James Poniewozik
Time
July 9, 2014
This summer drama mashes up a lot of sci-fi premises we've seen before, but in a way that shows potential.
The first episode of Extant (CBS, Wednesdays) establishes with several quick cues that you are looking at the future. When astronaut Molly Woods (Halle Berry) washes up in the bathroom, she pulls up a news feed on the mirror. The garbage can outside her house is a transparent prism that compacts trash elegantly. Also, the show seems to posit an alternative universe in which CBS airs high-profile new dramas and they’re not about cops or lawyers.
That particular aspect of the near-term future has been ushered in by Under the Dome, the loopy but successful Stephen King adaptation that, now in its second season, has turned a small town in Maine into a menacing butterfly garden under glass. Now CBS is premiering Extant, a Steven Spielberg-produced joint about the eerie aftereffects of a long-term space mission ...
MoreAfter watching the following short video clip, I think I'll pass on this one.
Short video clip: Extant: An Inside LookWebsiteWikipediaIMDb