Review: Ark

I am fast finding the "webisode" platform a very interesting in innovative way to present a series or even what on TV would be called a single one hour episode. Instead of one long episode of an hour or longer, each web episode is instead a short bite sized offering. Instead of that single hour you may in fact have nine or more episodes ranging anywhere for 3 minutes to upwards of 10 minutes. SyFy's Sanctuary started this way on the web - with 4 to 6 per hour, giving the fan little morsels at each visit. The beauty of this is that if you don't have enough time for a half to full hour, you can break it up and watch snippets during breaks or what have you. Plus if you want more, you simply keep watching other episodes in the series or better yet instead of once a week, you have a piece every day of the week.
So for me, the first was Sanctuary, a couple other less well hyped, then Woke Up Dead and more recently is a really good web-isodic program called ARK on Hulu.com

Here is the snipit that Hulu provides for the program:

• Two strangers plucked from different decades find themselves lost on a massive spaceship deep in space. With no information about where they are or how they got there, they must work together to figure out a way home.

At present there are 9 episodes that add up to about a regular 1 hour program sans adds (hulu of course has ads, but they are short and not intrusive)

Like Santuary I will bet that ARK is dependant on green screen, but even so there has been effort to provide an environment much like say SyFy's Stargate Universe's ancient mysterious ship. So far, with 9 shorts down, we have a mix of SG Universe and Riverworld. There are hints that the "ARK" is ancient and carrying a precious cargo.

It is worth checking out and if you don't like it, well what, you're down 10 minutes or less? The ninth doesn't wrap much up, so maybe there is a bunch of other webisodes in the wings.

Mankind's secrets kept in lunar ark

Now here is a perfect example of something conceived in science that could make a great science fiction story.

Plans are being drawn up for a “Doomsday ark” on the moon containing the essentials of life and civilization. A basic version of the ark would contain hard discs holding information such as DNA sequences and instructions for metal smelting or planting crops. It would be buried in a vault just under the lunar surface.

I can see the drama of the build, the horror of the collapse, and something akin to Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Riders when they found the ancient AI that helped rebuild civilization. As great as it sounds....could it work? Look at how fast knowledge can fade away. Often the same thing is invented several times, there is ample evidence in history to support this claim. I suspect that if a life ending event happens on Earth, the ability to run the machinery or maintain the machinery that would retrieve this information would quickly pass. The knowledge that is saved would still be lost. If not retrieved and implemented almost immediately, I suspect that within a century there would be no one left who would understand how it all functioned. Look at how much was almost lost when the Egyptian empire collapsed. They left the records, but the ability to decode the writings was lost. Great fiction, not practical.

click here for the complete article from the Times Online

'Lunar Ark' Proposed

Wow, does this bring a 70s science fiction movie to mind or what!!!!! name that film!!!
From nationalgeographic.com via the fine folks at Boing boing: David Pescovitz writes:

Researchers at the International Space University (ISU) in France propose that NASA's planned lunar base should also include a "biological and historical archive" of human civilization. The idea is that this "ark" would preserve humanity's history if the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid or comet. From National Geographic.

Give up? What movie am I talking about?

Drum roll please

Silent Running

Bruce Dern + Huey, Dewey and Louie