Ark II
| Ark II | |
|---|---|
title card
|
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| Genre | Science fiction |
| Created by | Martin Roth |
| Presented by | Filmation |
| Starring |
Terry Lester Jean Marie Hon Jose Flores Adam the chimpanzee (owned and trained by Darrell Keener) |
| Composer(s) |
Yvette Blais Jeff Michael |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 15 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
Norm Prescott Lou Scheimer |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 22–24 minutes (without commercials) 30 minutes (with commercials) |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | September 11 – December 18, 1976 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Space Academy |
Ark II is an American live-action science fiction series, aimed at children, that aired on CBS, beginning on September 11, 1976 and ending on December 18, 1976 (as well as reruns through November 13, 1977) as part of its weekend line-up. It returned for another run on September 16, 1978 and ran through August 25, 1979. Only 15 half-hour episodes were ever produced. The program's central characters were created by Martin Roth; Ted Post helped Roth develop its core format.
The opening titles for each episode, as narrated first by executive producer Lou Scheimer (using his then uncredited pseudonym Erik Gunden), then by the voice of Terry Lester, who portrayed Jonah, summarized the show's backstory:
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.
(Voice of Jonah): Ark II log, Entry Number 1. I, Jonah,...Ruth,...Samuel,...and Adam are fully aware of the dangers we face as we venture into unknown, maybe even hostile, areas. But we’re determined to bring the promise of a new civilization to our people and our planet.
"Ark II" had a racially mixed cast starring Terry Lester as Ark II's commander, Jonah, Jean Marie Hon as Ruth, José Flores as Samuel, and a chimpanzee (owned and trained by Darrell Keener) responding to the name of Adam. The show's premise was inspired by the story of Noah's Ark, and the characters were given names taken from the Hebrew Bible. It was set in a post-apocalyptic 25th Century (specifically, 2476, the show having debuted in 1976), after Earth's civilizations had been decimated by the effects of waste, pollution, and warfare, falling back to a civilization comparable to the Dark Ages. The surviving scientists pooled their knowledge and resources, training three young people (and the chimp, who was capable of speech and abstract reasoning) to search for remnants of humanity, reintroducing lost ideas as they traveled the barren landscape in the high-tech Ark II.
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Wikipedia