S01.E01: Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship

[Mr. Sparkle]

After suffering a disaster, the remaining crew of spaceship Ark One must band together to survive.

Premieres 23.02.01 at 10PM EST on SyFy and Peacock.  

Proceed at your own risk for spoilers if it is streaming before it airs on SyFy. 

[AnimeMania]

[Chaos Theory]

Heard absolutely nothing about this show ended up taping it and watching it live because it comes right after AEW wrestling and nothing else is on. So far I am really enjoying it.  Didn’t know it was a Dean Devlin project.  Like his stuff.   Most of the characters on the show are likeable.  So far my take is a bunch The Ark is transporting hot naked 20 something’s to a distant planet to make sexy offspring or to start a colony or something.     K was thinking that NotJasper/Malcolm might be the Gaius Baltar of the show but now it looks like someone with hair trigger anger just murdered the Gaius Baltar wannabe?  But I like her.  Is she the Laura Roslin of the show?  What I am getting BSG vibes. 

My favorite character is Alicia Nevis and Medford the dirt  guy.  

[Bort]

A few too many whiny people with emotional issues, you’d think the ark would have a better screening process for that when embarking on such an important project. But other than that, I’m liking it. Interesting premise and a nice little mystery of who killed the imposter. I’m guessing the acting captain didn’t do it, though I’d find it a braver plot choice for her to have actually done it.

[KaveDweller]

I saw a bunch of ads for this over the weekend, and nothing new was on so I decided to watch. I liked it, although I'm not sure I'm totally following who all the characters are. It was also hard to understand some of the accents. But it is a cool concept for a show and outer space is always fun.

One question, they said all the commanders are dead because the area they were in was blown off the ship right? But since we don't know what happened, could that be functioning and just not connected? It is a sci fi show so anything seems possible. It also seems dumb they'd put all the leaders in one section of the ship and all the low level crew in another. Wouldn't they split off a couple people in case of a disaster exactly like this? Also, if the trip is only 6 years wouldn't you have one person who's job it is to not be asleep and keep an eye on things?

My favorites so far are also Alicia and the dirt guy.

[Bort]

6 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

It also seems dumb they'd put all the leaders in one section of the ship and all the low level crew in another. Wouldn't they split off a couple people in case of a disaster exactly like this?

Seems like that is what they did, with the three lieutenants that were with the rest of them. 

[CoyoteBlue]

6 hours ago, kariyaki said:

A few too many whiny people with emotional issues, you’d think the ark would have a better screening process for that when embarking on such an important project.

Chatty McTwitchy already makes me want to shoot her out an airlock. She's like if Billie from Avenue 5 went horribly wrong. Half of these people (not in the command council) seem like emotionally stunted 12-year-old geeks. Like, honestly, they seem like they'd have a hard time figuring out how to navigate a middle-school lunchroom, let alone creating a new colony.

They are also the most self-involved people I've seen in a while (other then Avenue 5!) on a semi-realistic space-faring show. You don't usually see astronaut types carefully chosen for a very small population in constant life-or-death situations have to constantly be told not to do/touch things that can kill everyone. They're either just idiot-idiots or horrifically selfish idiots who don't get that stealing water is Bad and your freshly-showered titties will not keep people from dying of thirst one day, or bitching about not getting more food is pointless because it will not appear out of thin air because you Want It. Or the oxygen tanks you just stole from MED BAY and stashed in a hallway vent might be needed elsewhere.

From the previews, it looks like The Lieutenants will be more worried about dick measuring with each other going forward than the actual state of the ship and crew.

6 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

One question, they said all the commanders are dead because the area they were in was blown off the ship right? But since we don't know what happened, could that be functioning and just not connected? It is a sci fi show so anything seems possible. It also seems dumb they'd put all the leaders in one section of the ship and all the low level crew in another. Wouldn't they split off a couple people in case of a disaster exactly like this? Also, if the trip is only 6 years wouldn't you have one person who's job it is to not be asleep and keep an eye on things?

If they were smart, there would be several pod bays around the entire circumference of the ship with a mix of "leadership team" people and a cross-section of all departments. That way, something hitting one side of the ship wouldn't take out the entire chain of command or an entire department's worth of knowledge.

It's like Ark B from Hitchhikers Guide, except Arks A&C launched and were taken out by whatever hit the ship instead of a virulent disease contracted from an unsanitized telephone.

Edited February 2, 2023 by CoyoteBlue

[KaveDweller]

18 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Seems like that is what they did, with the three lieutenants that were with the rest of them. 

It sounded like there were a lot of people higher up than those three lieutenants. You'd think there'd be more of a mix.

Kind of like the rule about how the president and vice president can't fly on the same plane.

[marinw]

The youth and hotness of this crew is very CW. I agree with the other posters that it’s silly to put all the command people together. I am reminded of the film Passengers where the command crew was separated from the civilians for some reason.

[CoyoteBlue]

Second watch thoughts:

Watching people fail miserably trying to input passcodes during an emergency will never grow old. God forbid there be a retinal or thumbprint option as well.

Baldy McStoicPants has the competence and gravitas one appreciates in a Head of Security and not only manages to get the door unlocked, but returns with a helmet for the person directing the evacuation. Lt. Pissy whined about waking up the captain after an ENTIRE CRYO BAY disintegrated. I think she's gonna wanna know, buddy.

"My god, man, did you pay no attention in orientation?" Have you MET these people, doc?

Aaand we start the "piss off, that's not my job" counter at 3 so far. Lt Pissy, Lt. HotScot and now Imposter.

WHAT is with the kerchief on Babushka, ffs? Was the accent not thick enough to scream East European? Or the outright declaration of nationality?

Chatty McTwitchy, SHUT UP. You give me a headache every time you open your mouth. Farmer Angus is adorable.

You know, if I were an Impostor, I would try to lie low and not antagonize everyone I talked to.

And again McStoic steps up to the plate and showerblocks Karen TitsOut. I thought the drip of water from the shower head as they left might become Chekov's Leak, but nothing came of it.

I like Lt Red putting Lt Pissy in his place in the farm - she's right; he had a decent point but made an ass of himself grandstanding. He's That Guy in a meeting that makes up stuff to complain about but never offers solutions, just more blockers.

Trent MommyIssues is a canary in a space coal mine. Sensors haven't detected the reduced O2 level yet, but his sensitive lungs can. Why has THE ENTIRE SHIP lost oxygen? That's not a leak, that's explosive decompression in every section. How many hours were they in a sealed room that they could have used up allllll the oxygen?

Do I advance the Not My Job counter if it's Impostor again?

Aw, McStoic's first slip-up, losing a prisoner.

BSG Memorial Personnel Count: 142

Edited February 3, 2023 by CoyoteBlue

[Glade]

Basic, dumb cliche-ridden dialogue, a tired premise, and terrible space graphics make this a definite pass for me.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Glade

[marinw]

On 2/2/2023 at 11:23 PM, CoyoteBlue said:

And again McStoic steps up to the plate and showerblocks Karen TitsOut.

Love your nicknames! What was McStoic doing in the shower room anyway? Sneaking in his own shower? Give it up Karen, McStoic is pinging my gaydar.

Not sure if I'm going to keep watching. I wasn't expecting The Expanse, but the technology and engineering  aspects of the show are BAD. For example, how did Soil Boy get all that soil on board with nobody noticing? Soil is heavy, the weight would be noticed.

Edited February 4, 2023 by marinw

[oompa]

I'll watch pretty much anything sci-fi so now I guess have a new show to hate watch.

So many cliche characters - the nerd, the hot chic, the boss, the rebel, the slacker, etc.

Ok, they show that they are using spin to create gravity but then the final shot shows the boss sitting in her cabin at the front of the ship that is obviously not spinning.

One single tiny leak and the entire ship quickly loses breathable air? Plug the leak and almost immediately the ship is full of breathable air?

SyFy nee SciFi used to have some of my favorite TV shows. Maybe this will get better.

Edited February 4, 2023 by oompa

[KeithJ]

I watched this last night and, I'll keep watching since there's not much else sci-fi to watch, but I was not greatly impressed.

Some of the CGI was absolutely horrible (the girders falling in the pod bay, the people floating).  I know this is a SyFy show but we've seen better CGI on SyFy.

I don't know if the actors were using their real accents or not but some of them were terrible.  If you can't get an actor to speak an accent correctly, just remove the accent from the character.

Why does everyone have to be so young?  I understand all the older people were probably the higher officers that were all killed but I really don't want this to be a teenage soap opera in space.

 

[TV Anonymous]

There are many things that do not make sense in this first episode. 

• Engineering design: Why escape hatches are equipped with passcode? Why is there no automatic reanimating procedure if the automated system detects error?
• Military: Why are there questions about who is in charge? Militaries all around the world are very clear about chain of command and seniority. It is usually ranks, positions, dates of ranks.
• Behavior: In the very moment that their collective lives is in jeopardy, and the very first reaction is to be bitches with each other? They are not passengers in a cruise ship.

[mkindyfan]

I could not find a single redeeming feature of this first episode to convince me to watch further... it would appear to be the very definition of a 'dud'..

[ottoDbusdriver]

That was pretty bad for an opening episode.

In the title sequence, it shows large swaths of North America on fire -- that can't be good.

All the video cameras were 'conveniently' turned off before the impact/accident/aliens/whatever happened to the ship. 
But they must have had other sensor logs/radar scans/etc. to pull data from.

They must have artificial gravity -- both the bridge, the agricultural dome, and the Lt. Garnet's quarters had gravity with no spinning, so .........

Maybe they wouldn't have power shortages if they turned off all the exterior illumination on the ship ?  Because there are lights everywhere on the outside.

If all the remaining members of Ark One are 'best and brightest', what exactly is blonde shower lady's skillset ?

That seemed like a pretty small oxygen leak to affect the entire ship.

They should have called this show 'Ark 1' -- says so on the hull.  So where is Ark 2 or Ark 3 ?

And now we have a murder mystery -- who killed the guy pretending to be Dades ?

I think I liked this show better the first time when it was called 'The Starlost' -- the basic plot is eerily similar to 'The Ark'.
 

[Starchild]

This ain't no Starlost.

I liked Starlost, they should remake it.

[marinw]

2 hours ago, Starchild said:

I liked Starlost, they should remake it.

Interesting idea. That show was so Early 70's, it had an aesthetic that was unique to that era. I do wonder what an update would look like.

[Starchild]

Even minimal effects by today's standards would be a vast improvement. But really, the best part of it was intellectual, the culture clashes, seeing how various communities cut off from each other developed once they forgot their original mission and that they were even on a ship.

[marinw]

Comparing The Ark to Battlestar Galactica or The Expanse doesn’t seem fair. This show doesn’t even compare well to The 100 or Killjoys or any of the Treks.

[KaveDweller]

On 2/5/2023 at 7:48 PM, ottoDbusdriver said:

They should have called this show 'Ark 1' -- says so on the hull.  So where is Ark 2 or Ark 3 ?

They didn't say how far behind them Ark 2 was, but they did mention how the imposter got on ship by telling the real person who was supposed to be there that he'd been assigned to Ark 2.

It doesn't make sense though. They said Earth had 17 years left and it takes 6 years to get to this new planet. So they really should just be sending everybody up as fast as possible, rather than waiting to see if a colony can be established. Sounds like there is no plan B if it fails.

They also said they'd had no messages from control while they were all asleep. But did they say if they can send messages back to Earth?

[CoyoteBlue]

On 2/6/2023 at 8:59 PM, KaveDweller said:

It doesn't make sense though. They said Earth had 17 years left and it takes 6 years to get to this new planet. So they really should just be sending everybody up as fast as possible, rather than waiting to see if a colony can be established. Sounds like there is no plan B if it fails.

The first wave of Arks are being sent to each possible habitable planet. Ark One is being sent to the best and (possibly?) nearest, for maximum chance of success. If an Ark successfully colonizes a planet, they contact Earth (I assume) and their families, along with others, are sent to that planet to start continuing the human race. Since Wave Two will be at least 10-15 years behind Wave One, the Arks will have to be a self-sustaining colony population-wise until then, which, judging from previews, will be news to some people.

On 2/6/2023 at 8:59 PM, KaveDweller said:

They also said they'd had no messages from control while they were all asleep. But did they say if they can send messages back to Earth?

They didn't say anything about whether outbound communications are presumed operational, but it seemed weird that there are no communications regarding the state of the Earth and/or the Ark program. We also have no idea how close to light speed the communications will be. Will it take X light years for their report of success to reach the Earth for Wave Two? Makes you wonder if their families will even be alive to follow by then.

[paulvdb]

On 2/7/2023 at 3:59 AM, KaveDweller said:

They said Earth had 17 years left and it takes 6 years to get to this new planet.

I guess one of us heard it wrong. I thought they said Earth had 70 years left. That would give them a more realistic timeframe to send the rest of Earth's population to the new planet after the Ark establishes a colony there.

[KaveDweller]

On 2/9/2023 at 1:13 AM, CoyoteBlue said:

The first wave of Arks are being sent to each possible habitable planet. Ark One is being sent to the best and (possibly?) nearest, for maximum chance of success. If an Ark successfully colonizes a planet, they contact Earth (I assume) and their families, along with others, are sent to that planet to start continuing the human race. Since Wave Two will be at least 10-15 years behind Wave One, the Arks will have to be a self-sustaining colony population-wise until then, which, judging from previews, will be news to some people.

Oh, well that makes sense. Although it makes the mission seem more risky, and that guy who was imposter replaced must have been really pissed when he got the fake message about being reassigning to Ark 2.

On 2/9/2023 at 1:48 AM, paulvdb said:

I guess one of us heard it wrong. I thought they said Earth had 70 years left. That would give them a more realistic timeframe to send the rest of Earth's population to the new planet after the Ark establishes a colony there.

I hope for Earth's sake it is 70. 

[Raja]

On 2/2/2023 at 5:34 PM, marinw said:

The youth and hotness of this crew is very CW. I agree with the other posters that it’s silly to put all the command people together. I am reminded of the film Passengers where the command crew was separated from the civilians for some reason.

I was thinking of Snowpiercer, First Class pod's where you  get what exactly? Awaken in private rooms instead of a squad bay

[CarpeFelis]

I wonder what their cryosleep technology is supposed to be, because people woke up awfully fast!

There are at least 3 actors who were in The Outpost (Zed, Warlita, Marvyn).

[Gharlane]

On 1/28/2023 at 9:09 AM, Superclam said:

"Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship". After suffering a disaster, the remaining crew of spaceship Ark One must band together to survive.

Was this a rejected CW show? It was terrible! 

I'll have to post comments after sorting my thoughts.

[Enero]

The previews for this looked good. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. This was pretty bad, from the dialogue, to the storylines to the CGI. Nearly all the characters were annoying and unlikeable. Thus I’ll be stopping here. Won’t be watching anymore of this series. 

[Gharlane]

On 1/28/2023 at 9:09 AM, Superclam said:

"Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship". After suffering a disaster, the remaining crew of spaceship Ark One must band together to survive.

Was this a rejected CW show? It was terrible! 

Here's some random thoughts while I watched:

All the adults died, leaving the young adults in charge. How convenient. BTW, who designed this ship to place everyone in rotating chmabers on the outside  of ship instead of the interior of the shaft portion, where they would be protected from space debris. Who puts all the mission critical people together, and why did there seem to be no chain of command or protocalls?

I am not going to comment on muscle atrophy or the gravity being all wrong.

I immediately noticed the stars zooming by in the windows. Ugh. I am sure the stars outside would chnage position, but that's ridiculous!

A female lieutenant takes control and tells everyone they're a year away from their destination and only have a month's worth of food that was intended for consumption at their destination. Once again, who planned this voyage? Why don't they put people back into hibernation? 

A cute horticulturalist prodigy tells the girl in charge that he managed to smuggle a big crate of super-dirt onto the Ark, in case their destination is barren. Shouldn't he know that hydroponics is much more efficient and how he plans on using that super-dirt to grow crops on a barren planet? Once again, who planned this voyage?

For some stupid reason, their life support system warns you about leaks when there's less than 20% of air left instead of immediately when it detects the leak so the bulkheads aren't dropping while you're trying to fix them. As soon as I saw the life support systems expert, I knew he was doomed as doomed can be because he's older than everyone else. It turns out he stowed aboard by replacing the real life support systems expert, instead of the guy who is in charge of changing air filters and wouldn't be noticed. Hey, he said the title of this ep!

Two of the crew exposition that they were forbidden to be on the ship because they're lovers, so they lied about it. Why is it forbidden? Do they expect people to have bastard babies or something? How did they hide it? Oh yeah, why is she wearing a babushka? 

For dramatic reasons, the only way to fix the life support was via spacewalk. Making matters worse, no one was tethered and there were no ladders on the exterior to hold onto. I hope those jetpacks don't malfunction or experience operator error! 

Meanwhile, a blond entitled bitch decides she's going to break water curfew and take a shower in a deserted part of the ship. Why did they put police crime scene tape over the door instead of locking it and why didn't they turn off the water to the showers? Before she can take her secret non-naked shower, she gets busted by a man who had been waiting until she was turning on the water. Why was he loitering in the women's showers and why did he let her get dressed instead of frog-marching her naked to the bridge as a lesson? I can only assume the lingering shot of the water dripping from the not-quite-off shower is going to cause a water shortage in the future.

Oh yeah, the boss girl killed the elder impersonator after he blabbed about knowing her secret. Yeah, who didn't see that one coming? 

[CoyoteBlue]

On 3/20/2023 at 12:35 PM, Gharlane said:

Why don't they put people back into hibernation?

Because there were only 2 hibernation bays - the one that disintegrated slowly enough for all but one crew member to escape, and the one that was destroyed immediately and catastrophically