Ascension Mini-series Review

Ascension (2014)
Mini-series - 6 episodes

Rent Ascension on Amazon Video (paid link)
Created by: Adrian Cruz, Philip Levens
Starring: Tricia Helfer, Gil Bellows, Brian Van Holt, Brandon P Bell
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer

Plot
A young woman's murder causes the subjects of a century-long mission to populate a new world to question the true nature of the project as they approach the point of no return.

Verdict
It's a great concept that lacks depth. I appreciate the show doesn't hold the reveal until the end, but it also ends on a huge cliffhanger. It's space travel and an experiment in one, but the plot lines on the ship are more like a soap opera. By the end of the season everything has become so outlandish. I'm guessing the hope was this would get picked up to a series and they wanted to create maximum drama and maximize potential plot lines. This could have explored class tension, but doesn't. This has ideas about how life on this ship would operate, but doesn't sufficiently explore it.
It depends.

Review
The first episode generates a lot of questions as we get a different character with each scene. By the end of the episode all of that makes sense. There's what's happening on the ship and back on Earth, that's more closely related than we realize in the first episode.

The Ascension ship

I wondered how the government could launch the Ascension ship without anyone ever knowing. There are conspiracy theorists, but a project that size you'd think would generate more information. It's no easy feat to keep a secret that big.

The plot kicks off when a girl is murdered. It's the first crime on this ship since it launched fifty years ago. The divide between upper and lower decks fuels speculation as to who did it.. We don't explore the class divide other than characters exchanging insults. The show is most interested in relationships. There are many forbidden ones on this ship. Captain Denniger (Brian Van Holt), XO Gault (Brandon P Bell), captain's wife Viondra (Tricia Helfer), Councilman Rose, and more are all having affairs. Viondra runs the stewardesses, which basically seems like a prostitution ring. I really wanted the show to explore that more. I wasn't sure if she had perverted that program or if was always intended to satisfy the ship's male inhabitants. Denniger has risen to power as a former lower decker, but Councilman Rose wants to bring him down seemingly just to add drama to this show.

Tricia Helfer, Brian Van Holt play Viondra Denniger, Captain William Denniger

This mentions how everyone on this ship has an awakening where they realize they have no choice. There life will be confined to this ship. This source of anxiety doesn't get enough screen time. One character states "Ascension is a meritocracy" which is easy for an upper deck to say, and we and the characters know is not true at all. How have there not been uprisings from the lower deck people that do all the work and get none of the luxuries?

The second episode reveals the relationship of the ship to Earth. I appreciate the show doesn't keep this reveal until the end. It provides a lot of tension. The reason the ship doesn't communicate with Earth is because Earth is studying how people live in isolation. The hope, which seems ridiculous, is that people living in captivity will eventually become psychic and telepathic. There's no basis for why Harris (Gil Bellows) thinks this. He's juggling this project, an investigator, and a government official that wants to disband it.

Lauren Lee Smith, Gil Bellows play Samantha Krueger, Harris Enzmann

It's difficult to discuss the rest of this season without revealing the twist. There's a concern in episode three when Gault goes to deck 23. The scientists on Earth are concerned Gault will discover the truth by entering this deck. Gault is surprised by the suspect he hopes to find on deck 23. Why weren't the scientist concerned the suspect would discover the secret? It's a plot hole, and this show doesn't go very deep on anything. It's here for entertainment over science.

Brandon P Bell plays Aaron Gault

It's crazy that this ship has been going for fifty years and now everything goes haywire. There are a lot of coincidences with everything going wrong. You could excuse it as maybe this all stems from people developing psychic abilities, but it's a stretch. Everything going wrong wouldn't seem like such a shock if the show didn't paint this ship as a utopia.

The final episode is where everything comes to a point, but it also doesn't resolve the story line. This season seems like the primer in hopes the show was picked up for a series. This show is enjoyable enough, but it's more of a soap opera with sci-fi trappings. It's not as scientifically rigid as you might hope. While we get answers on the original murder, it's more an afterthought. By the end of the season it doesn't matter anyway.