garnet and Ian get trapped alone together on the ship. Over the course of many decades, they grow old and fall in love.

The disaster of the week is that the FTL drive is offline. With Garnet immobilised, Brice is now the acting Captain. He must oversee solutions to both problems

This is very reminiscent of 1990s Space Opera shows. The trapped-in-the-same-dream scenario is Star Trek: DS9 while the growing-old-together bit seems like something from Stargate SG-1 . Also worth a mention is Farscape , which killed off a main character every week and then used sci-fi methods to bring them back.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 11] It Will Be Over Soon
Shown 25 Sep 24

The drama of the week is that someone is blackmailing the Chief of Security. Their agenda is to get him to kill Mr Trust, and make it look like an accident.

The disaster of the week is that the ship's engine had a mysterious mishap and a couple of engineers were hospitalised. By incredible coincidence, Mr Trust was meant to be repairing it when it exploded.

The Ark (2023) [Season 2, Episode 12] Fortunate
Shown 2nd October 2024

The drama of the week is the Ark arrives safely at the new world. Everything is too good to be true.

The disaster of the week is that Evelyn Maddox has apparently died in a mysterious accident. In other words, there is another Big Bad who operated at a higher level than Trust or Maddox.