Ascension

My two favorite genres of television are science fiction and mystery. A show like "Extant" combines both of those concepts...though not to extraordinary heights. It is a solid show, but one that hasn't quite moved itself into the "truly great" category yet. The potential, however, is most definitely there.

For a basic plot summary, "Extant" is set far (maybe not so far?) in the future and focuses on Molly Woods (Halle Berry), an astronaut on a solo mission who is impregnated by a mysterious force. After returning to Earth, she realizes that her boss, Alan Sparks (Michael O'Neill), might know more about what he is letting on. Parallel to this storyline, Molly's husband John (Goran Visnjic) is a renowned robotics expert who has adopted his best creation yet, Ethan (Pierce Gagnon), as part of the family.

There are two reasons why I kept tuning into this show week after week:

1. It manages to cover a lot of ground in just 13 episodes. This is not a stagnant, plot-of-the-week show by any means. From the beginning of this first season until the end, the show explores multiple, complex areas and does so in a way that doesn't give them the short shrift, either. Despite all that happened during this season, I never felt that anything was really rushed, either.

2. For fans (like me) of mystery and sci-fi, this show knows how to deliver the goods (maybe Steven Spielberg had something to do with that?!). Do they draw the "core mystery" (Molly's pregnancy and its results) out longer than they should? Probably. But there are so many other interesting things going on in the process that one doesn't ever feel like the proceedings get stale even a bit.

Those things being said, this isn't a "must-watch, all-time classic" show, either. TV watches who don't like the genre will likely find it rather tepid (much of the appeal comes from the sci-fi and futuristic aspects). The human drama of the show is "okay", but again nothing to write home about.

During the summer of 2014, I looked forward to watching "Extant" each week, and that alone is a powerful thing (the show never became a "chore", or I would have bowed out earlier). I hope this show has a future, but I'm not quite sure what it is. Will big-time actress Halle Berry want to commit to a serialized TV role? Can the show come back after a hiatus and re-capture the audience, especially now that the "fresh" factor has worn off and slightly better plots/characters will be needed? I hope to find out, as Season One does not answer nearly enough of the questions viewers want to see resolved. If indeed it does come back at a future date, count me in again!

I had wanted to make individual reviews on each episode of the show, except for one thing: this is not an episodic television show.

You cannot really define the events of this series in terms of what happened in each episode. Most television shows begin with the pilot episode, a few filler episodes, and then you have the sweeps week episodes and then finally the cliffhangers and the double episodes. But this show was not like that and it could not be told like that.

It's better if you just have 13 hours where you can sit and watch this whole thing unravel. Actually I had begun watching this series in groups of three episodes each. I would wait until the episodes had already aired and then I would catch up to them. There were two fine double episodes in episode 7/8 and 9/10 but those episodes were so closely packed with events that they worked out better that way.

This television show focuses on two aspects of a family: A family of flesh and blood from "Molly's" past (or rather a family which would have been had they not been lost to her in an accident) and a family which includes a "Humanich" son in the present, a little boy that for all intents and purposes is a little boy, acts like a little boy, learns like a little boy, and fears like a little boy. A boy which even makes friends with an adult, an adult which has an agenda.

But then there was a question about a child that Molly was carrying in the form of a pregnancy. A child which is Molly's flesh and blood, but also is part extraterrestrial life form. A life form that can show people what they really want to see, that appears able to create alternate realities for the people it comes in contact with: realities which appear so believable that the people so affected cannot define the difference between what might be a hallucination and reality.

Added to the mix is the story of a 140-year-old man whose life was extended by the material from an asteroid, part of which had fallen to earth and kept him alive, A man who appears to have been pulling all the strings, but in reality he is just a player in this tapestry.

All of these disparate parts create a larger picture, A complicated story which you just have to let play out in order to understand how the different parts relate.

I cannot judge the show with the same yardstick that I have used for the X-Files or Fringe or even Lost, which for being quality shows left unresolved story arcs. In this story, there is not one idle word or scene which is not connected to the overall story.

Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending, this is the ending... So far. Usually a good story is satisfying in itself, even without ten seasons of episodes.