Commentary

Randy Rocketeers of Syfy's Space 'Ark' Are Young And Restless

An ark in the form of an interstellar spacecraft forgot the animals, but the craft’s crew is making up for it by pairing off two-by-two.

Welcome to “The Ark,” a new outer space-colonization drama that posits a scheme to find a habitable alternative to planet Earth and then populate it with a colony of randy rocketeers.

The show starts Wednesday on Syfy, slotted from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern, Syfy’s go-to time period for some of its new, original dramas.

In “The Ark,” as in a hundred other such outer-space dramas in which mankind goes in search of a new home, the journey of this space ark to the far reaches of the galaxy will take a number of years to complete. The start date is the year 2123.

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But bad luck strikes the ship, named Ark One, just four years into its space trip, when forces unknown strike the ship and it is badly damaged.

Like a sudden, loud noise in the middle of the night, the resultant clamor wakes a number of the crew out of a deep sleep in individual pods -- also the stuff of countless such TV shows and movies.

With no discernible stiffness or grogginess after four years in which they haven’t moved a muscle, some leap out of their pods with hair and makeup intact to make their escape from this vast pod barracks before the ceiling falls in. 

Ark One is huge, which means that a collapsed ceiling in one part of it is not necessarily a fatal blow. 

But it is a fatal blow to the many crew members who slept too late to be saved. More died than survived in this cosmic crash, and now, the remaining crew must dust themselves off and come together to fend off starvation and dehydration from shortages of food and water.

One of the first orders of business: No showers! Despite this ban, one of the comely young women sneaks into the barricaded shower facility and after disrobing is confronted by a burly security guard who is understandably in a lather over this bathing breach.

She makes advances, he resists and she is compelled to leave before getting the chance to rinse! 

If that coupling remained uncoupled, then that is not likely to be the norm for this crippled craft. Shortly after the premiere episode’s ceiling cave-in, we learn that the ship’s entire senior command has perished, leaving a trio of lowly lieutenants in command.

The age and demographic makeup of the senior staff is not specified, but the common characteristics of the Ark one survivors is crystal clear: They are all young and good-looking.

Before long, various pairs of them are making goo-goo eyes at each other, including two nerds in love who are the youngest members of the crew.

They interact happily in the throes of young love, having apparently forgotten that many people they knew perished horribly beneath a tangled tonnage of twisted steel from which they narrowly escaped just an hour ago.

In recent years, TV’s best end-of-the-world, space-colonization shows, such as last year’s “Moonhaven” on AMC+ and 2020’s “Raised By Wolves” on HBO Max, have set a high standard.

In comparison, “The Ark” earns classification as the TV equivalent of a B-movie. 

“The Ark” premieres on Wednesday (February 1) at 10 p.m. Eastern on Syfy.

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