Television series

Ascension

Ascension is a sleek sci-fi thriller that locks a generation ship's worth of people into a murder mystery halfway through their century-long journey to a new world. It's taut, claustrophobic, and genuinely elegant—part locked-room whodunit, part philosophical reckoning with authority and sacrifice. For fans of high-concept drama who want their science fiction urgent and character-driven.

TVMaze rating3.9

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The Expanse2015

A sprawling space opera that shares Ascension's DNA: confined crews, political intrigue, and the moral weight of long-distance survival. The writing is sharper and the scope larger, with seasons that build methodically toward genuine stakes.

But It's much longer and demands real commitment. The early episodes move slowly, and the show doesn't hit its stride until mid-season one.

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Battlestar Galactica2003

The spiritual ancestor of prestige space drama. A fleet running from extinction, murder mysteries in the ranks, and the question of who deserves survival. It asks harder moral questions and commits more fully to its mythology.

But It's exhausting by design—relentless and bleak in ways that can feel punishing. Some arcs veer into melodrama.

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Dark2017

A mystery box that rewards obsessive rewatching, with the same locked-room feeling and distrust of authority. Every detail matters. The sense of inescapable fate is suffocating in the best way.

But It's deliberately opaque and requires actual note-taking. Some find the complexity more impressive than satisfying.

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Solaris1972

Both are trapped-system mysteries where the real drama is psychological and moral, not mechanical. Both ask whether the people in charge are saviors or architects of a gilded cage.

Tarkovsky's masterpiece asks the same philosophical question Ascension circles: what does it mean to keep people alive in isolation, and who decides what they deserve to know? Slow, meditative, and profound in ways that linger for years.

But It's a 167-minute meditation that rejects plot momentum entirely. Patience isn't optional. Many find it glacial rather than transcendent.

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Orphan Black2013

Propulsive, stylish, and obsessed with the ethics of human experimentation and bodily autonomy. Tatiana Maslany is magnetic. It moves at a clip and rewards weekly viewing.

But The conspiracy plot sprawls and occasionally collapses under its own mythology. Later seasons lose focus.

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Westworld2016

A closed system where the rules are questionable and nobody can trust the people in charge. Beautiful, intricate, and built on the same kind of mid-story revelation that drives Ascension's drama.

But It spends so much time being clever that it sometimes forgets to have a heart. Season two stumbles badly.

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Firefly2002

A ship, a crew, and a government with dark secrets. Joss Whedon's dialogue crackles, and there's genuine warmth alongside the paranoia. It's the template for what good space drama should feel like.

But Only one season exists, and it'll leave you aching for more. The movie ending helps but doesn't fix the incompleteness.

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The OA2016

A mystery that refuses easy answers, built on questions about consciousness, sacrifice, and how much you trust what you're being told. Visually inventive and genuinely unsettling.

But It's deliberately obtuse and ends on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Some find that intriguing; others find it maddening.

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For All Mankind2019

An alternate-history space race with the production polish and narrative momentum Ascension gestures toward. Real characters making impossible choices in a confined, high-stakes environment.

But It's more optimistic than Ascension, which some find refreshing and others find less dramatically interesting. Pacing can drag.

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12 Monkeys2015

A time-travel drama that builds mystery from constraints: limited locations, repeating timelines, the question of whether you can trust your own reality. Compact and bold.

But It's genuinely weird and demands surrender to its logic. If you need things explained clearly, you'll bounce off it.

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La Jetée1962

Both use sci-fi scaffolding to explore something intimate and human: in Jetée, a love that survives time; in Ascension, trust that survives surveillance. Both compress enormous emotional weight into constrained forms.

A science-fiction story told almost entirely through still images and voice-over, about time, memory, and impossible love. Formally radical and emotionally devastating. Proof that sci-fi doesn't need budget, just ideas.

But It's an avant-garde photomontage essay, not a narrative film. Most viewers have never seen anything like it and may find the form alienating.

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Stalker1979

Both Stalker and Ascension trap their characters in systems—physical or social—where the environment itself becomes the antagonist, and survival depends less on action than on understanding what you're really trapped in.

Another Tarkovsky film, equally immense and totally different from La Jetée. A long, deliberate journey through a mysterious zone, where the real danger is internal. Hypnotic, strange, and built on the same principle that drives Ascension: the setting itself is a character.

But It moves at a pace that feels almost hostile to Western viewers accustomed to cutting and plot. You have to surrender to it or it will feel endless.

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