"For millions of years, Earth was fertile and rich. Then, pollution and waste began to take their toll. Civilization fell into ruin. This is the world of the 25th century. Only a handful of scientists remain. Men who have vowed to rebuild what has been destroyed.this is their achievement. Ark II, a mobile storehouse of scientific knowledge, manned by a highly trained crew of young people. Their mission: to bring the hope of a new future to mankind." - Opening narration
Ark II: The Complete Series DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Well golly - it looks like Al Gore may have been right about our mistreatment of the environment after all. According to Ark II, the live-action CBS Saturday morning kids' show that premiered on September 11, 1976, mankind is in for a rude awakening. Thanks to pollution, lack of conservation, and out-and-out greed, Earth will be a barren wasteland by the year 2476, forcing large swaths of people to become scavengers, dirt farmers, and, in extreme cases, exploitative warlords.
Luckily, a group of dedicated scientists survived. Pooling their talents, they created Ark II, an RV-like supervehicle that represents the sum of their scientific knowledge. Manned by three young scientists - twentysomething leader Jonah (Terry Lester (The Young and the Restless), medic Ruth (Jean Marie Hon, The Man from Atlantis), and mechanical savvy teen Samuel (Jose Flores) - and their talking chimp Adam, the Ark II roams the barren landscape on a mission to help save mankind.
Each episode centers on a lesson about ecology and tolerance. In separate episodes, we learn that humans can survive only by communicating with others ("The Balloon"), that slavery is morally and ethically wrong ("The Slaves"), that even the old and the infirm can contribute to society ("The Rule"), that conservation is necessary even if it seems like resources are unlimited ("The Lottery"), that everyone - young & old, man & machine - must work together to survive ("Omega"), and that we must learn from the past or repeat the same mistakes ("The Cyrogenic Man"). Even so, the series is rarely preachy. These morals are most explicitly stated in Star Trek-esque log entries made by Jonah at the beginning and end of each episode.
The episodes mostly zip right along with little time for character development. The first episode, for example, sets up the series' conceit in the opening credits narration and then jumps right into an adventure involving a canister of deadly gas. The Ark II itself is charmingly '70s-era futuristic - sort of a cross between the Space Shuttle and those old Styrofoam containers in which McDonald's Quarter Pounders were once packaged. Toss in the nifty Ark Roamer, the cool Jet Jumper backpack, and a handful of Saturday morning budget not-so-special effects and the result is actually quite charming.
I'll leave the Biblical allusions in the names of the series and its characters to someone else. I will say, however, that it is highly amusing that the talking chimpanzee is named Adam - surely a veiled evolution joke.
Fans of classic sci-fi will take delight in appearances by a pair of past Genre veterans. Jonathan Harris (Lost in Space's Dr. Smith) plays Fagon, the leader of a pack of lost youth, in two episodes: "The Flies" and "The Drought." Robby the Robot (Forbidden Planet) appears in the stand-out episode "The Robot" as...well...a robot designed by Sam that may or may not be trying to sabotage the Ark II's mission. Other familiar faces that pop up include Helen Hunt (Mad About You), Jim Backus (Gilligan's Island), John Fiedler (The Bob Newhart Show), and Geoffrey Lewis (Salem's Lot).
The fifteen episodes that make up Ark II: The Complete Series are divided onto four discs. Each disc is decorated with a member of the Ark crew: Jonah on disc one, Adam on disc two, Ruth on disc three, and Samuel on disc four. The discs are housed in two slim, clear keepcases which hold two discs apiece. The front covers are decorated with publicity shots of the cast. The back covers include episode titles, episode numbers, and more publicity shots. The interiors of the cases are decorated with large photos of the interior of the Ark II. The two keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which showcases the cast. The overall design is simple yet evocative of the era in which the series was produced - sort of retro futuristic.
The menus are simple to navigate. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes, pick an individual one, or use the scene selection menus to jump to a specific scene. Transitions between the menus cleverly use footage from the series.
