How The Ark Created Its Scariest Episode Yet — And What Changes with *That* Death

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As a seasoned fan of sci-fi and horror, I can wholeheartedly say that this week’s episode of The Ark was a chilling masterpiece. Walking through the dimly-lit, ice-cold ship deck filled with “dead” bodies was as unsettling on set as it was on screen for the actors. The tension, the atmosphere, and the stone-still “dead” actors were truly spine-tingling, and we couldn’t help but applaud their performances at the end of the day.

In this week’s particularly eerie installment of SYFY’s The Ark, what appears to be a massive, ominous spacecraft drifting eerily in the depths of space can’t help but raise eyebrows. More than likely, it’s just an ordinary abandoned battlecruiser that’s been looted and taken over by a lunatic with a twisted sense of normality.

Indeed, this week, The Ark has been venturing closer to the edge of pure terror, managing to penetrate the damaged Ark 3 spaceship that was believed to be abandoned due to most of its crew. In their absence, however, a mysterious transformation occurred on the ship. Peering through hacked cameras aboard the safety of their own Ark One, Alicia Nevins (Stacey Read) and her companions notice that something has certainly changed about the ill-fated Ark 3, prompting them to pay another visit to retrieve necessary repair parts.

Upon their arrival, it’s as if they stepped into a scene from a chilling sci-fi horror game like Dead Space or a spine-tingling Alien spinoff. You might wonder about the true nature of the grotesque inhabitants of Ark 3. Let’s delve deeper to uncover the truth!

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Grisly space tour: The Ark boards a creepy “Museum of Death”

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Title for this week’s Season 2, Episode 5 of The Ark is “Museum of Death.” This title fits perfectly with the overall atmosphere as the crew, led by Captain Sharon Garnet (Christie Burke), ventures to the deserted Ark 3 to uncover why it appears mysteriously inhabited. Previously, during their chilling visit, Ark 3 was mostly a space tomb, housing the remains of many victims from an invasion orchestrated by Evelyn Maddox (Jelena Stupljanin), the sinister commander of the missing Ark 15.

It appears that almost everyone on the Ark 3 is indeed still deceased, but their bodies have been mysteriously moved and arranged as if they were simply carrying out their regular tasks. This strange scene is quite unsettling, especially when Brice (Richard Fleeshman) and the others use flashlights to illuminate the unblinking eyes of these decaying space corpses in deep space. However, the eerie stillness is suddenly broken as one of them startles to life and quickly disappears into hiding.

That not-so-dead stowaway turns out to be none other than the long-lost brother of Eva (Tiana Upcheva), Brice’s devoted love interest and the Ark One’s key engineer. Left behind on Earth after Eva escaped her dying home planet aboard the Ark One, the poor fella’s been scouring space in search of his sister ever since. And judging from his totally deteriorated state of mind (like, who really hangs out on an abandoned spaceship long enough to pose all those dead bodies?), well… he’s definitely had a rough ride.

As a seasoned gamer with years of immersion in virtual worlds, I can attest that the eerie ambiance of “After the Ark” is no mere cinematic trick. Traversing the dimly-lit ship’s deck, littered with lifeless bodies, feels as unsettling on set as it does on-screen. The line between reality and fiction has blurred, and I can’t help but feel a chill down my spine every time I step foot on that chilling vessel.

“Upcheva remarked that Christie and she truly enjoyed themselves – it might sound strange! – but the experience of strolling among those ‘apparent’ individuals was genuinely captivating. It felt incredibly authentic,” said Upcheva, whose character hit an emotional wall in this week’s episode due to a family reunion that ended in an unexpected tragic turn.

“She exclaimed, ‘It was both spine-tingling and astounding!’ The eerie ambiance, the palpable tension, and the lighting that added to the mood – it was simply extraordinary! At the end of the day, we even applauded those stone-still ‘dead’ actors. It took an immense amount of patience to maintain such stillness for so long, but they were exceptional. The flashlights shining directly into their eyes made us think, ‘I might go blind!’ The makeup artists also did a fantastic job. Overall, it was an incredibly impressive performance.”

More ways to die: The alternate death ideas left behind in The Ark’s writers’ room

Eva’s brother, who had secretly taken a spaceship from the mysterious Earth group known as the Eastern Federation (a faction seldom mentioned on The Ark), had become increasingly unhinged due to loneliness aboard the Ark 3. For an unknown duration, he had been tinkering with the derelict vessel and befriending its partially-mummified human artifacts. By the time Eva met him, his behavior was so bizarre that he appeared to have wed one of the corpses, showing no signs of leaving his macabre family any time soon.

India Sage Wilson, one of the episode co-writers, expressed to “After the Ark” that she adores horror. She mentioned, “It’s like combining two of my favorite things… having this chilling scene where they pass through a room filled with dead bodies is such an exhilarating and entertaining experience!”

In simpler terms, during the series, Eva’s brother meets an untimely death while maneuvering his ship away from Ark One to rejoin the zombie-infested Ark 3. This tragic event occurs when he is struck by flying debris. However, this wasn’t the only potentially lethal situation planned for his character on the show.

Wilson mentioned that there was a slightly altered draft in the writers’ room where a section of the ship was moving towards Ark One. In this version, the character was placed centrally and was supposed to be squashed at some point. However, from a logistical standpoint, this scenario didn’t work out as smoothly as planned.

“Hey there fellow gamer, let me share something funny I remember from the olden days. Seems like one time, this character decided to return to Ark 3, and do you know why? It was all about reuniting with his virtual ‘spouse’!”

In the latest season of “The Ark”, Eva’s mysterious background unfolds as she encounters her long-lost brother, discusses her questionable past in a suspicious conversation, and experiences an unexpected erasure of her covert criminal record. It seems that Eva is not what she appears to be, and like Brice, we are determined to uncover the full story – even if it gives us a strange, unsettling feeling.

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2024-08-15 23:32