I have to say I’m into it. There’s a lot going on with the out of control and possibly evil android son, the ghost pregnancy with her dead ex, the shady corporate CEO/big bad spying on the family, the possible android uprising, and the non-dead-guy-weirdo in the bushes at the end, but I’ll say I was totally engaged and I’m looking forward to the next episode. I’m not surprised given Spielberg/Amblin Entertainment is behind it. What did everyone else think?
I thought it was moderately entertaining, and will probably watch next week – but damn, I was reminded of what a bad actress Halle Berry is.
I could see it getting a little weird, hopefully it doesn’t go Lost on us and have all kinds of odd things happen that just get forgotten about entirely as the show progresses.
I didn’t really notice her acting being too bad, but then maybe that’s because I was noticing … other things about her performance IYKWIM.
Is this a summer miniseries, or an on-going show? 
Halle Berry’s a film actress; I don’t recall ever seeing her on TV.
It was okay for network tv, but I’m having more and more problems watching network tv. Cable tv is just too good, and network shows suffer by comparison. Now that I stop and think about what I watch on network tv, it’s basically just reality shows; I can’t get enough of dopey physical challenges. (Survivor, TAR, Big Brother, American Ninja Warrior; I even watch The Challenge, for cryin’ out loud.)
I’ll give Extant another couple weeks, but mainly just because I’m a big Goran Visnjik fan from his ER days.
I liked it. The CGI was really good IMO. I’m hoping it becomes a good sci-fi series, they’re few and far between. They seem to have introduced a lot of material and a lot of storyline tangents that could be explored over lots of episodes as long as they keep track of it and follow through. Good potential here.
I thought the premier was pretty solid. The premise seemed fairly standard before I saw the first episode but the end result was nicely executed. Also, the previews for the rest of the season look promising.
Ambiguously evil corporations are always entertaining in Science Fiction and Hiroyuki Sanada is always a treat. I think Halle Berry is a good choice for the main character. She does a good job at playing that distant character with unclear motives. The probably evil android boy worries me a bit but so far he is not too over the top.
I plan on watching this show for the rest of its run. Hopefully they don’t try to stretch it out into a longer series. For now it is definitely a nice summer Sci-Fi show.
Anybody know anything that would suggest whether they plan to have a definite ending after 13 episodes? I miss the old mini-series that told a story and then stopped (Shogun, The Martian Chronicles, Dune, and lots of others that I will think of as soon as I post this message).
I felt a little lost while watching it. Why was she the only one on the Seraphim? How long was she up there and what was her mission?
I’ll try to hold on for a couple of episodes, but I’m not feeling the brooding little robot subplot.
13 months.
I was completely taken out of the show during the funding pitch scene when John Woods asked the woman in the audience what makes her daughter different than Ethan and she responded that her daughter “has a soul.” Really? Of all the actual, empiric differences there would be between a human organism and an android, that’s what the writers chose for her to say?
I understand that the writers were setting up the argument that ensued that would ultimately cause a rejection of John’s funding, but I find it difficult to believe that such a response would be given in a similar, real-life scenario. It is also weak writing and, in my opinion, doesn’t bode well for the longevity of the series.
Also, didn’t everyone else see the pregnancy coming from a mile away? I said to my wife “I bet she’s pregnant” even before the scene where Halle Berry’s character was told, and during the scene when her friend asked her if she was alone on the spacecraft I said “and here’s where she finds out she’s pregnant”, prompting my wife to ask me “are you going to do this the entire show?”
Halle Berry is fine in the show for what it is, although I suspect it will turn into another “Flash Forward” or “The Event”, if it even lasts that long. Then again, the abomination “Under the Dome” is inexplicably still on, so what do I know?
The series opened with a shot of her puking. Of course she’s pregnant. The only time we ever see women of childbearing age throwing up is to signal pregnancy.
I liked the premiere well enough, too. I’ll keep watching.
For no good reason whatsoever, I’m glad that they’re deliberately pronouncing the name of show as “EX-tant” (instead of “EX-tunt” or “EX-tint”).
Didn’t the ads for the show disclose the “you’re pregnant after 13 months alone on a space station” part? I certainly knew about it before watching the premiere, but I don’t remember if I knew from televised ads or if it was from a preview I saw (TiVo had a thing a little while ago where you could watch teasers of upcoming network shows; Extant was one of them).
Yes, the mysterious pregnancy after a long solo mission was in all of the ads.
I dunno – the pilot gave me the impression the producers don’t have a set idea for where they want to go with the series. I picture them sitting around in a conference going:
“Okay, we’ve got Halle and she’s pregnant with an alien child…”
“Yeah, but what if some scifi geeks aren’t interested in that?”
“What else is scifi?”
“How about an evil robot?”
“Even better, an evil robot CHILD!”
“Great! But we need something for the non-SF fans…”
“I have it! How about an conspiracy? Conspiracies are always good.”
“Genius!”
“But what’ll we do week two?”
“Hmmmmm.”
Don’t forget the love story with Marcus. Because we can’t have a woman be the protaganist in a sci-fi flick without throwing in a love triangle. And we can’t have the husband suspect that the mysterious space pregnancy is a corporate conspiracy. No, it is more interesting if he thinks she cheated on him with Marcus.
Who says sci-fi can’t be a soap opera too? :rolleyes:
Interesting to hear a different take on it. I thought it was brave of the writers to go that far with it. I’ve had plenty of arguments with people about why not treat animals as disposable because they don’t have souls, and that souls of people who aren’t baptized are forever damned to hell so they’re not on equal ground with those who are baptized. It’s a fervent argument for a LOT of people.
And yeah, the barfing to open the show was a no-brainer, plus it was promoted for the last couple months with that at the center. The android was the “surprise.”
Isn’t Marcus dead?
I think maybe that one dude might be Japanese.
Queen. The Roots sequel.