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Critic Reviews
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Though Extant is competently made, it shares a problem with another new TV show with a big name attached. Like "Extant," "The Strain," which arrives Sunday and boasts Guillermo Del Toro as one of its executive producers, feels kind of bland and bloodless.
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Extant is more deft and sophisticated [than season two of "Under the Dome"], and Halle Berry is a big star. But, as is the case with "Under the Dome," the new series dilutes its own mystique with too many plodding plot devices and stock characters.
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You’re left to wonder about what she sees, or whether she believes what she sees, a set of questions that might be intriguing (watching her distraught face as she watches herself) or annoying (watching her vaguely worried face as she spots a stranger at the end of her driveway in the dead of night).
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One hour out of 13 isn't enough to tell if the many questions raised by Extant will be dealt with in any coherent way or whether, this time next summer, we'll still be wondering.
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Aside from the coup of landing Berry--a woman, apparently, irresistible to sentient life throughout the galaxy--the show’s strong cast hints at more promise than the premiere ultimately exhibits, racing as it does to establish a foundation for what’s to come.
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The show clearly plans to unveil the science fiction slowly, in some cases letting us come to certain realizations at the same time as the characters. This will rule out some casual viewers, because Extant is a show to which you must pay attention/--a task which, happily, the writing and acting make rather pleasant.
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It’s an entertaining pilot, full of surprises that should hook viewers and get them engaged for the subsequent 12 episodes. But there’s also the question of whether the show sets about spinning too many mysteries at once.
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The show gets off to a serviceable start--coolly conceived and professionally directed, at least in the one episode shared with critics. Where it goes from here is anybody’s guess at this point, but Extant’s creator and cast seem to be taking things seriously enough as a work of sci-fi origami, folded and layered with a certain precision.
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The lead performances are a tad opaque, and the script feels as though it's telling two separate stories that don't immediately seem as though they'll connect in a graceful way.
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To be blunt, there are better sci-fi shows. The biggest problem is a cold, icy aesthetic that Berry does her best to break through but that feels like the product of a writer’s room that lacks passion.
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Despite having Berry and a sci-fi idea that, while not super-original, is still intriguing, Extant lays flat for most of the hour, failing to set the hook.
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Extant is a hodgepodge that serves up some creepy moments but gets bogged down by the inelegance of its copycat nature. It rumbles when it should roar. It stumbles when it should soar.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 96 out of 161
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Mixed: 31 out of 161
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Negative: 34 out of 161
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Jul 9, 2014
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Jul 11, 2014
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Jul 10, 2014