‘The Ark’ Review: A Great Sci-Fi Thriller That Needs More Budget

The Sci-Fi channel has become infamous for its low-budget productions. For decades, they have held the banner for science fiction on TV by pushing out countless productions with great ideas that, sadly, are not supported by the production side of things. The Ark, their newest TV show, which has arrived this week, is just the latest example of this trend. Ideas by themselves are pretty potent, and they can carry a show for a long time, but it is only through a fantastic presentation that they can reach as many people as possible.

The Ark is created by Dean Devlin for the sci-fi channel and stars Christie Burke, Tiana Upcheva, Miles Barrow, Richard Fleeshman, Reece Ritchie, and Stacey Read, among others. The show tells the story of a generational arc that is traveling through space with the mission of arriving on a planet to build a colony that will save humanity in the future. However, after an incident forces all the crew to wake up one year before their intended arrival date, the crew will need to manage the countless issues that the ship now has or risk not living one more day.

The Ark approaches its story in a very straightforward way. It actually wastes no time setting up its premise and putting the character right in the middle of the problems they will need to face, and oh boy, are they in trouble! The arc tells a story that feels very much familiar, you can be certain you have seen something like this before, and the characters are all familiar. For those who saw The 100, you will find that many of the archetypes in that show are also present here.

And yet, the series just works thanks to a breakneck pace and solid performances. You can feel that production is lacking in many departments. The writing is generic but solid, the plotlines are quite interesting, familiarity should never be considered as a negative, oily execution, and for what it is worth, The Ark is executing its storylines better than many other shows with more resources. That is the big issue with the show, the presentation feels so low that it might take you out of the story every minute.

The suits, the props, the sets, everything looks cheap and fake. When you are trying to sell that your generational ship is traveling through space and your story is set many years into the future, it looks weird that everything made in that future feels so low quality. The opening of the first episode, for example, is a tragedy so big that it shapes the rest of the story forever. However, because the production values are so low, it sometimes looks laughable when helmets look like they are made with glue and paper mache.

The visual effects are also quite bad, and in the moments when the show decides to use composting to create a certain moment, the quality just doesn’t sell it. Thankfully, the show has a very solid cast that powers through these shortcomings and makes the story worth watching. Christie Burke makes for a fantastic main character. As one of the last officers on board, her “let’s do” attitude is very welcome and makes things move quickly. There are some other characters that really shine, like, for example, Upcheva’s Eva, and especially Read’s Alicia, a character that brings charm everywhere she goes.

There are many cliché moments in the show, and while I don’t consider clichés to be something negative, we can expect that most audiences will be annoyed at many things happening during the show. The good and bad characters begin to draw their lines in the sand, and a certain mystery that propels some characters ends up feeling quite predictable. Nevertheless, I think it makes for good drama. Not many people will be able to overcome the terribly low production values, but those who will manage to do it will find a very entertaining story being laid out here.

We understand that the production values are quite low, but maybe a bit more variation in the use of the camera could have helped to make the environments and moments a bit more flashy or even interesting. Instead, the cinematography tries to keep it simple, so simple that something it gets boring to look at the show, and it feels like it is more fascinating to just listen to the characters speak and solve their problems. This show not only needs more money, but it also needs more color and proper production design.

Ultimately, The Ark will certainly be labeled as a terrible show, but I disagree. I truly believe that the show presents a very classic and entertaining story about survival and human nature, but sadly, it didn’t have enough resources to fulfill the vision of its creators. If this show had the budget of an HBO show, then it could have been truly amazing, and everyone would be watching it. However, maybe if that were the case, then the writing would be worse. Who knows, but if you want an old-fashioned but entertaining science fiction story, then this show might be for you.

SCORE: 7/10