Amid the writers’ strike, the filming schedule for Syfy’s original The Ark Season 2 has been officially revealed. The sci-fi thriller was renewed for its second season just after the penultimate episode of the season.
Currently, The Ark Season 2 is scheduled to officially begin filming on June 26, 2023, in Belgrade, Serbia, and Vancouver, BC, Canada. The filming will take almost four months to officially finish on October 20, 2023.
If we go by the filming schedule of the second season of the series, The Ark Season 2 is likely to premiere in the second quarter of 2024.
The first season of The Ark premiered on February 1, 2023, on Syfy, and currently, all 12 episodes are streaming on Peacock in the US. The show wasn’t liked by many sci-fi fans who generally keep high expectations from the Syfy channel. The show was equally disliked by the critics as well, but the final two episodes received good responses from the critics as well as the audience, which could be the reason why Syfy decided to renew it.
The Ark debuted with 578K people watching the first episode, however, the viewership dropped significantly in the following episodes. The second-best episode in terms of viewership was the Season’s finale which raked up 463K viewers.
Created by Dean Devlin (Independence Day) and Jonathan Glassner (Stargate SG-1), the series stars Christie Burke as Lt. Sharon Garnet, Richard Fleeshman as Lt. James Brice, Reece Ritchie as Lt. Spencer Lane, Stacey Read as Alicia Nevins, Ryan Adams as Angus Medford, Christina Wolfe as Cat Brandice, Shalini Peiris as Dr. Sanjivni Kabir, Miles Barrow as Baylor Trent, Pavle Jerinić as Lt. Felix Strickland, Tiana Upcheva as Eva Markovic, Paul Leonard Murray as William Trust, Lisa Brenner as Commander Susan Ingram, Samantha Glassner as Kelly Fowler, and Jelena Stupljanin as Evelyn Maddox.
The Ark is set 100 years in the future when planetary colonization missions have begun as a need to ensure the human race’s existence. The first of these missions, aboard the Ark One spacecraft, encounters a cataclysmic occurrence that results in tremendous destruction and loss of life. With over a year till they reach their destination planet, a dearth of life-sustaining supplies, and a loss of leadership, the remaining crew must become the best versions of themselves in order to stay on track and survive. As the series progresses, the characters grapple with romantic entanglements, cruel betrayals, deadly diagnoses, and earth-shattering revelations about the wider Ark program.
At the end of the first season, Arks One and Fifteen just escaped the planet’s vicinity before it exploded, although Ark One suffered significant damage when unfrozen liquid, later discovered to be methane, ignited the planet. The exploded planet’s rubble hit their ship, but Ark 15 avoided significant damage. Lane, Brice, Garnet, and Alicia are all alive and well. Even though the bridge was releasing oxygen, Evelyn Maddox joined them on the bridge and agreed to send over medical and rescue crews. The bridge was shut off from the rest of the ship, leaving the lieutenants and Alicia in the dark about their crewmates’ fate. They desperately tried to reach the rest of the council or anyone on the ship in a stellar acting moment for much of the bridge crew. Except for Maddox on Ark 15, there were no responses.
In addition to serving as co-showrunners, Dean Devlin and Jonathan Glassner are also executive producers with Marc Roskin and Rachel Olschan-Wilson. Jonathan English and Steve Lee are the producers.