The Ark Season 3 Delivers a Gut-Punching Premiere Worth the Wait

It takes a lot to shock me when it comes to a TV series, but The Ark has continued to do that from season to season.

One of the things I’ve loved from the beginning is that Dean Devlin and Johnathan Glassner aren’t afraid to take risks.

They’re willing to make sacrifices and kill off beloved characters, and that’s exactly what they do on The Ark Season 3’s premiere.

I’m not going to like the rest of the season without one particular character — admittedly, the reason I started watching this show in the first place growing up with Coronation Street — but I’m excited to see the growth that this means for other characters.

Sharon Should Have Stayed Away

The end of The Ark Season 2 made one thing clear: Ross-128 wasn’t safe.

Ark One got the message as they inched closer to the planet, and quite honestly, they should have all listened.

What exactly did they achieve by going down to the planet? Sure, they saved one life, but they lost two in the process.

The admiral they saved better be thankful during the next episode, because it’s not going to be easy to work with the Ark One team members after that loss!

James Brice offered comedic relief, but he was also a loyal and smart team member.

This was a man who had been through Klampkins and the cure for it, only to end up killed by giant alien spider-like creatures?

I do feel like there’s a little bit of irony in that since a spider saved him just for a spider to kill him.

I’m sure Sharon will feel a lot of guilt as well.

She’s faced the loss of one of her lieutenants, Spencer, and now she has to deal with this loss as well.

At least with the first one, it wasn’t a decision she purely made that led to Spencer being killed. 

Brice’s death is going to hit a little harder, since not only does she know her decision led to his death, but also that he died to save her.

The entire build-up to Brice’s death was perfectly handled, as well.

It’s a premiere, so we expected something big, but did any of us really expect Brice to die? There didn’t seem to be those usual telltale signs that there are in a TV show.

Sure, we got the “anniversary” mention, but that felt so much like an everyday call — as it turns out, it was — that there was no reason to worry the main team wouldn’t get back.

Once the young doc, who was actually a field medic, was killed, I thought that would be it. I figured there would be a tense standoff with the creatures, but I thought both the officers would make it through.

The Ark Season 3 promised that the premiere was going to change everything and nobody would come back the same, and that’s exactly what’s happened.

Immediately, this season has been worth the wait, and I know that after the way we saw the loss of Spencer handled, we’ll see the loss of Brice handled well. This means growth for multiple characters.

Will They Ever Find a Hospitable Home?

Getting to see Eva’s reaction at the very end of The Ark Season 3 Premiere was a good decision.

I feel like there’s a hint that maybe Brice isn’t dead, but it could be the grief speaking.

She wants to see all the footage to be able to accept that her boyfriend has died, but I get a sense that maybe she can find something that takes them back to Ross-128 again.

Even if not, this entire storyline is going to add depth to the rest of Eva’s arc, an arc that promises to already be different from what we’ve already seen on the ship.

She’s had to accept that Earth is gone, and she’s learned that the Ark program wasn’t the only one to suffer problems.

After the questions of her betrayal as an EF member, she’s continued to prove her loyalty to her crew.

Now, she’s learning that something isn’t right on the planet they’re on. At first, the air seemed perfect, but everything changed the further she got out of the boundary.

This planet isn’t perfect, and there’s a risk that they’ll have to be on the move again, but it’s not something any of them want.

At least for now, it’s the planet, not the people. 

There are some people who are clearly not worth trusting, and that’s always going to be the case with a group of strangers in a survival situation, but they’re not the biggest threat just yet.

With the arguments between the EF and the GSA still a problem for some of the Ark crews, I’m sure we’ll see that humans will continue to prove to be the biggest threat to themselves, though.

Something Is Out There to Destroy Everyone

As for the planet, it’s clear that the Ark survivors aren’t the only ones there, and did we really expect them to be?

I get the sense that maybe some of the Ark crews thought they were alone, but it’s such a naive idea.

There’s plenty of proof that they’re not alone.

The tablet Angus found is the biggest, and it turns out to be made of some sort of machine alloy that a hammer can’t destroy.

It’s sparking interest in Aztec and Mayan cultures, with the idea that we’re now finding structures and artifacts that had to have been placed by some sort of higher being.

Trust doesn’t like the term “alien,” it seems, but it feels the most apt at the moment. After all, an alien is something that’s unusual to us, and that’s exactly what all of this is.

I do hope that Angus told someone where he and Kelly were heading, though!

I think I saw signs of life in both of them after that flash of bright light — and I hope so, because I don’t think I can handle another death! — but I’m concerned about what the light did.

Will it mean that one or both can translate the tablet? Probably, and they may want to then work with Eva to make sure the planet remains habitable.

• Does anyone else feel like security is dumb as rocks?
• Catherine rushing over to hug Kelly was just the sweetest.
• I knew when Kelly was introduced that she was going to be smart and a badass.
• Poor Ian having to come to the realization that the coma dream was just a dream.

The Ark Season 3 has certainly started with a bang, even if it is on the heartbreaking side, and now I’m ready to see how the rest of the season plays out.

No more traumatic deaths, please!

This is where we turn it over to you!
Share your thoughts on that adventurous hour of The Ark. Did it start in the way you expected? Where do you see storylines heading now? Sound off in the comments!