Ascension Season 1 Review

As Gault continues his investigation, the show takes some wholly unexpected twists and turns (including one absolute head-scratcher in the pilot’s final moments that flips everything seen up until that point on its head) that impart a sense of unpredictability Syfy hasn’t possessed in a long time. That, partnered with the evidently high budget, pulls you right in, despite line readings that at times recall the network’s less qualitative productions.

Outside of the main plot, the series also offers some surprising heat in the form of forbidden romances between seemingly every character on board (even with a murderer on the loose, there’s plenty of time to get down out in space, apparently). Only a couple of the pairings are genuinely interesting, but there’s enough going on in Ascension to prevent the ones that aren’t from feeling like dead weight. At least at this early point in its run, it’s worth giving the series the benefit of the doubt as it unfolds.

You’ve got to hand it to Syfy for putting its faith in something as ambitious and enigmatic as Ascension, a three-night limited series that lacks any real name recognition or previous fan following. From the first minutes of its first installment, there’s a sense of grandeur to the proceedings that the network hasn’t truly summoned since Battlestar Galactica. Whether that initial grandness will translate to a satisfying whole remains to be seen – with two nights left to go, there’s plenty of time for it to go completely off the rails in the wrong ways. But early signs indicate that the network (which has suffered from a surplus of shoddy, schlocky shows in recent years) may be onto something here.

If the scale of Ascension seems unusually large for something as small as a six-episode limited run, rest assured the network brass are already thinking about a full-blown series, provided that this introduction to the show’s alt-history universe resonates with viewers. Judging on initial appearances alone, though, that’s a pretty intriguing proposition. Ascension has an atmosphere and a slick style all its own, not to mention an appealingly off-kilter strangeness as a result of its out-there mythology and space opera setup. If Syfy keeps investing in gambles like it, we could be looking at the dawn of a new creative era for the network.