Extant - TV Show [CBS]

Science fiction is always an interesting genre to watch, but that’s not what’s so great about it. What’s great is its rich variety of content and constant growing fan base that exists. Recently I watched a TV show that most likely tried to appeal to both sci-fi fans as well as a group of other fans of the movie world as it starred Halle Berry.

Now whether or not the blockbuster name was supposed to carry most of the story into the limelight while the acting and plot did the rest, I don’t know but what I can say is that the name dropping probably didn’t hurt in the conception phase during the production of this show.

The story follows an astronaut in a futuristic world who has just returned from a solo mission that sets various things in motion as she struggles to come to terms with the fact that she’s pregnant. Things get hairy as her superior, who seems to have left key details out from the real reason behind her mission, tries to kidnap her and she is forced to go on the run in order to find the truth about what happened to her up amongst the stars.

However, that’s not all the fun twists and turns in this sci-fi as it turns out that our astronaut was originally unable to have children and thus her and her husband, a scientist himself, decided to take in Ethan –an artificial intelligent android that he created.

As far as sci-fi TV shows goes I have to be honest, Extant fell pretty flat for me. There were too many factors in play, what with the discovery of alien life that just so happen to be trying to kill everybody and then the whole android son dilemma where our little guy gets manipulated by a devious third party who hates AI’s and thinks machines are going to take over the world thing, it all felt a bit like a drawn out movie that someone squeezed a TV show deal out of because the movies of this type of content have been done to death.

It was interesting for a past time, in which I mean I had this running in the background while I was doing other stuff, but as a show that I had to sit down and focus on for the whole 45 minutes….just a bit tricky.

The acting wasn’t terrible and the effects were decent, so at least there was that. However, if I had to suggest this to other people, I’d have to say, go in with low expectations and judge for yourself. Who knows, maybe you like it more than I did?