Syfy's Ascension Miniseries

[cylkoth]

Ascension 3 Part Miniseries

"Night One"
12/15/2014, Sci-fi, Space, Mystery, Mini-series
In 1963, the starship Ascension, carrying hundreds of men, women and children, launches on a century-long voyage to populate a new world; however, a murder 51 years into the journey reveals cracks in the isolated community.
Credits: Ryan Ali (Actor), Shawn Baichoo (Actor), Andre Bedard (Actor), Mark Camacho (Actor), Rachel Crawford (Actor), Alain Dahan (Actor), Tiffany Lonsdale (Actor), Ronald Gilbert (Producer), Adrian Cruz (Teleplay)

Holy crap-that ending! And it's only the first part. I....I am...pleased. The earthbound scenes felt unnecessary at first glance, dragging the story to a screeching halt. And then...
This was better than I thought it would be. Yeah, it played like CSI: Outer Space for most of the time, with a tedious Haley Joel Osment wanna be thrown in to irritate us. But no Sharknadoes or mutated crock-a-dinos showing up makes it golden. Yeah an obligatory dig in at the network's Z grade movies is the law for genre message boarders.

Looking forward to seeing how this all developes.

I didn't watch Helix very long, but I'm wondering if the set for their complex was used here as the central hub? Design nitpick...Did we really need the elevator shaft in the center with a walkway back to where you'd want to go, rather than putting it alongside the inner ring?
A cool look nonetheless.

 

[Mr Light]

I got a little over an hour through it before I gave up. I'm so sick of "mature" "adult" storytelling meaning endless scenes of graphic sex. There just wasn't a hook to keep me watching.

 

[cylkoth]

Maybe you could give the last 5-10 minutes a shot, and see if it changes your mind whether to give it a second chance or not.
It really does make all the difference.

 

[auntiehill]

Didn't make any difference for me. I sussed out the the entire situation in the first 5-10 minutes or so. After that, it was just about sitting and waiting for it to reveal itself. Meh.

The direction on this is pretty dreadful. I felt like I was just watching a bunch of actors walk around the set and recite their lines. There's no purpose, no feeling, no identifying with any of them. I didn't feel like any of them were real, fleshed-out characters. Oddly, I thought the best actor was the little girl. Her performance was believable. The rest? Not so much.

So, really not thrilled so far. Don't know if we'll continue watching or not.

 

[DigificWriter]

I'm watching the show right now and will watch tomorrow night and Wednesday's episodes, but I'm not too impressed by the "nothing is real" meta-concept, which was accidentally spoiled when I turned on the TV slightly early, and which doesn't really seem to be necessary.

We'll see if that changes by the end of things, but, for now, that's how I feel.

 

[Crusher Disciple]

The end of the episode reminded me of the point where they ran out of ideas on BSG.

It's all a dream Sally!

 

[Borgminister]

Made it halfway through; liked the booty shots, and the pool stage reminded me of The Truman Show.

Might catch the rest, might not...

 

[C.E. Evans]

I liked The Truman Show better.

 

[Christopher]

Okay, that last twist was enough to get me to keep watching. I began to suspect it as soon as we saw that the people back on Earth were aware of the shipboard murder in real time, despite the earlier statement that there was no FTL. It does handily resolve most of the implausibilities in the premise -- there is no bloomin' way a mission of that magnitude could've been possible in 1963 -- and it spares us from the supernatural/pseudoscience explanation I feared they were going for with the little kid's perceptions of something watching them. (She might still have some kind of psychic ability, but at least the "watchers" aren't magically-powered aliens or demons or something.) And it excuses some of the implausibilities like the ridiculously inadequate radiation shielding the crew relied on during the storm. (Tarps? Seriously?) Although it doesn't excuse the fanciful space imagery and the black dust clouds going by outside the ship windows, or the misinterpretation of the structure of the Alpha Centauri system. There would presumably be people aboard the ship educated enough to see through such fakery.

I think I figured out the reason for all this overnight. As Gil Bellows's character said, it's a lifeboat, a hedge against extinction. This is an isolated population that's being trained to terraform and populate a dead, uninhabitable world. So if the apocalypse happens -- either the nuclear war that would've been feared in Kennedy's time or the environmental cataclysm we fear today -- then when these guys finally come out of their "ship," they'll be able to restore human life to Earth. We'll see tonight if I'm right.

I also have my quibbles with how the society was portrayed. A lot of it didn't feel very '60s, like the easy reliance on ubiquitous surveillance, some of the idiomatic speech and tech being too modern, the absence of overt racism (the XO seemed to be "forbidden" from dating the woman because he was from the lower decks, not because he was black), and so forth. I suppose, though, that the ship could be "in communication" with Earth and getting some technological updates, and of course there would be some social development, so they wouldn't be exactly like the '60s. But it doesn't really feel like a society that's been isolated since the '60s and branched off in its own insular way. It feels more like an imperfectly researched attempt by a 2014 writer to mimic a '60s setting.

Design nitpick...Did we really need the elevator shaft in the center with a walkway back to where you'd want to go, rather than putting it alongside the inner ring?

Presumably you'd want the ship's mass to be symmetrically distributed about its axis so the thrust would be properly balanced. They could've had two elevators on opposite sides, but that could be wasteful. If you've only got one, it makes sense to position it centrally.

I'm so sick of "mature" "adult" storytelling meaning endless scenes of graphic sex.

Um, "graphic sex" would mean the actual on-camera depiction of genital contact or penetration. There was nothing remotely close to that here, just some hugging and kissing and a few flashes of bare skin.

 

[dub]

I began to suspect "the twist" from early in the episode. I'm glad they got that out of the way early, because it would have been a huge predictable disappointment if that was the endgame for the series. Nothing mind-blowing about the premiere for me.

Overall, I found it to be incredibly slow, which isn't always a bad thing. But I did fall asleep last night and had to finish watching this morning. I thought the reveals and discovery during the chaos of the "radiation storm" felt way too forced. Like they were trying to create a fast pace drama that wasn't really there. At least I wasn't feeling it. I'm also underwhelmed by the characters so far, which is the opposite of how I believe I should feel since it had such a slow start.

But it is early, and I didn't HATE it, so I will give it another chance tonight. And now that the predictable twist (for me) has been put to bed, perhaps the show has the freedom to become more interesting.

 

[JD]

I really enjoyable. I thought the mysteries they set were pretty intersesting and I thought the social set up on the ship was too. I did not see the big twist coming, when the girl talked about being I watched I thought maybe they had been sent out to make contact with aliens or something.

Spoiler: The end of episode 1

So does the end mean that Lorelei was killed because she figured out the truth, and are the are the radiation procedures just a way for the people in outside to come onto Ascension without being seen? I'm really looking forward to tonight, I hope we get some real explanations of what exactly is going on.

 

[cylkoth]

I began to suspect "the twist" from early in the episode. I'm glad they got that out of the way early, because it would have been a huge predictable disappointment if that was the endgame for the series.

I am surprised that it was kept under wraps this long. A format upending twist like this, I'd expect it to have been leaked somewhere long ago.

And it excuses some of the implausibilities like the ridiculously inadequate radiation shielding the crew relied on during the storm. (Tarps? Seriously?)

The tarps were silly-irradiated pork chops on the menu, was on my mind afterwards. You'd think that the entire farming habitat would be shielded with whatever handwavium material used for the shelters.

I also have my quibbles with how the society was portrayed. A lot of it didn't feel very '60s, like the easy reliance on ubiquitous surveillance, some of the idiomatic speech and tech being too modern, the absence of overt racism (the XO seemed to be "forbidden" from dating the woman because he was from the lower decks, not because he was black), and so forth. I suppose, though, that the ship could be "in communication" with Earth and getting some technological updates, and of course there would be some social development, so they wouldn't be exactly like the '60s. But it doesn't really feel like a society that's been isolated since the '60s and branched off in its own insular way. It feels more like an imperfectly researched attempt by a 2014 writer to mimic a '60s setting.

Monday afternoon, I listened to a podcast with producer Jason Blum, where he mentioned that the ship was in contact with Earth for the first 10 years. That would help explain the social progressiveness onboard to a certain degree. I wish there'd been some indication of the makeup of the current population, how many were original vs, those born inside. You could posit that overt racism waned as time moved on, but the class divide is harder to reconcile as the farmming and engineering staffs are the very life blood of this closed society, and it would be foolish to denigrate them as not being as important as whoever belongs in the higher decks ''upper class''., and why would the staff be so sequestered into different sections in the first place? A single living quarters section makes more sense (or is that too Star Trekish?).

The Slice of Sci Fi podcast with Jason Blum can be listened too here- http://www.sliceofcifi.com/2014/12/12/slice-of-scifi-696/

 

[trekkist]

I find the "surprise" ending of Pt. 1 an insult to imagination, intelligence (why doesn't anyone aboard wonder as to their use of "artificial gravity"?), and the entire generation ship lineage of storytelling. That said, I'll likely tune in to Pt. 2 at least, if only to see if the thing has any payoff.

It just occurred to me that the "surprise" is reminiscent of what Paramount allegedly kept saying to ST: The Motion Picture scripts: "Not big enough!"

Apparently, a 600 crew Orion launched circa '63 wasn't "big" enough for the screenwriter.

 

[Galileo7]

I got a little over an hour through it before I gave up. I'm so sick of "mature" "adult" storytelling meaning endless scenes of graphic sex. There just wasn't a hook to keep me watching.

Agree.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I began to suspect "the twist" from early in the episode. I'm glad they got that out of the way early, because it would have been a huge predictable disappointment if that was the endgame for the series.

I am surprised that it was kept under wraps this long. A format upending twist like this, I'd expect it to have been leaked somewhere long ago.

And it excuses some of the implausibilities like the ridiculously inadequate radiation shielding the crew relied on during the storm. (Tarps? Seriously?)

The tarps were silly-irradiated pork chops on the menu, was on my mind afterwards. You'd think that the entire farming habitat would be shielded with whatever handwavium material used for the shelters.

I also have my quibbles with how the society was portrayed. A lot of it didn't feel very '60s, like the easy reliance on ubiquitous surveillance, some of the idiomatic speech and tech being too modern, the absence of overt racism (the XO seemed to be "forbidden" from dating the woman because he was from the lower decks, not because he was black), and so forth. I suppose, though, that the ship could be "in communication" with Earth and getting some technological updates, and of course there would be some social development, so they wouldn't be exactly like the '60s. But it doesn't really feel like a society that's been isolated since the '60s and branched off in its own insular way. It feels more like an imperfectly researched attempt by a 2014 writer to mimic a '60s setting.

Monday afternoon, I listened to a podcast with producer Jason Blum, where he mentioned that the ship was in contact with Earth for the first 10 years. That would help explain the social progressiveness onboard to a certain degree. I wish there'd been some indication of the makeup of the current population, how many were original vs, those born inside. You could posit that overt racism waned as time moved on, but the class divide is harder to reconcile as the farmming and engineering staffs are the very life blood of this closed society, and it would be foolish to denigrate them as not being as important as whoever belongs in the higher decks ''upper class''., and why would the staff be so sequestered into different sections in the first place? A single living quarters section makes more sense (or is that too Star Trekish?).

The Slice of Sci Fi podcast with Jason Blum can be listened too here- http://www.sliceofcifi.com/2014/12/12/slice-of-scifi-696/

Regarding the racism -- the people selected for this experiment may have been people who were THAT racist, and after 2 generations of living with each other, i i doubt it would still be a problem .

As for the age...being 51 years later, and the near absence of anyone over 50...most people (in the cast, for sure) are Ascnesion-born

 

[Admiral2]

Mind you, I haven't seen this yet. I'm trying to judge whether I should by what I read here.

I think I figured out the reason for all this overnight. As Gil Bellows's character said, it's a lifeboat, a hedge against extinction. This is an isolated population that's being trained to terraform and populate a dead, uninhabitable world. So if the apocalypse happens -- either the nuclear war that would've been feared in Kennedy's time or the environmental cataclysm we fear today -- then when these guys finally come out of their "ship," they'll be able to restore human life to Earth. We'll see tonight if I'm right.

If that's true, then why send a cross-section of the very society likely to bring about those catastrophes on Earth? As demonstrated by the murder, all you've done is send the same problems with the colonists. What am I missing?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I enjoyed it, though the "twist" wasn't much of one, since I had a feeling right away and they gave it away with the grounders knowing what happened in real time. The only way that ruse could hold up is if the second generation onboard knows absolutely nothing about space or science and is too ignorant to question all the bizarre things involved in the mission. Like the weird rainbow space vista, going to a star system they couldn't have known had any planets or not in 1963, building an interstellar craft of that sophistication shortly after America's first space launch, etc. The fact that the rebellious people think they can just turn the ship around and head back to Earth in any kind of timeframe that would make a difference in their lives seems to back up that most of the people are that ignorant.

With the exception of the upper/lower deck class divide, which is interesting, the greater egalitarianism between races and sexes versus the actual 60s probably stems from combination of this being the second and third generation in a tightknit community in "space" that has to rely on and trust each other implicitly, the lack of options numerically opening people up to possibilities that would be taboo on Earth in the 60s, and the colonist selection process before launch that would have weeded out any potential agitators and disharmonious elements from the group and only chosen those who believed that diversity was essential to repopulating the species.

The miniseries borrows elements from lots of different sources --the underground "colony" shaft with the surrounding video screens is lifted almost directly from The Island and The Truman Show elements are obvious.

I loved the set design and "spaceship" design. I hope we get to see a diagram of all the decks at some point.

 

[Christopher]

The only way that ruse could hold up is if the second generation onboard knows absolutely nothing about space or science and is too ignorant to question all the bizarre things involved in the mission. Like the weird rainbow space vista...

Well, you can see fanciful space vistas treated as real in any number of sci-fi movies and shows. Presumably we're meant to accept that it's realistic by the standards of the miniseries' universe.

,going to a star system they couldn't have known had any planets or not in 1963

Actually Alpha Centauri has always been seen as a leading candidate for colonization. It's the nearest star system to Sol and thus the easiest to reach, and its A component is a yellow star very much like Sol. There's been uncertainty over the decades about whether a binary star could host planets, but Alpha Centauri has still always been seen as a likely candidate. Keep in mind that it was the destination of the Jupiter 2 in Lost in Space, which premiered in 1965. And that's just one of many examples in fiction from the '40s through the '60s, let alone the decades since.

building an interstellar craft of that sophistication shortly after America's first space launch, etc.

Somewhat fanciful, yes, but the captions said it was an "Orion-class" ship, no doubt referencing Project Orion, a proposal for a nuclear-pulse propulsion ship dating from 1958. So it's not completely implausible that the original participants could've been tricked into believing that the government's research in the field was more advanced than it really was. At least, it's more plausible than the premise that they did it for real.

The fact that the rebellious people think they can just turn the ship around and head back to Earth in any kind of timeframe that would make a difference in their lives seems to back up that most of the people are that ignorant.

I don't think they said anything about wanting to get back to Earth within their lifetimes. Maybe they just want their children to be able to live on Earth rather than struggling to terraform an inhospitable world.

With the exception of the upper/lower deck class divide, which is interesting, the greater egalitarianism between races and sexes versus the actual 60s probably stems from combination of this being the second and third generation in a tightknit community in "space" that has to rely on and trust each other implicitly, the lack of options numerically opening people up to possibilities that would be taboo on Earth in the 60s, and the colonist selection process before launch that would have weeded out any potential agitators and disharmonious elements from the group and only chosen those who believed that diversity was essential to repopulating the species.

Granted. And the scientific community at the time was probably more racially enlightened than the rank and file, and would've welcomed intelligence and skill in anyone, regardless of race, religion, etc.

The miniseries borrows elements from lots of different sources --the underground "colony" shaft with the surrounding video screens is lifted almost directly from The Island and The Truman Show elements are obvious.

There's also Doctor Who's "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" from 1974, which featured almost exactly the same premise -- a fake space ark whose inhabitants believed they were going to another planet but were actually intended to repopulate the Earth. The difference being that the people behind the ark project planned to do the depopulating themselves, wiping out the existing civilization (which is where the dinosaurs came in, sort of -- it's complicated) and using the ark occupants to start over.

I loved the set design and "spaceship" design. I hope we get to see a diagram of all the decks at some point.

One was already released, although it's not very detailed:

http://io9.com/check-out-this-diagram-of-ascensions-huge-generation-sh-1667773667

 

[Mr Light]

OK, I went back and finished the episode. And the plot twist makes me care even less

Spoiler

They're not even in space? They're just sitting in a simulator? It's just a social experiment?* That makes me... not... care... *yes, I realize it's a test run for the real deal. my point stands.

 

[Admiral2]

OK, I went back and finished the episode. And the plot twist makes me care even less

Spoiler

They're not even in space? They're just sitting in a simulator? It's just a social experiment?* That makes me... not... care... *yes, I realize it's a test run for the real deal. my point stands.

All I needed to know. Now I can avoid this and watch the Twilight Zone episode "Where Is Everybody" again.