Ascension

The characters are well-enough developed in the early going.... As the story deepens, though, it also becomes so complicated that it threatens to squeeze out marginal fans of the genre.

The dialogue only occasionally gets "Star Trek"-ish, and the special effects are nothing special. But it’s not a bad story, it moves well and you don’t have to wait a hundred years for the conclusion.

The opening installment is sharp over all but has squishy spots; that makes you wonder if the premise and the execution are up to the challenge of a series run.

Some of the performances are thin and I wish the dialogue went through one more rewrite but it’s the narrative here that’s surprisingly fun.

Ascension is a handsomely made riff on an irresistibly interesting story pitch.

I like what I've seen, though there are more than a couple of moments where the only possible reaction is "Naaah."

Everything intriguing is nearly squandered by poor casting and clunky scripting. Still, I suspect the first night's climactic reveal, while clumsily foreshadowed, will make you return for the second.

The direction, at times, has a jerky feel. The dialogue is riddled with cliches.... But just when the whole miniseries, which Syfy is clearly hoping will become a regular series, is starting to feel mundane, there’s a last-minute twist that will demand your attention. It has the potential to make the series fascinating and much more than it originally seems.

Ascension has tons of potential and meets a little more than half of it in this early going.

Ascension is hokey and hyper-staged (in the same way CBS's recent astronaut thriller, Extant, was). But there's a twist at the end of the first night that should have you coming back.

There are several intriguing concepts built into Syfy’s Ascension, but the execution is not quite up to snuff in the first episode and infuriating by the conclusion.

Ascension” initially mixes genuinely clever twists with what amounts to a semi-claustrophobic soap opera.... Yet as the mythology mounts, some of the parallel plots become considerably less interesting, even as Levens keeps piling on additional sci-fi riffs and cliches.