A young woman's murder causes the subjects of a century-long mission to populate a new world to question the true nature of the project as they approach the point of no return.
In perhaps the most surprising turn of the evening, the show completely betrays the audience's expectations for a space drama and gives us instead The Truman Show in space.
Ascension was science fiction without science, character-driven narrative without characters and a story so lacking in interest that this could be the cure for insomnia.
An intriguing sci-fi premise becomes seriously less so. The first episode is worth watching for the buildup and the surprise, but many viewers will abandon spaceship at the end.
Clearly, there are lots of things to like about Ascension. The characters are well-enough developed in the early going that I could actually have done without the murder mystery - or, for that matter, the space strangeness.
