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Extant

26K views 645 replies 91 participants last post by  mrvideo 
#1 ·
Series premier this Wednesday, 9pm CBS. Anyone going to check it out? The series deals with an astronaut that returns from space after 1 year. She is inexplicably pregnant!! Sounds like Aliens..:eek:

http://www.cbs.com/shows/extant/
 
#2 ·
As I said in another thread, I'd watch Halle Berry read the newspaper for an hour. This doesn't look, at least from the previews, like the typical CBS pabulum. So I'm definitely in, at least to start. If it turns 'Under the Dome' dumb, I'm outa' there.

But I have to say, making an actress who has one of the worlds greatest figures pregnant seems like a cruel joke.
 
#3 ·
Saw Spielberg's name and was already skeptical. Saw Halle Berry's name and my interest dropped even more. Heard the plot was about a magic space pregnancy and I had one foot out of the door.

When I read that she has a robotic fake son on Earth the show lost me completely.
 
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#7 ·
I watched the pilot a couple of weeks ago. IMHO, Under the Dome it isn't.

All I'm going to say is that I am awaiting more episodes.

Keep in mind that I like a lot of shows that members here do not care for, so my opinion of a show might not amount to much. :D
 
#11 ·
Exactly my feelings. I was, however, skeptical from the start when they didn't want to release any details - "to pique interest" (?) - by slowly letting hints "slip" out about it.
 
#15 ·
I don't know what it is about Spielberg but whenever he becomes involved in sci-fi TV production he loses his mojo as soon as the pilot is shot. What's infuriating is that as a film director he comes up with powerful scenes and visuals even in his weakest movies. Nowadays, unless it's an historical or military TV production (which I forgot about thanks to his recent track record) his name is better left out of the credits. It's just doing his reputation more harm than good. At least with George Lucas his decline is consistent across all media. ;)

I don't know how Halle Berry gets so much laudatory press coverage either. The best things she has done in a decade have been as a minor part of an ensemble and apart from Monster's Ball the movies she has fronted have all been barely passable.
 
#13 ·
Robobabies? Now I'm reconsidering my desire to watch this... I guess the real reason her pregnancy is so important is not because it occurred when she was supposedly alone on a space station but because this is one of those dismal futures where people aren't allowed to have children and are instead forced to have robobabies. Sigh. How original. :rolleyes:
 
#22 ·
... but because this is one of those dismal futures where people aren't allowed to have children and are instead forced to have robobabies.
Huh? I'd better go back and rewatch the pilot as I do not remember anyone stating that becoming pregnant was against the law and that people were forced to get robot children.
 
#18 ·
Having Halle Berry is only a big deal because she's a film actress doing a TV show. It still seems that acting in films is considered more prestigious than acting in television, so networks like to blow their own horns a bit whenever they snag someone from the movie world, as it allows them to bill the show as being extra super awesome if they were able to convince a big name from the film world to be in it.

It does seem, however, that the notion of film being better than TV is starting to change, in no small part due to the high quality of many of the shows the cable networks are generating (and what seems to be the trend of serious storytellers moving towards TV in order to avoid the plotless explosionfests that are modern movies).
 
#19 ·
Questions arise from HB's space station pregnancy: How well was equipment cleaned before orbit? What was she doing with the gear during her long stay? (Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge-nudge).


Anyway, since CBS's new series finally doesn't center on law enforcement, I've set my DVR. -- John
 
#21 ·
I'm in!
 
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#32 ·
I don't know which scenes (or even movies) you're talking about, and I feel bad for the women on this forum who may read your posts, since you never seem to rate actresses based on their ability to act...

I just hope Halle Berry has been given enough material to do a good show. I'm not convinced that another fictional future with robotic children is going to have enough interesting elements to sustain an entire season, let alone several seasons of good TV.
 
#33 ·
I don't know which scenes (or even movies) you're talking about, and I feel bad for the women on this forum who may read your posts, since you never seem to rate actresses based on their ability to act...
When the director wants you topless on a lawn chair, it's not because he thinks you're a good enough actress to pull it off convincingly - it's because there's something there that's going to look good on screen.

Personally, I don't think she can act at all. I once thought she might have some talent in there somewhere, but after that dreadful 911 Operator movie, I now seriously doubt it. Complimenting her physical attributes instead of her acting ability - IMO - is an act of mercy.
 
#37 ·
As for most shows I'll always give them the pilot and maybe a couple of more eps to make a judgement. (Dominion I only could tolerate 2 and I was out)

I hope Hale Berry delivers in TV, ala Mads Mikkelsen
 
#38 ·
I take it that this is intended as a one-season-and-done series? If not, it's going to be hard to explain why Berry's robo-son looks older in Season 2.
 
#42 ·
It's called suspension of disbelief. Nobody complained that Brent Spiner kept aging over the course of TNG's seven years, even though Data was an android. I agree with rezzy that there will probably be some plot device to explain the robochild's aging (or it will "die" before the season is through).
 
#51 ·
A self-lengthening android? Those will be all over the place in 20yrs. This is looking like A.I. meets Contact, but I'll watch the pilot if nothing else...
with a mix of "Aliens"..She should be good for a couple of extra Nielsen points in the ratings..:D
 
#46 ·
I think the plan for this show is it's a midi-series. "One and done" - 13 episodes and it's over. So they won't have to worry about the child aging thing.

Of course, 'Under the Dome' was supposed to be a "one and done" summer fill-in, too. Then lots of people had to go and watch it, leading to a second season even worse than the first (based on extrapolating from what's already been aired).
 
#57 ·
Nothing I haven't seen before (so far), but I'm on board. The subplots could keep it interesting for a while. Spielberg-produced network programs tend to not fare very well, so Extant needs to go somewhere fast and not do the LOST thing. This is going to get "eyeballs" simply because of Berry, and coupled with strong writing could turn out to be a winner.
 
#60 ·
Geesh, 3/4s of the lower 48 time zones have seen it, but the number of comments is extremely slim.

DVR viewers need to watch it yet, in order to skip the ads? :D
 
#63 ·
DVR viewers need to watch it yet, in order to skip the ads? :D
This HD DVR viewer watched it, skipping most of the ads.

This show has potential and it kept me interested. However,
I'll admit when I saw the visitor to the space station, I though it might be getting close to a Vulcan mind meld, since during the meld the two people start speaking the same words. But before all that hands-touching-face scene, the awkward vocabulary suggested to me an otherworldly entity or extraterrestrial who may have at least initially been echoing the words the late astronaut might have uttered in a weird circumstance.

And when I saw that the visitor did not show up on the camera, I thought of two different titles, (1) Dracula: Dead and Loving It (his reflection wasn't seen in the mirror), and (2) The A.N.T. Farm episode where Cameron imagined the model, so he saw the model, danced with the model, etc., but the dance pictures showed him alone because it was all a vivid imagination sparked by the cover girl to a fashion magazine.

And when I saw John work on an adult-sized device, flashes of Frankenstein Unbound went through my mind.​

Yes, I think the series looks like it has lots of potential and, so far, it has hooked me. I hope they do good with it and not lose me like Lost lost me by being too loose about sticking to the premise and furthering the core story.
 
#64 ·
Great... Hiroyuki Sanada is in charge of the evil corporation. Fasten your seatbelts for more dull revelations, like, "Oh, there's a basement in this facility," and, "Oh, you're my son," as episode cliffhangers, while he never gives a straight answer to anything people actually ask him.



Anyway, I thought it was good for CBS, but that's not saying much. At first I thought the dead boyfriend/husband was an alien doing the typical "taking a familiar form so as to not frighten the silly human" behaviour, but judging from the evil corporation scenes and previews, it seems more likely that the source of the mind control was humans' doing in order to impregnate her with whatever it is. At least she got to spend 13 months with TIM? The Tomorrow People live on! :D

My minor gripes included:

  • The station apparently still uses incandescent lightbulbs in 2100, since Molly burned her hand on one. Way to make an energy-efficient space station of the future, guys.
  • The station is called "Seraphim", even though there is apparently only one of it. Maybe it has dissociative identity disorder. (That might also explain the malfunctions!)
  • The husband says that Molly had better get used to Ethan, because he was as close as they were going to get to having a son. ...or they could just adopt, the way any normal, sane couple would.

I've heard of wives complaining about husbands who bring their work home, but John takes that behaviour to an entirely new level. :p
 
#104 ·
Great... Hiroyuki Sanada is in charge of the evil corporation. Fasten your seatbelts for more dull revelations, like, "Oh, there's a basement in this facility," and, "Oh, you're my son," as episode cliffhangers, while he never gives a straight answer to anything people actually ask him.
That's because, and I'm sure we all remember..., he hates the way english tastes on his tongue. ;)
 
#66 ·
My take is it played a little too dramatic, they could lose the robot arc (too distracting from the main plot for a short run - perhaps they are tied together...) and the only WTF moment was when she deleted the security footage... no way she would have access to it.

Now it didn't bother me but why the heck is the trash bin located outside the house? Seems to me they would simply run the piping or installed the process in the house itself. Or was it simply stored in the unit for later pickup?
 
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#73 ·
and the only WTF moment was when she deleted the security footage... no way she would have access to it.
And you know that how? You didn't design the station or the software. If something were to happen on the station, like it did, the person on that station would have to have the ability to view any and all security footage.

Having the ability to delete it is another issue. Access is not.
 
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