The Ark Creator on Season 3, Diverging Storylines, Spencer-Ian & More

The Ark creator Dean Devlin discusses Season 3 feeling like a new series, dividing the drama between the ship and Home Base One, and more.

Season three of SYFY's The Ark represents a dramatic change in the space-faring survival science fiction series, as the crew of the Ark One, no longer forced to continuously scavenge for survival, establishes a presence on Home Base One and shifts to exploring the surrounding space for other survivors from Earth on other ships. With adventures split between the crew, it presents new challenges for creator Dean Devlin and co-showrunner Jonathan Glassner , tapping their experience in the genre to ask, "What if Earth's future in space travel was born out of the ambitions of the wealthy rather than the altruism of humanity's improvement and survival?"

The first two seasons found the crew of the Ark One, led by Capt. Sharon Garnet ( Christie Burke ), one of the few remaining survivors with command experience, is trying to rally fellow survivors, comprised of the scant experienced officers and predominantly civilian specialists, to crew the ship. With new uncertain threats ahead in space and on Home Base One, Devlin spoke to Bleeding Cool about if Season 3 feels like a clean slate and new series, how they decided on divide the crew between who will remain on Ark One and who would settle on Home Base One, how Reece Ritchie adjusted shifting from playing the late Spencer Lane to his brother Ian Lane, and if there's an endgame in mind or they take it season by season.

Bleeding Cool: With Ark One's new circumstances with an established home planet, does it feel like in some ways, like it's a new series and a clean slate?

Devlin : Sort of…I mean, in a strange way, the first two seasons are the pilot, since it's all leading to this. Initially, when we were designing this, we were actually going to split [The Ark] into two different shows, and that's how we designed all of season two. Ultimately, the decision was made to keep it all one show, so rather than just doing one of the two shows, we mashed the whole thing together and made a gigantic show this season, so it's a much bigger show than we've done in the first two seasons.

How did you creatively decide which characters are going to remain with Arc One, continuing the exploration side, versus who would remain on the Home Base One and let their characters develop that way?

Well, honestly, you decide what's going to give you the most drama, right? We had two stories going on simultaneously, one on the spaceship and one back on Home Base One. So, it was really about what characters feed each storyline, but they have faster-than-light-speed drive now. It's not like they're separated for the entire season. They're going to come back and forth, and it will change who goes on the ship and who stays, but it did mean a much larger cast than we've carried in the previous seasons.

Creatively, three seasons in, we still see some crew members in uniform. Was it discussed whether the entire crew might wear uniforms, or was it more important to retain autonomy and the way they are as an extension of their personalities and status?

We thought of it slightly differently. We looked at it as that these ships were designed for them to be asleep the whole time in these suits to keep them alive. They woke up early and then on other ships, they didn't need to be in cryo, because they had faster-than-light speed. It was just [asking], "What would they actually bring with them?" You're racing to get off Earth. It just didn't seem like they'd bring full wardrobes for everybody, although we find out later in certain ships they did, right? I think the thing that we've always wanted to do on the show that really separates it from other shows for me that have taken place on spaceships is that we're accustomed to thinking that things are built by committees of brilliant people to do what's best and safest.

But, as we're seeing, more and more billionaires are in charge rather than countries with all kinds of regulations, so the whole fun of this for us was, "Well, what if the entire space program, our ships and other ships, they were all done by billionaires?" They didn't have to answer to any kind of regulations; what would they care about? What wouldn't they care about? We wanted that constantly on the show, you're frustrated with, "Who would design something to be like that?" Well, someone who didn't care, you know? So, that's the fun of the show.

How did Reece adjust to… since you guys killed off Spencer [in season 2] and continued as Ian, how does that affect the dynamic of the crew? Was it hard to have that switch and mess with the chemistry with Garnet and everything?

We thought from a production side it was going to be interesting, but even Reece said as an actor, when he started coming on set as the other character, he was treated like a guest star by the others. He felt like it was weird, like it was a different dynamic, but it's still the same actor [laughs]. He felt like the whole dynamic on set was different because he's playing a different guy, and that bled over into how we shot it and how the performances. It came about because he looks like a character that they've had a long relationship with, but they barely know him. So, it was a really interesting thing to explore, and I think the fever dream episode ("It Should Have Been You") added a really interesting dynamic, because [Ian] and Garnet spend an entire lifetime together in their coma dream, so when they come out of it, they have a relationship longer than the relationship she had with [Spencer] Lane.

What's the biggest challenge for you in navigating through season three? Was it something that you feel like could fit just in this particular season? Perhaps you felt this is going a little long, maybe bleed this into season four if it pans out that way?

Well, we don't usually design it that way. Jonathan Glassner is a phenomenal showrunner, and he usually starts with the ending. He asks, "Where are we going to end up, and how do we earn it?" This season has a lot of mystery boxes, a lot more than we normally do, but if you hang in there with us, it all comes together by the end in a spectacular way. "Where all these things throughout the season? Where are you going? Wait, why is that happening? Or what happened there?"

They're not there just to annoy you [laughs]. They have a phenomenal payoff. This season was really designed for where we end at this season, because we don't know if we get another season. We hope we do. I mean, I think we've had a great loyal following. We hope they show up again for season three, as they did with one and two, but you never know, so we wanted to make sure that, God forbid, we don't get another season. We wanted this to be a really fulfilling ending to the season. Yeah, we have a little cliffhanger, but it's not one that if you never got another season, you'd be furious about.

Can you talk about some of the additions to the cast of "The Ark" this season, what you're excited about bringing them in, and how they mesh with the current cast?

Oh, boy, I don't have all the character names in my head. We get to meet some characters that we had spoken about in previous seasons, but didn't know that they were here. We bring in the backstories of several of the characters and discover that there are, once again, hidden stories, even amongst the characters that we knew, that come out and cause more conflicts. We now have all the EF people intermingling, so basically the war is over, and the two sides must try and live together.

We have all these characters from what our enemy had been. There's that, and then there's the people they go meet, because I think the biggest thing that we did at the end of season two is realizing that there were a lot more ships that launched from Earth than we knew of, and we don't know where they are. Garnet is trying to go find them to say, "Hey, we do have a new home. I've got to bring you home." We're going to meet a lot of new characters through those adventures.

Season three of The Ark , which also stars Richard Fleeshman, Stacey Read, Ryan Adams, Pavle Jerinić, Shalani Peiris, Tiana Upcheva , and Samantha Glassner , premieres on SYFY on July 29th.