We hoped the upward trajectory of The Ark’s quality would continue, but our hopes got vanquished with a less-than-stellar outing.
The Ark Season 1 Episode 8 revealed William Trust’s identity to the rest of the crew.
What could have been a significant reveal led to a boring episode of politics, sex, exposition, and arguing.
Kelly’s appearance on the ship also seemed to have fizzled, as they only had her flirting with Angus.
Dr. Kabir dealt with the emotions of performing an autopsy while still going through withdrawal.
Dr. Kabir thought she caused the man from Ark Three’s death because she failed to perform the surgery when she tried to save him.
She found solace in Dr. Cat Brandice, who agreed to help advise her in her withdrawal.
Kabir was hesitant at first, and who wouldn’t be? Dr. Brandice was a celebrity doctor and got thrown into her role on the ship.
While she’s done a great job so far, Dr. Kabir doesn’t know that, and Dr. Kabir didn’t even want Felix’s help initially.
The pressure she puts on herself daily can’t be easy, and her withdrawal doesn’t help, so we are happy to see that she agreed to accept help.
Dr. Brandice also had another reason to be happy: William Trust made his grand entrance on the ship.
Lane tried to keep his presence on the ship a secret, but Felix and a search party were on the hunt for Lane after they thought something terrible had happened.
Felix, Eva, Alicia, and Jelena found William Trust, his wife Helena, and Lt. Lane hiding away in the strange part of the cargo bay.
The reveal shocked many, and some of the crew resorted to violence, namely Lt. Brice.
Brice immediately punched Trust, as Trust’s chemicals caused Brice’s life-altering disease.
Garnet and Brice agreed about what to do with Lane keeping the secret of Trust’s presence on board.
Garnet stripped lane of his rank and kicked him off the bridge.
While this seemed like a rash decision, we agree with it. Lane kept this secret, which completely breached the trust between the lieutenants and the entire committee.
Demoting him to a regular crew member seemed like the right choice, but Lane (of course) didn’t think so.
Lane told Trust that his only allegiances lie with Trust and his wife because of what the rest of the crew did to him.
Trust seemed to accept Lane’s admittance of faith pretty quickly, which bought into question where the powerful man’s goals lie.
He seemed to have acclimated to being on the ship quickly, even though he didn’t know about the plan; only his wife, Helena, did.
William Trust’s introduction got rushed, and Kelly’s continued presence on the ship took a backseat during the hour.
She went from a menacing, potentially murderous new addition to the crew to someone who seemed to care about flirting with Angus.
We hope Kelly’s storyline gets fast-tracked in the upcoming episodes, as we want to know her plans (and if she came from Ark Three because we think it’s Ark Fifteen).
William Trust’s presence on the ship is bound to shake things up more within the crew (we hope).
The “issue of the week” came from the repurposing of the FTL (Faster Than Light) Travel system that Eva and Alicia adapted from Ark Three.
It initially worked without a hitch, but then it caused them to phase differently within time, but the real reason why they started to have timey wimey issues was not apparent.
Obviously, it had something to do with traveling faster than the speed of light and how the ship travels via this groundbreaking mode of travel.
Sadly, we were not given much else to go off on, as the crew, with the help of William Trust, rushed to stop everything before their time got too fractured.
Alicia and Eva once again proved their knowledge and adaptability, but they did it before William Trust himself this time.
We wish the show went deeper into the science of why their time got fractured, but shoddy science is something we’ve come to expect with The Ark.
The entire season often hasn’t gone into considerable scientific detail, either because the writers didn’t have enough time or enough actual science to explain it.
While the tense aspects of the show remained high, something was missing from this episode that we missed from the past two hours, specifically The Ark Season 1 Episode 6.
The last part of the show that opened up the most intrigue came from the romances.
Eva and Lt. Brice have been getting down and dirty since their near-death experience during The Ark Season 1 Episode 7. While Eva claims it’s purely sexual, we wonder if other feelings are starting to bud.
Alicia started to feel jealous over Angus’s newfound friend in Kelly, and we shipped Alicia and Angus (still do!), so we hope that Kelly won’t ruin things for Alicia.
And finally, we got to figure out why Cat Brandice reacted so interestingly when Lt. Lane told her that Trust was on the ship.
William Trust visited Brandice’s quarters but not for a therapy session. Their session involved something much more intimate.
Mr. Trust also asked her about the status of a project, its name we haven’t heard yet: The Juno Project.
He also asked for Cat’s reassurance that she’ll stay by his side no matter what comes next.
Well, what comes next?
How many secret projects are in motion on the ship all at once?
Will we ever find answers to previous questions, much less these?
Only time will tell, but this episode made us wonder if our time fluctuated, reverting to the show’s quality at the beginning of the season.
So Fanatics, what did you think of the episode?
What do you think Project Juno is? What do you think the endgame is for season one?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Remember to watch The Ark online here on TV Fanatic.
Michael Stack is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.