The Ark (TV series)

A hundred years in the future, a vast spacecraft known as Ark One is shuttling a complement of would-be colonists away from a devastated Earth to a new home, Proxima Centauri B. The ship suffers a catastrophic event that kills almost all of the technical crew and all of the ship's senior officers. The survivors must work to reorganize themselves to maintain the ship and stay on course to reach their destination.^[1]

• Christie Burke as Lt. Sharon Garnet,^[2] one of the three remaining junior officers, who assumes the role of the de facto captain of the ship after the disaster
• Reece Ritchie as Lt. Spencer Lane,^[2] one of the three remaining junior officers; he is suspicious of Garnet's leadership
  • Ritchie also portrays Ian (season 2), a clone and Spencer's brother
• Richard Fleeshman as Lt. James Brice,^[2] one of the three remaining junior officers and a self-proclaimed "navigation wonk" who now has to take on other duties after the disaster
• Stacey Read as Alicia Nevins,^[2] a waste management engineer with coding skills who is promoted to chief of life support
• Ryan Adams as Angus Medford,^[2] a farm and 4-H youth from horticulture whose duties include crop development at the prospective colony
• Pavle Jerinić^[3] as Felix Strickland, acting head of security enforcement
• Shalini Peiris^[3] as Dr. Sanjivni Kabir, the only remaining doctor on the medical staff
• Christina Wolfe^[3] as Dr. Catrina "Cat" Brandice^[a], a social media star and "TV relationship specialist" whom Garnet orders to be the head of ship-wide mental health
• Tiana Upcheva^[3] as Eva Markovic, acting head of maintenance, engineering, and construction

• Lisa Brenner as Lieutenant Commander Susan Ingram (season 1), a career military officer,^[3] who would have been the superior officer to the surviving crew
• Miles Barrow as Baylor Trent (season 1), an ensign and Ingram's protégé
• Dominik Čičak as Harris Beckner (season 1), a member of Eva's engineering team and her secret lover
• Chris Leask as Jasper Dades (season 1), a crew member with a secret
• Paul Murray as William Trust, the inventor of the Ark program
• Samantha Glassner as Kelly Fowler, an Ark 3 survivor and Evelyn Maddox's daughter
• Jadran Malkovich as Dr. Marsh (season 2; guest season 1), Evelyn Maddox's former chief of medical who defected to Ark 1 after disagreements with her
• Díana Bermudez as Kimi Joma (season 2), Maddox's former chief of security who defected to Ark 1
• Jelena Stupljanin as Evelyn Maddox, commander of Ark 15
• Jessica Yemi as Naomi Spencer
• Milos Cvetkovic as Sasha Novak

The premise is very similar to the 1970s series The Starlost, in which a multi-generational starship called Earthship Ark was launched to allow the passengers to escape a dying Earth. More than 100 years into the voyage, an unexplained accident occurs, and the ship goes into emergency mode. The survivors have to figure out how to safely pilot the starship.^[22]

The Ark went straight-to-series in late January 2022 with a 12-episode order from Syfy.^[23] Principal photography began at PFI Studios in Belgrade, Serbia in March of that year. Dean Devlin and Jonathan Glassner serve as showrunners and producers.^[2][24]

In March 2022, it was announced that the regular cast of the series had been set, with Christie Burke starring as Lt. Sharon Garnet, along with Richard Fleeshman, Reece Ritchie, Stacey Read, and newcomer Ryan Adams.^[2] In April 2022, it was announced that Lisa Brenner would be a recurring guest star, playing Commander Susan Ingram, with Christina Wolfe, Shalini Peiris, Miles Barrow, Pavle Jerinić, and Tiana Upcheva also recurring.^[3]

On April 12, 2023, Syfy renewed the series for a second season.^[25] On March 5, 2025, Syfy renewed the series for a third season, which is set to release in 2026.^[26]

The series trailer was released in December 2022.^[27] It premiered on Syfy on February 1, 2023,^[28][29] with episodes to be streamed the next day on Peacock.^[30] A second season premiered on July 17, 2024.

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported a 50% approval rating based on 14 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "The core concept of The Ark ought to be alluring enough for the sci-fi faithful, but blasé writing and chintzy production values call into question whether this particular world is worth preserving."^[31] Metacritic assigned a score of 50 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[32]