This post contains spoilers for “Extant.”
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment changed the programming game for CBS with “Under the Dome,” the brilliant sci-fi horror series based on Stephen King’s eponymous novel. Spielberg’s involvement as executive producer, coupled with the show’s promising take on King’s work, helped “Under the Dome” achieve instant success (it even broke the record for the most-watched post-1992 summer drama on network television).
While the narrative quality of the series declined over time, it was a gamble that ultimately paid off, sparking a craze for standalone shows centered around an inexplicable phenomenon. “Under the Dome” might’ve fumbled this formula after a strong first season, but CBS wanted to give this trend another go with yet another Spielberg-backed sci-fi story with a riveting central premise.
The series in question was “Extant,” an experimental space drama that was supposed to be a summer sensation for the network, but the results ended up being more mixed than intended. Amblin’s involvement aside, “Extant” stars Halle Berry as a lone astronaut on a space mission who returns home to deal with an unlikely development. Berry’s star power granted considerable mileage to the show on a conceptual level (which unfortunately didn’t work in Berry’s favor for the permanently shelved Netflix sci-fi series “The Mothership”), and that worked in tandem with the ambitious writing that underwent significant changes between seasons. Even so, “Extant” does not accomplish whatever it intends to, as its big, bold ideas are swallowed up by middling execution and a general inability to flesh them into something hard-hitting and meaningful.
While “Extant” is no “Westworld” or “The Expanse,” it delivers a serviceable hook that is drawn out with taut suspense, encouraging theorizing with the help of intriguing breadcrumbs strewn across episodes. Some sci-fi tropes employed here are boundary-pushing, others not so much, but together, they create a show that certainly deserves another chance. So let’s dig deeper, shall we?
“Extant” opens with some standard sci-fi world-building. Unprecedented technological advancement in the near future has led to the existence of humanoid machines known as humantics (dodgy term, for sure), but this setup is kept vague throughout the series. We have some futuristic tech incorporated into daily life, along with the knowledge that space travel is now an outsourced public sector initiative, although the details are, once again, blurry. But none of that is important because ISEA astronaut/scientist Molly Woods (Berry) has just returned from a 13-month lone space mission, and somehow, she is pregnant. This revelation is baffling for Molly, as she and her husband John (Goran Visnjic) were unable to conceive for years, and had decided to raise a humantic child that they lovingly named Ethan.
How did this even happen? Well, that’s the crux of “Extant,” and the series takes its sweet time to tease us with clues and steadily build an atmosphere of dread and paranoia. Flashbacks to the solo mission only raise more pressing questions, primarily about an ominous stretch of communications blackout and the unlikely presence of Molly’s ex-boyfriend before she passes out. Some of these developments evoke the plot of “Solaris,” where a landmass in space acts as a mirror for our innermost desires, manifesting instincts that we dare not utter even when we are alone.
As you can imagine, Molly’s family seems conflicted about this new development, especially the six-year-old Ethan, who begins to nurture feelings of resentment towards the unborn child (who is dubbed the Offspring, which isn’t creepy at all). Just when you expect things to take a predictable turn, the sleek, clinical world of “Extant” starts weighing on you, as it becomes clear that something is amiss in this futuristic landscape overcrowded with holographic screens and AI companions. Molly takes the active initiative to solve these unsavory mysteries, even when her body is no longer under her control, with the Offspring literally reshaping reality as a part of its instinctive survival mechanism.
Season 2, however, feels like a completely detached part of the story, as it foregoes the exciting tension of its first season to veer toward heavy action. While this isn’t an inherently flawed narrative tactic, it drains a perfectly decent sci-fi premise of its creative juice, resolving the most compelling questions in “Extant” in less than satisfactory ways. But if you’re a fan of slow-burn space horror stories that transition into fast-paced puzzle-box mysteries, “Extant” might be worth your time.