The Ark

“The Ark” is a nifty problem-solver sci-fi show, made digestible by shameless stock dialogue mixed with plenty of cliffhanger moments.

The Ark may never be admired for its thematic profundity, or its brave ideas, or its nuanced character development. But by the fourth hourlong episode sent to critics (of a 12-episode season), it finds its own groove as a bit of exciting, undemanding fun.

The first couple of episodes of The Ark are rough, because the characters take time to settle in. But the first episode brings up enough intrigue to make those episode worth watching until everyone finds their place in the story.

“The Ark,” in its “Star Trek”-meets-“Love Island” manner, is enjoyable and engaging enough, especially if one ignores the overly broad acting, contrived conflicts, abrasive people and constant sniping among the characters. ... It’s a trope that the low-ranking people in a quasi-situation comedy such as “The Ark” are not only more charming but more capable than their superiors, who spend much time stewing over power and seizing authority. But if viewers expected the new world to be much different from the old, this series will disabuse them of that.

“The Ark” is poorly written (grating exposition galore!) with mediocre special effects and cardboard characters. Syfy’s latest disappoints on every level.

Every member of the deep ensemble is introduced, but they never quite feel like more than vessels for nonstop exposition. The tone of “The Ark” never seems right, from the broad humor to a victorious score that often clashes with the bleak circumstances. ... The last of the four episodes sent to critics does settle into a more interesting groove, mostly because the characters finally get a moment to breathe.

It doesn’t help that the show’s cast is equally drab, their performances corny, broad, and altogether unconvincing. ... What’s missing is compelling action, serviceable CGI, and a sense of this all taking place within a grander context. ... There’s nothing under the hood of The Ark except a lot of ho-hum parts borrowed from better voyage-into-the-beyond sagas.

I love sci fi, my favourite is Stargate. So many sci fi shows get cancelled too soon. I love The Ark, the cast are really good, it has a real family feel about it. like Stargate did. There is so much potential story line, as the Arks reach their destinations, and build their lives there. I am looking forward to a third season.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Extremely poor on multiple fronts. Atrocious science, almost not a single aspect of any degree of technology on this show makes any sense, laws of physics are routinely broken without explanation and supposedly top tier equipment is all extremely shoddy, insanely poorly planned and fails constantly in truly bizzare ways. The characters all act extremely dumb, for a supposedly hand-picked "best of the best" collection of people, most of them would never pass an actual psych test, they immediately break down at the slightest hardship and act like literal children. Almost none of them have any concept of school-level of science and engineering and make absurdly idiotic decisions all the time. The actions of the bad forces of the season are baffling to say the least, bordering on cartoonishly evil. I kept watching hoping to see the "so this is why we did it", but nope, they just did evil things because they're evil. Awful. I feel like the writers didn't bother checking ANY of the science that they wrote with a single knowledgeable person and ended up just reskinning what amounts to a teenage drama show into an extremely fake space environment. The only positive thing in all this mess is the big overarching story and the setting. They wrote a really interesting overview but failed miserably at filling in the details. I hatewatched it till the end of the season because I was really curious about the setting. Would not recommend doing that to anyone else.

Cheap looking sets and cgi, interesting plot is spoiled by dialogues written by a drunk 12-year-old. Flat characters, acting done by nuttless monkeys. I wasted my time watching season 1 because I couldn’t believe it wouldn’t get better. Watched 20 minutes of season 2 and had to stop as it was even worse crap.

Terrible acting. Just awful. Especially the two nerdy **** almost seems like a parody of an actual space drama. Sadly it isn’t.