Extant

Extant borrows liberally from various sources -- Artificial Intelligence, Rosemary’s Baby to name just two – and tosses them together into a puree. The show is entertaining, solidly crafting, but does suffer from a sense of bloat during the middle run of episodes. At only thirteen, I would think that they would have been able to maintain the suspense and moral inquiries much easier with a smaller set of episodes.

There’s actually a lot of juggling that any episode of Extant is trying to keep in the air at any given moment. In-between the main premise of Molly (Halle Berry) returning to Earth from a 13-month solo space mission pregnant, there’s also her husband’s career in android and robotic machinery results in the creation of the world’s most advanced android child, government conspiracies and corruption, and a late in the game terrorist. That last addition wasn’t particularly well thought out or executed, appearing for only a handful of episodes before being wrapped up unsatisfactorily.

For much of the first half of the show, Molly is an unreliable narrator. Much of what she does and sees doesn’t make any logical sense, and no one else can see what she does. But her paranoia and hallucinations are eventually proven to be accurate reactions to the phenomena around her. Berry is clearly game for everything the show can throw at her, and it’s nice, refreshing even, to see her actively engaged with material. She’s never been a consistent actress, but when she’s on-point she can be quite effective, and she’s very effective in Extant.

The other major players are Goran Visnjic as Molly’s husband and Pierce Gagnon as the robotic son. Visnjic is very pretty to look at, but limited as an actor. And many of his scenes detailing how Ethan’s programming is capable of making him like a “real boy” feel borrowed over from better franchises, and any worries about an android uprising are a foreign concept to him. Apparently he’s never read or watched any sci-fi in the last 50 years. Visnjic cannot overcome the weaknesses of his character and make something better from the material. Gagnon, on the other hand, should join the creepy kid annuls based on his ability to keep his face emotionless while providing ominous inflections in his voice. It’s a pity that the darkness surrounding his character is never fully explored or allowed to shine, and he winds up feeling more like a plot device in the end than a realized portrait of artificial intelligence gaining humanity.

Yet Extant does manage to ready itself for a satisfying conclusion to the major story-lines, even if certain characters that seemed to be bigger deals are revealed to have faintly ridiculous backgrounds and disappear entirely from the series (Hiroyuki Sanada’s Yasumoto being the primary focus of this). The show wraps up the major plot points, while leaving the faintest possibility for a second season. I feel like Extant is the kind of story that cannot sustain itself over several years, and having a fairly artistically successful 13 episode run is what’s best for all involved.