Ascension (Syfy) News/Discussion

[Annoyed]

This kind of selective breeding has been used before in science fiction. Robert Heinlein used it for the genesis of "The Howard Families" component of his interconnected series of books.

[Brother Freyr]

Only 50 years, ppl. You might make "progress" in that time if you selected for a smaller nose, fewer freckles, less balding. But for mentally teleporting people to other star systems? Bwuahaha! ROFL. Why are we even talking about this!

[knowles2]

Only 50 years, ppl. You might make "progress" in that time if you selected for a smaller nose, fewer freckles, less balding. But for mentally teleporting people to other star systems? Bwuahaha! ROFL. Why are we even talking about this!

Because it part of the show. Yes we know the outcome of this experiment is way beyond what would happen in real life but that the fiction part of the story. Creating a colony of humans who had their evolution carefully control even in 50/60s setting up such a experiment was scientifically possible.

[pakar]

Because it part of the show. Yes we know the outcome of this experiment is way beyond what would happen in real life but that the fiction part of the story. Creating a colony of humans who had their evolution carefully control even in 50/60s setting up such a experiment was scientifically possible.

well anyone who can believe such an absurdity (after so many arguments based on reason) and a lie (no one answered to the fact that this was announced and promoted as a space show) i suposse he's ready to accept anything any one will tell him. The argument "it's a fictional story" is the last "argument" (??) when one has nothing else to tell..........No offence intented but i speak my mind............

[pakar]

Only 50 years, ppl. You might make "progress" in that time if you selected for a smaller nose, fewer freckles, less balding. But for mentally teleporting people to other star systems? Bwuahaha! ROFL. Why are we even talking about this!

finally...................

[Ian-S]

It would have been better if they'd said 500 years I'll give you that, but I think you're kind of missing the point of a 'science fiction' show if all you do is judge it on whether it's possible or not based on the level of technology we're at, how do you like things like Star Wars, Hunger Games, Marvel stuff?

It's also not a case of being a sheeple and believing everything one is told, it's more a case of not letting the flaws ruins the story told (although hasn't your insult about the viewers pretty much agreed my point that the reason they never questioned what they had been told, was because they just accepted the story handed down on face value, and had never tested it because the price for failure was death, either way ).

Your first post on the forum pakar was saying how fantastic you thought the Caprica story was, we are light years away from that level of robotics and virtual reality, yet you thought the story was great? Caprica was as much fiction as this one was.

I can personally let the advertising of the show as a space show slide, since that 'fact' was such a massive part of the story, they couldn't really say space simulation.

[pakar]

you haven't understood anything i said so i won't continue this discussion.With all due respect i'm not interested any more.

[Annoyed]

I can buy the premise of a "social experiment" as science fiction. "What if?" to borrow a tag line. I can also buy the idea of a mutant human being brought about; two recessive genes brought to dominance due to close inbreeding.

But I cannot buy the premise that an intelligent population, having been told they're on a slowboat colony ship, and under the illusion that they have control of the ship being fooled into thinking they are in space when they are not.

[Ian-S]

you haven't understood anything i said so i won't continue this discussion.With all due respect i'm not interested any more.

Correct me if I'm wrong but to summarise you said the story was crap, it was unbelievable etc. etc. because there was no way the technology would exist in the real work to pull it off etc. etc. and anybody who enjoyed it, was a fool that would believe anything they were told.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Annoyed, I agree, but only your last point people have been fooled into believing things for years that were not true out here in the real world, so I'm sure if anybody in that kind of simulation were to stat questioning things, they'd have an accident pretty quick.

Perhaps that's where all the old folk went...

[BanditQuest]

I enjoyed it an did not suspect the plot twist or the real agenda until the reveal. Compared to some recent poor scifi I have seen in past I think it's worth a watch. Certainly not top shelf scifi or a classic but thought it interesting.

Spoiler:

I let it slide that you can convince a bunch of 1950s people that your on a ship in space. Given most may have had a limited exposure to sci-fi circa 1950's I gave it a just plausible possibility.

[knowles2]

well anyone who can believe such an absurdity (after so many arguments based on reason) and a lie (no one answered to the fact that this was announced and promoted as a space show) i suposse he's ready to accept anything any one will tell him. The argument "it's a fictional story" is the last "argument" (??) when one has nothing else to tell..........No offence intented but i speak my mind............

There nothing to believe in it was a fictional story in a fictional world. I don't really believe their a Bruce Banner in this world that turn into a giant green monster or that there a teenange that dress in a blue and red costume that goes around New York being a super hero and that take photos of himself doing it but that doesn't stop me enjoying those films or even tv series in the case of the incredible hulk.

I don't care what it was promoted by syfy, they couldn't promote himself out of a paper bag, they couldn't very well give the game up in the ads, that would have ruin it for their viewers. An as the characters said they are going to space anyway in the future if the show is renewed. An it science fiction, whilst the science is possible, although impractical, immoral, illegal an, we been doing it for long enough to know it possible to breed traits into animals, it was only the outcomes that was fictional, that what good science fiction shows do keep the core science accurate but keep it outcomes fictional.

[Brother Freyr]

It would have been better if they'd said 500 years I'll give you that, but I think you're kind of missing the point of a 'science fiction' show if all you do is judge it on whether it's possible or not based on the level of technology we're at, how do you like things like Star Wars, Hunger Games, Marvel stuff?

There nothing to believe in it was a fictional story in a fictional world. I don't really believe their a Bruce Banner in this world that turn into a giant green monster or that there a teenange that dress in a blue and red costume that goes around New York being a super hero and that take photos of himself doing it but that doesn't stop me enjoying those films or even tv series in the case of the incredible hulk

There are different requirements for science fiction and fantasy (and/or comics). More than that, Ascension is a particular kind of science fiction that imposes tight constraints. Ascension is presented as hard science fiction: truly possible in our own, actual universe and (in Ascension's case) in our own approximate place and time. Yes, that's a high bar, but we didn't create it. The story itself created those expectations.

If I watch Star Wars, I watch a story set in a galaxy far away, in time that could be a billion years before or after us. More than that, the story presents itself as soft science fiction: it's blatantly upfront that it doesn't adhere to all the physical laws of our universe. Strong suspension of disbelief is required. We know this going in. Different rules for a different kind of story.

When I watch comic book superheroes, I'm engaged in fantasies as silly yet enjoyable as faeries and wizards. There are different expectations.

Ascension is the most ambitious, and maybe most diffcult, sort of science fiction. "Hard" science fiction. The story is fiction, but the setting is just like our own: the people, the places, the physics, must behave as they do in our real lives. Not because I say so but because Ascension itself projects those expectations. And then fails them. I hope you guys and gals can see that.

[epg20]

well I found some " info" , I put it in quotes because it is just one persons thoughts and hasn't ben confirmed, so take it as you will, and no, it isn't me.
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Ascension Syfy Mon 12/15 9 PM
Rating: 0.4 | Tot Viewers (MM): 1.3 | StD Rating: 0.5 | Target: 0.7 | Cancellation Alert: Medium

If the first night’s numbers were barely passable, the second night had to count as a flat out disappointment. (More on this one below
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Ascension Syfy Mon 12/15 9 PM
Rating: 0.5 | Tot Viewers (MM): 1.5 | StD Rating: 0.5 | Target: 0.7 | Cancellation Alert: Medium

It improved slightly for its final night, but not enough to make much of a difference. (More on this one below)

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http://www.cancelledscifi.com/2014/1...n-the-ratings/

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http://johnnyjaysays.blogspot.com/20...ascension.html

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On the Hot Seat: Syfy’s much-hyped mini-series Ascension got off to an unspectacular start on Monday on this week (more on that at this link) and only saw its ratings slip from there. For its second installment on Tuesday, it dropped down to a 0.4 rating with 1.3 million total viewers and its final night improved slightly to a 0.5 rating with 1.5 million total viewers. Those actually aren’t bad numbers for Syfy where recent shows like Defiance, Dominion, and Helix have only averaged a 0.4 score based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic. But after all the build-up and the claims that the network was going back to heavier science fiction programming, I’m sure they were hoping this one would pull somewhere in the 0.8 to 1.0 range. It didn’t make that level and I didn’t hear Syfy try to put too much spin on the numbers past the first night, so I’m guessing they are not too thrilled with its performance. Of course, it wasn’t the sfx-heavy production that I’m sure many expected (possibly part of the reason it didn’t attract too many viewers), so maybe averaging a 0.5 score would be enough to convince them to greenlight this to an ongoing series. But after watching the mini-series (you can read my review at this link), I started to wonder if this might have actually been a still-born series. If you noticed, they listed separate credits for two episodes each night, and I have to wonder if they went into this intending it as an ongoing series, but lost faith shortly into production. That might explain that wtf cut-off at the end of night three and maybe Syfy just decided to market it as an “event” mini-series as a bait-and-switch for what was really just a burn-off run. I haven’t heard anything to confirm that theory, but the show definitely did not live up to the hype nor did it pull anywhere near the Game of Thrones or Walking Dead numbers that the network is looking for (quoting Syfy’s president Dave Howe: “We clearly aspire to those numbers”). I would have to say at this point that the chances for Ascension to continue into an ongoing series are slim at best. I’m going to put it a a conservative Medium Cancellation Alert level (assuming the really applies in this case), because you never know what Syfy is going to do these days. But my gut tells me that those hoping for a resolution to that final cliffhanger may have to start working on some fan fiction to deliver any sort of closure.

[txlucky1]

There are different requirements for science fiction and fantasy (and/or comics). More than that, Ascension is a particular kind of science fiction that imposes tight constraints. Ascension is presented as hard science fiction: truly possible in our own, actual universe and (in Ascension's case) in our own approximate place and time. Yes, that's a high bar, but we didn't create it. The story itself created those expectations.

If I watch Star Wars, I watch a story set in a galaxy far away, in time that could be a billion years before or after us. More than that, the story presents itself as soft science fiction: it's blatantly upfront that it doesn't adhere to all the physical laws of our universe. Strong suspension of disbelief is required. We know this going in. Different rules for a different kind of story.

When I watch comic book superheroes, I'm engaged in fantasies as silly yet enjoyable as faeries and wizards. There are different expectations.

Ascension is the most ambitious, and maybe most diffcult, sort of science fiction. "Hard" science fiction. The story is fiction, but the setting is just like our own: the people, the places, the physics, must behave as they do in our real lives. Not because I say so but because Ascension itself projects those expectations. And then fails them. I hope you guys and gals can see that.

You explained "hard" science fiction and the other subgenres very well. Hence the reason I was disappointed in the premise.

[ecgordon]

I agree with both Brother Freyr and TXLucky, and also pakar, but for different reasons. SF is a complicated genre, and especially so for Hard SF. Fantasy and Space Opera can get away with a lot of things because everyone knows up front it's not to be taken literally or that seriously. When you promote yourself as a serious Hard SF drama then you need to be more careful with your premise. I can deal with the fact that their promotion was hampered because they didn't want to reveal the true nature of the project, but I can't excuse the fact that the writing and acting were sub-par. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, asking me to ignore the absurdities of the character's actions is another. Of course, this is all just subjective opinion, and you can agree or disagree as you see fit.