Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship (2025)

"Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship" is the first episode of the first season of the Syfy television series The Ark. The episode was written and directed by series creator Dean Devlin. "Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship" first aired on February 1st, 2023.

Synopsis[]

After suffering a disaster, the remaining crew of spaceship Ark One must band together to survive.

Plot[]

Aboard the Ark One, alarms start declaring an "Impact Warning". In Sleeper Pod Bay 2, a structural truss falls loose on the sleeper pod of Lieutenant Sharon Garnet, triggering the reanimation process. Awake and alert to the danger, Garnet triggers her compression suit and investigates the alarm on the computer, which reports a hull breach. She begins the reanimation process on all the sleeper pods in the bay. With the help of Lieutenant Spencer Lane, Garnet begins the evacuation of the crew from the bay to the corridor outside. Initially, the door will not open using her code, but Felix Strickland is able to open the door with his. Outside in the corridor, the crew begin donning their helmets. Another structural beam falls on the sleeper pod of Commander Susan Ingram. Seeing this, Baylor Trent attempts to rescue her but cannot lift the metal off the pod. Garnet puts a helmet on Trent and pulls him away from the pod.

Outside the ship, a section of the hull tears away and jams the rotational section known as The Wheel. The lack of spin causes the Ark One's artificial gravity to fail. The crew immediately begin to feel the effects of zero-gravity; Garnet and Trent escape the pod bay, sealing it off just before the entire section implodes and vents to space. In the hallway, Strickland uses his codes to enter another part of the ship, allowing Garnet to access another computer that displays information on the jammed rotational section. She manages to reverse the direction of The Wheel and then restart it, dislodging the stuck section of hull and restoring gravity and life support.

Garnet and Lane head to Sleeper Pod Bay 1 to inform Captain Samantha Lester of the situation, but they discover that the entire bay no longer exists. In the wake of emergency, the awakened crew begin to assess the situation. Crew are sent to Medical Bay 12 for physical therapy and rehabilitation after years in cryogenic suspension under the supervision of Dr. Sanjivni Kabir. Garnet recruits Lieutenant James Brice, a navigator, to work Cent-Com due to the loss of the command staff. Maintenance worker Eva Markovic begins the process of refilling the oxygen in the life support helmets that was expended during the evacuation. Lieutenant Jasper Dades delivers more helmets; Markovic needs more oxygen tanks but Dades refuses to get them. Once Dades leaves, Harris Beckner, Markovic's lover, arrives. She pulls him inside and closes the door, as no one onboard is supposed to know they are a couple and they could get in a lot of trouble for their relationship.

The crew is ordered to report to the Mess Hall on C Deck. Angus Medford, who is in horticulture, meets Alicia Nevins, who is on the waste management team. Lieutenants Garnet, Lane, and Brice brief the crew on the situation. An unknown calamity befell the ship, but they do not know what it was. Malfunctions were occurring on board prior to the hull breach, but the ship's monitoring cameras were not functioning. The Ark One was knocked off-course but Brice has managed to course-correct. The crew has been in cryogenic suspension for five years and ninety-two days, meaning that they are still over a year away from reaching Proxima B.

Cat Brandice demands to know why they are not being briefed by Captain Lester; Garnet announces that both pod bays were destroyed, and all of the senior staff and mentor class are dead. In addition, the rear storage units and two ballasts have been destroyed, as well as the water reclamation unit meaning the ship cannot recycle its water. The loss of the rear storage units meant the year's worth of food they were carrying was also lost. Current estimates place their supplies at four weeks of water and six weeks of food; rationing will need to be implemented.

Garnet lays out the plan for survival; refit the water recycling unit they are carrying for the Proxima B colony to work on the ship to solve their water issues. The food they have is meant to be for four hundred people; following the loss of a large portion of the ship's complement, there are only one-hundred and fifty of them left. Rationing should extend the supplies three times longer.

Lieutenant Garnet places herself in temporary command, to the consternation of Lane and Brice who are the same rank. Garnet says they are all experts in their fields, but she has the most working knowledge of the entire ship. Once the crisis is over, she intends to stand down and allow the crew to elect a commander.

The following day, a service is held on the Observation Deck for their lost shipmates. During the service, Dades talks with Trent about Commander Ingram, wondering why someone holding the rank of commander would be in their pod bay, rather than the one holding the senior staff. Brice confides in Garnet that he feels she should not have been so honest with the crew, but she points out they are all adults and that they deserve the truth.

Rationing begins, with each crew members getting a water ration and a five-hundred calorie food block twice a day. Medford informs Lieutenant Garnet that he has brought some of his own "super-soil" on the ship, intending to use it on Proxima B if the local conditions did not support crop growth. Telling her that he can grow crops in the soil anywhere, Garnet authorises him to start creating a bio shelter farm in an effort to solve their food shortages. The only downside is that the farm will require a lot of energy to power the agricultural LEDs, and some of their water reserve.

Cat Brandice attempts to use one of the onboard showers, but is discovered and stopped by Strickland. Markovic and Nevins work on the sewage system; when the room they are working in starts being filled with equipment from Geo Dome 3, Nevins heads there and realises what Medford is trying to do. She asks what she can do to help; Medford, remembering she works in waste management, tells her that he is going to need a lot of fertilizer.

While checking for communications from Earth, Trent comes across a message from his family sent four years earlier. Lane finds him watching it, and Trent finds it odd that there have been no more communications from Earth since. Trent wonders if anything has happened to Earth in the meantime, but Lane points out that it could have been as simple as a communications relay failure. As the plans to put the bio shelter into operation proceed, power is diverted from other areas. Concerned about power usage, Lane confronts Garnet in the hold about her unilateral decision and the potential waste of power and water if it does not work. Garnet reluctantly agrees she should not have made the decision alone, but rebukes him for making his objections publicly, not privately.

Garnet convenes a Representative Council, consisting of herself, Lane, and Brice as the senior officers, and Strickland as acting head of security, Dr. Kabir and acting chief medical officer, and Markovic as acting head of maintenance, engineering, and construction. The decision to implement the bio shelter is swiftly approved despite Lane's objections. Markovic reports they are having trouble finding the correct parts for the water recycling unit, and an agreement is made to restore lighting in storage areas of the ship to assist with searches. Medford is given the go-ahead, and agrees that if there is no growth after four days, they will terminate to avoid wasting water unnecessarily.

Trent attempts to get a headstart on his physical recovery, using a treadmill in med bay. Dr. Kabir is concerned he is pushing himself too hard; Trent complains of having breathing problems just as shipwide oxygen depletion alarms go off. Kabir gives him an emergency inhaler and then goes off to find them helmets. Across the ship, other members of the crew do likewise, including Markovic and her maintenance crew on R Deck. Garnet is informed that the ship is in automatic lockdown due to the oxygen levels falling to fifteen percent across the ship. Brice is unable to clear the diagnostics screens to give him a reading on where the leak is. Garnet orders Lieutenant Dades, head of life support, to report to Cent-Com while Lane leads a team on a physical search of the ship for the cause of the problem.

Dades attempts to hide from the crew, but is found by Strickland. Faking communications problems in his helmet, Strickland takes Dades to Cent-Com. Markovic and her crew are separated by a door in a corridor; although everyone has a helmet, Markovic tells Beckner that the helmets in their section do not have oxygen in them since she had not found time to recharge them. Helmets have oxygen on her side, and she tells them to override the door.

In Medical Bay 12, Trent is locked inside without a helmet, forcing him to improvise with an oxygen tank and breathing mask. He also manages to override the door, opening it. Taking several oxygen tanks, he hides them in an access hatch in the corridor. On R Deck, Nathan Stark begins suffocating, causing Beckner to remove his helmet to allow Stark to have it. Beckner says there is still air in the section. Markovic calls for emergency help on R Deck.

Dades is brought to Cent-Com and told to clear the lockdown; after looking at the problem, Dades confesses that he is not Dades at all, but a transpo scrub named Malcolm Perry. He has no idea how to fix the life support problem. Strickland arrests him, and Garnet orders Ensign Albert Stein to find anyone on the crew with coding knowledge of life support training.

Trent reunites with Kabir, and the doctor praises him on his ingenuity. Realizing he would be helpful with the situation on R Deck, they head down to try and rescue the trapped maintenance workers. Beckner looses consciousness, just as Trent and Kabir arrive. Trent manages to hotwire the lock and pull the crew out, taking them to Medical Bay 12.

Three candidates are found who may be able to solve the life support problem. One of them is Nevins, who immediately recognizes that the computer is stuck in a Barstow loop. She fixes the issue, allowing the life support system to reboot and diagnose the problem. Garnet relays the information to Lane, who goes on an EVA to seal the leak. With oxygen levels restored and the lockdown lifted, Brice promotes Nevins to chief of life support on the spot. In Medical Bay 12, Beckner is unable to be resuscitated and dies despite Kabir's attempts. Markovic is distraught and leaves, but Kabir reminds Trent that he saved a lot of people.

Perry is held captive in a storage locker, where he is confronted by Garnet. He confesses to having paid a hacker to fake records that told the real Dades he was reassigned to Ark Two, while he impersonated him to take the berth on Ark One. Garnet tells him that she will recommend to the Representative Council that he receive the death penalty, he informs her that there are other imposters on the ship. When she is about to walk away, he makes mention of a cadet named Denise that he met in a bar in Jacksonville, Florida. Garnet seems to recognize who he is talking about and walks away.

At the meeting of the Representative Council, Kabir suggests that the Perry should be allowed to speak for himself before judgment is passed. Strickland is sent to retrieve Perry and bring him before the council. However, when he opens the door to the storage locker, he finds that Perry's throat has been cut.

Cast[]

Main[]

• Christie Burke as Lieutenant Sharon Garnet
• Reece Ritchie as Lieutenant Spencer Lane
• Richard Fleeshman as Lieutenant James Brice
• Stacey Read as Alicia Nevins
• Ryan Adams as Angus Medford
• Pavle Jerinić as Lieutenant Felix Strickland
• Shalini Peiris as Doctor Sanjivni Kabir
• Christina Wolfe as Cat Brandice
• Tiana Upcheva as Eva Markovic

Guest Starring[]

• Lisa Brenner as Lieutenant Commander Susan Ingram
• Miles Barrow as Ensign Baylor Trent
• Dominik Čičak as Harris Beckner
• Chris Leask as Lieutenant Jasper Dades/Malcolm Perry

Co Starring[]

• Steven Moore as William Mulcahy
• Tamara Radovanović as Jelena Griff
• Michael Stokey as Albert Stein
• Miloš Cvetković as Sasha Novak
• Cosmo Kay as Nathan Stark
• Tanasije Cakic as Florian Rupnik
• Jelena Moore as Stella Cogner
• Jessica Yemi as Naomi Spencer
• Andrej Momčilov as Brother
• Cecilia Eshun as Sister
• Lesmay Djakovacki as Mother
• Greg De Cuir as Father

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

• The episode's name is quoted by Malcolm Perry during his talk with Lieutenant Sharon Garnet at the end of the episode.

External Links[]

• Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship on IMDb