Ascension (Syfy) News/Discussion

[gnoel809]

I waited to watch until I had all 3 nights on my DVR. I would have preferred it actually being a generation ship out in space, the "social experiment" was disappointing. If there's another miniseries or series, I hope they don't continue with the star-child as the focus, that's been done way too many times.

Another issue ... where are the old people? You don't see anyone over 50-60 years old. They've been "in space" for 51 years, where are the people who started the journey? Do they kill them off when they get to a certain age (like Logan's Run), or is there a geriatric deck we never see?

[Brother Freyr]

Another issue ... where are the old people? You don't see anyone over 50-60 years old. They've been "in space" for 51 years, where are the people who started the journey?

• A sinister mystery that will be solved in a future episode? (Then why not a tiny hint or clue by now?)
• An oversight by the showrunners? (It's a whopper.)
• A deliberate exclusion to appeal to a young audience? ( )

I feel like the story is pretty much over. The finale abandoned the ship of science fiction and entered the realm of pure fantasy.

Spoiler:

"oooh, look! 51 years of isolation endowed a child with the supernatural power of instantaneous interstellar travel! And she can make the lights go boom!"

How do they continue after that bait-and-switch?

I can imagine a conversation in the writers room:

Spoiler:

"How do we explain her abilities?"
"Oh, we'll just write some vague technobabble about genes and evolution."
"Will the audience buy it? I mean, an evolutionary time scale is millions of years, not 50. And come on, thinking people out of existence? Popping them onto another planet? Can our audience be that gullible?"
"I doubt they paid attention in biology class, or physics, or any science at all, really. The newspapers are always writing about how poorly our students perform. Do their schools still teach sciences?"
"Mmm, you might be right. Genes it is. 'Genes,' 'isolated population,' 'accelerated evolution.' Our audience will never see throught it!"

[Ian-S]

Maybe if they ever have to explain it, they'll go down the route of the film Lucy, i.e. outside interference (the jabs) causes a chemical reaction specific to her dna which allows her to use her normally dormant higher brain functions.

[pakar]

For me Ascension was a big disaster. Even worst it was a lie and a deception, They announce this as a space show, they promoted it as a space show. Until it aired there wasn't even a hint that something else was happening. And it was not a space show!! Perhaps other people will name this a twist but for me it was not a twist. It was a lie and i don't like being lied to.

[Annoyed]

I finally finished this yesterday, and while all the usual criticisms such as gratuitous sex, far too much female eye candy and far too much he'in & she'in, I found the story interesting once I got into it.

However. I had to suspend disbelief at the very premise of the show, that a group of highly intelligent men and women could be duped into thinking they're in a spaceship for 50 years. I simply cannot buy that. Over a 50 year period, there was no EVA activity by any of the occupants of the ship? Gravity would have been another dead giveaway. Even the explanation of constant 1G thust for half the trip, then turn around and deaccelerate for the 2nd half doesn't hold water. What would prevent them from detecting the gravity change during the halfway point turnaround ? Sorry, I can't buy this premise.

And some of the tricks shown to create that believability were even worse. When Stokes is spaced, they depict him being sucked out of the ship by the supposed vacuum of space. But the outside of the ship wasn't a vacuum. So where did the air pressure differential come from?

The story was ok, but the telling of the story was badly botched. They did leave themselves with a workable ending that could lead to a series; Where did the little girl teleport Gault to, and how did she do it ? What exactly is she? If this does go to series, that may be a very good underpinning for it.

[Skydiver]

Interesting point about the elderly. I honestly hadn't thought about it. But it would make sense in a world with limited resources that there'd have to be a strict population control....say 800 on the ship, and for any baby to be born, someone has to die.
But the lack of elderly is odd. Generally, the elderly just die as their body wears out and can't repair itself, or the person falls victim to an illness, but in space, with limited risk and illness (I mean they can't pass the cold around if no one was sick with the virus when they came on board) you'd think that the average lifespan would be longer than on earth, however if a baby can't be born until someone dies, the ship should actually be 70% old and 30% young, which really wouldn't work.
There has to be a Logan's Run type of thing going on. Probably with a death lotto like there was a birth lotto.

it's an interesting premise but not one I think they thought out well.

[Brother Freyr]

it would make sense in a world with limited resources that there'd have to be a strict population control....say 800 on the ship, and for any baby to be born, someone has to die.

How many travellers began the "journey"? I was under the impression that they had room to grow, which made the baby lottery strange to me. The conspiracy theorist talked about the "missing 70." Suppose we double it. That's 140. Suppose they all had a spouse and child. That's 420. Eh, I don't know. Maybe 800 capacity is too high. Still. The original population couldn't have been large, right?

(on 2nd thought, maybe i shouldn't care)

[TOIVA]

However. I had to suspend disbelief at the very premise of the show, that a group of highly intelligent men and women could be duped into thinking they're in a spaceship for 50 years. I simply cannot buy that. Over a 50 year period, there was no EVA activity by any of the occupants of the ship? Gravity would have been another dead giveaway. Even the explanation of constant 1G thust for half the trip, then turn around and deaccelerate for the 2nd half doesn't hold water. What would prevent them from detecting the gravity change during the halfway point turnaround ? Sorry, I can't buy this premise.

The turnaround would give it all away. But that wouldn't be supposed to happen in another few hundreds of years... Till then, the illusion could hold.

However I have to agree it's still very, VERY, hard to believe people wouldn't notice

Spoiler:

the ship ain't actually in space, despite there probably being a (wo)man inside at all times to get rid of evidence.

And, uh, yeah, that's weird there were no people over 50 seen aboard. What was shown is that the children lottery was replacing those that died. Apparently, there's a fixed number of people aboard. (I thought 500, but I'm not sure it was actually confirmed in the show.)

[Perelandra]

I wasn't able to catch this show when it aired..Is it worth devoting 6 hours of my very busy life catching up On Demand?
I really wanted to watch it live but was unable to.
Is it now worth seeing?

a lot of people seem to be disappointed with it. I really was excited with the whole 50 years in space premise before it aired (and I kinda spoiled myself with the spoilers) so now I don't know if it's worth trying to see it all.

[txlucky1]

I wasn't able to catch this show when it aired..Is it worth devoting 6 hours of my very busy life catching up On Demand?
I really wanted to watch it live but was unable to.
Is it now worth seeing?

a lot of people seem to be disappointed with it. I really was excited with the whole 50 years in space premise before it aired (and I kinda spoiled myself with the spoilers) so now I don't know if it's worth trying to see it all.

Personally I would skip it. The whole premise was absurd.

[Skydiver]

I agree. It had promise that was not fulfilled.
If you're really bored and the choice is this or 5 hours of soaps, give it a try.

It just comes across as something that never stood the test of the 'how come' room.....where someone pokes all the plot holes and fills them in.

[hedwig]

Given that the ship has presumably been in space for 50 years, and neither the Captain or his wife look like they are 50 years old, they must have been born on the ship and grew up to become the Captain and whatever title his wife might have. Pretty much all the bridge crew must have been born on the ship since most of them are fairly young. There were only 2-3 men who looked like they were over 50 years old. He (the counselor that Viondra was "visiting" once a week or so) must have been one of the originals who was just a kid when he came aboard the ship.

[Perelandra]

I agree. It had promise that was not fulfilled.
If you're really bored and the choice is this or 5 hours of soaps, give it a try.

It just comes across as something that never stood the test of the 'how come' room.....where someone pokes all the plot holes and fills them in.

Well I guess if I have a day or so to kill I might watch it. A shame as it did look so promising.

[Perelandra]

Given that the ship has presumably been in space for 50 years, and neither the Captain or his wife look like they are 50 years old, they must have been born on the ship and grew up to become the Captain and whatever title his wife might have. Pretty much all the bridge crew must have been born on the ship since most of them are fairly young. There were only 2-3 men who looked like they were over 50 years old. He (the counselor that Viondra was "visiting" once a week or so) must have been one of the originals who was just a kid when he came aboard the ship.

Prior to the show airing I checked out a timeline on SYFY that compared events on earth to the events on the ship. The show seemed to have a lot of promise maybe I didn't miss anything.
It seems that all the main characters were born on the ship(dates are given).
I haven't yet seen the show but one thinks they would have addressed the issue of no older people, at least with a comment in passing as to what they did with them.

[txlucky1]

Prior to the show airing I checked out a timeline on SYFY that compared events on earth to the events on the ship. The show seemed to have a lot of promise maybe I didn't miss anything.
It seems that all the main characters were born on the ship(dates are given).
I haven't yet seen the show but one thinks they would have addressed the issue of no older people, at least with a comment in passing as to what they did with them.

The timeline, although wonky, isn't much of an issue to me compared to the ridiculous notion that the most intelligent people in the world would fall for such a blatant farce. In 50 years, no one took a spacewalk?