Extant Season One
Not Berry good
Release Date: 2 February
2014 | TBC | Blu- ray/ DVD Creator: Mickey Fisher Cast: Halle Berry, Goran Višnjić, Pierce Gagnon, Michael O’Neill, Hiroyuki Sanada
The latest
Spielberg- produced telefantasy series feels like the result of some BOGOF offer on SF plots that have passed their expiration date.
Though lavishly produced, Extant is little more than AI meets Lifeforce with some wincingly- obvious parental metaphors grafted on in an attempt to give it a veneer of depth. John Woods ( Goran Višnjic) is the scientist “dad” to prototype android Ethan. His wife Molly ( Halle Berry) is an astronaut who returns from space impregnated with a perception- altering alien baby.
Over the course of ten episodes there are, perhaps, a couple of moments when the series might have something interesting to say, but these are buried under some of the clunkiest conspiracy- based action- adventure plotting ever committed to screen. The two plots never complement each other on a themic level. Instead, ultimately they seem to be nothing more than a happy coincidence, so that one can provide the resolution to the other.
Berry, with the most irritating fringe and impractical heels ever, is utterly unconvincing as a wife, astronaut, action hero and, indeed, actress, playing crucial moments like Jennifer Aniston in a light comedy. The lad paying Ethan is wonderfully odd, the effects are top- notch and there’s some impressive production design ( a lot of the near- future tech looks like leftovers from a Minority Report brainstorm), but overall, Extant is spirit- sappingly derivative.
A gag reel, trailers and seven featurettes on all the usual behindthe- scenes gubbins ( totalling 89 minutes), but thankfully no gallery of Goran Višnjic’s horrible cardigans. Dave Golder