Ascension – Season 1 Reviews – Metacritic

After watching it all, I can say, it's all premise and the rest is kind of a mess and there are numerous reasons for it. I know that sci-fi entertainment doesn't have to be scientifically sound, but this show is so style-over-substance, you really mustn't think about anything that you get presented here.

You're on spaceship launched in 1963, and the project leaders apparently found it a good thing to put 60's lifestyle right in there. White collar on the upper decks with hostesses serving drinks and sometimes a little more and blue collar workers in the lower decks providing food like pigs and fish.

You could buy into all of this, if it weren't so clumsily sewn together. You simply mustn't think about any details, because it doesn't make much sense: - Style: The command-bridge looks very retro and analog, with tapes rolling and retro looking monitors. Once you're on sick-bay everything looks almost early 21st century and..wait for it... they have an MRI! Without advanced digital technology? - In the lower, blue collar decks are only men, at least we haven't seen any woman. Really? No women there for them? How's that supposed to work for decades? - On a spaceship with 600 people that has to be monitored, checked and maintained 24/7, how can you dispense young women so that they become hostesses? Walking around in bathing suits carrying a plate of drinks. Is there really nothing more important to do for them? And I'm not even getting into the soapy elements and all the sexual innuendo. Yikes!

The plotting adds to these problems, because there are too many threads to switch back and forth. A murder happens, with a gun that shouldn't be on the ship because it launched without weapons. This incident could have been used to have the 'detective' guide us through the world those people live in and make it palpable, so that it merges into a whole. But there seems to be not enough time to do that, because there's another plot involving a secret project on earth and yet another plot on the ship about a girl having visions, seeing the killed woman walking around the ship.

This is simply too much to handle in the given time and it makes for an unsatisfying viewer experience. Furthermore, the show is too busy playing hide-and-seek. It gives away a secret, but the way it tries to keep others from you feels strained. Maybe it's just too many secrets to handle in a couple of episodes. And at the end, when the credits roll, despite some interesting, partly suspenseful stuff you saw, you might feel like me: disappointed, like it was a waste of time.

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Ascension - Season 1 Reviews - Metacritic