In the 1960s, a space station/ starship was launched into deep space because of the fear of nuclear Armageddon. It has been 51 years and now they are half way to their journey to an Earth-like planet called Proxima.
Let’s look at the world that Ascension takes place in before digging into the plot. There is a class system very similar to Snowpiercer. The lower decks are for the poorest people. The higher decks are for the richest. For some reason the entire culture is stuck in the 60s.
When a young woman named Lorelai Wright is murdered on the Launch Day celebration. It 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.
Our main character is Oren Gault. He is an understudy of the Captain Denniger and has been charged to find Lorelai’s killer. The two discover that gun is onboard of the ship. Gault and Denniger have no idea how a gun got onto the ship in the first place. At this point this is the plot.
Lorelai had a shady past. She made a deal with a man named Stokes on the lower deck. It is presumed to be for the gun.
There are a lot of things to like about this show. First, there is a conspiracy. The ship is not in space and it is part of an underground-secret- government-project. We learn this when Stokes is jettisoned out of the ship and lands on a stunt pad. Second, it has many nourish elements. This is a who-dun-it in “space”. The fact that the style is similar to Mad Men makes the show even better. The final thing is that the only person who knows that this is an experiment is a little girl named Christa that also witnessed the murder. She also sees a man dressed in a hazmat suit during a “radiation storm” even though everyone is supposed to be in their rooms.
This show really isn’t about science fiction. Ideas about destiny and social mobility are main themes in this show. It is like the Matrix in many ways too. I really look forward to finishing this mini-series. Ascension airs on SyFy.