Poet Robert Burns once wrote, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” and that is what happened to the colony ship survivors of the hit SYFY sci-fi adventure series “The Ark” when they witnessed the destruction of Proxima b, their endgame exoplanet, in the season one finale in April 2023.
Now it’s on to these brave, headstrong Earthlings as Lt. Garnet and her intrepid crew of the Ark One search for a hospitable new neighborhood as their massive ship sets course for the Trappist system in the constellation of Aquarius, dreaming that the stars will soon end better.
Here is the official synopsis: “The Ark is set 100 years in the future, when colonization of planets has become necessary to ensure the survival of humanity. In season two, the brave crew of the Ark One reaches their destination and discovers that it is uninhabitable. They must survive long enough to find a new home for themselves and all subsequent ships.”
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“The Ark” was conceived by Dean Devlin (“Stargate,” “Independence Day”) in collaboration with co-showrunner Jonathan Glassner (“Stargate SG-1”) as a nostalgic flashback to better times, when classic science fiction television series such as “Battlestar Galactica,” “Andromeda” and “Farscape” flourished.
The main roles in season 2 are played by Christie Burke (Lt. Sharon Garnet), Richard Fleeshman (Lt. James Brice), Reece Ritchie (Lt. Spencer Lane), Ryan Adams (Angus Medford), Stacey Michelle Read (Alicia Nevins), Shalini Peiris (Dr. Sanjivni Kabir), Pavle Jenrinic (Felix Strickland), Christina Wolfe (Dr. Cat Brandice) and Tiana Upcheva (Eva Markovic).
“In season one, the fun thing about the concept is that you have a group of people who aren’t leaders being pushed into leadership positions,” Devlin tells Space.com. “Everyone had to become the best version of themselves and how many would make it and how many wouldn’t. In some ways, Jonathan and I, as creators of the show, literally watched our kids grow up in season one. So season two is, ‘Okay, they’ve evolved, so how do they deal with it?’ It really allowed the show to go in a direction that will not only surprise the audience, but also surprised ourselves as we developed it. It was a lot of fun.”
For Glassner, creating momentum and moving the story forward in an organic way is paramount to the success of any series, especially in these dangerous times.
“It’s always a question of how you develop these characters and what else there is to reveal about them,” Glassner adds. “We’re going to learn a lot of interesting, deep, dark secrets about a lot of them that we didn’t know before and how they react to them.”
Christie Burke plays Lt. Sharon Garnet, who is reluctantly given command of Ark One after hundreds of lives are lost in the first season. These fresh chapters allow her to add more complexity to the characters now that she’s a dozen episodes under her belt.
“I feel a lot more supported in some ways, not just by the cast but by the crew,” says Burke. “We did this together, so there’s a shortcut. I also felt a little bit like Garnet. In season one, I was trying to prove a point, and now in season two, I’m the best for the job. Kind of like, ‘The proof is in the pudding.’ I was also excited to dive deeper into Garnet and see her in different situations that aren’t necessarily the leadership role. It lets us see her in a different light that I don’t think the audience has seen her in yet.”
The Trappist system, 40 light years from Earth, is the new destination of the second season after Proxima b exploded in the finale of the first season. It is a solar system with six or seven habitable worlds, three of which could host life according to the latest findings.
“My nightmare is websites like Space.com, because we’ll read an article about a planet that they now think is a place we inhabit or that could support life,” Glassner notes. “We start writing and filming, and then a week goes by and one of the space telescopes says that this one isn’t habitable, but the one next to it might be. At that point we just have to give up, there’s no way we can keep up.”
“Today, with the James Webb Space Telescope out there, every day they’re finding things that contradict each other and what they thought or what we think now, and in ten weeks we won’t be thinking that anymore. I’ve kind of given up on keeping up. But it depresses me every time I see a new discovery that disproves something we thought was the case when we wrote it.”
In designing The Ark as exciting entertainment for the whole family, Devlin and Glassner make it a priority to ensure that no matter what science goes into the show, it has a reasonable anchor in reality.
“So if a fan wanted to ask, ‘Is Trappist really a place where there could be a habitable planet?’ then they could look that up and do their own research,” explains Devlin. “Our show is not a show about science. It’s not about what exactly that engine is or how gravity works. Our show is really about the characters and about covering some science fiction concepts that we think are entertaining and that serve our larger goal, which is to make a show about the human mind. But if we can base things on researchable ideas, then we feel like we’ve at least gotten somewhere in reality, even if we don’t portray it accurately in the show.”
Season 2 conveys the same hopeful attitude that resonated with audiences in last year’s season, and Glassner wants the series to continue to be a beacon of optimistic science fiction.
“I think there’s a lot of sad, horrible things happening in the times we’re living in right now, so it’s important that there’s pure, lighthearted entertainment on TV. Some of my favorite shows are those dark, really meaningful shows that can win Emmys, but it’s not like I come out of those shows happy and laughing and talking about the show the way I think people do on The Ark, which I think is something that’s really needed right now.”
By keeping the show rooted in a sustained optimism and avoiding the more cheerless elements found in most dystopian narratives, “The Ark” takes on a brighter, more spirited tone.
“We’re standing on the shoulders of giants,” says Devlin. “This show is a love letter to the kind of shows Jonathan and I grew up watching and the kind of science fiction that inspired us. And it’s not necessarily what’s in fashion today. Things tend to be much more brutal, much darker, and aimed at more niche audiences. We’re trying to do something different. We’re trying to pay tribute to the shows we fell in love with and yet tell them in a way that’s never been done before. That’s not easy, but it gives us a very clear direction of what we want to do.”
The 12-episode Season 2 of The Ark will premiere on July 17, 2024, at 10 p.m. ET on SYFY, with episodes streaming on Peacock the next day.
