Extrapolations

Even more impressive is the way “Extrapolations” balances macro and intimate data. That keeps the show fresh and persuasive, with a constant flow of intriguing issues and perspectives. Sometimes the scripts get didactic. ... But “Extrapolations” generally prioritizes compelling characters in heartrending situations over messages. Burns may preach to the save-the-planet choir here, but he knows that the only way to make a lasting impression is to put on a good show.

“Extrapolations” could be so much more than just a series imparting a message. The show is at its best when the rich ensemble gets to not proselytize but instead embody real people caught up in the push and pull of the fate of the planet. When the show operates at its highest level, it’s hard for the viewers not to see themselves in them.

In oftentimes harrowing fashion, "Extrapolations" looks at one possible future while offering enough scientific know-how to keep the series exciting even in the bleakest of times.

There’s a lot to admire about the show’s ambitions, even if they’re not fully realized. ... I like that “Extrapolations” is asking serious questions. It’s not a hectoring approach but one designed to be entertaining, its themes delivered in a gleaming package filled with boldface names.

While solid and glossy, as an environmental warning siren, Extrapolations feels like a missed opportunity, almost undone by incessant speechifying.

You may tire of the message Scott Burns is trying to get across by the end of Extrapolations‘ eight episodes, but there are moments in there that will be affecting and effective. You just may have to try your luck to find them.

It’s a humane, carefully constructed but often frustrating project—and one that illustrates why insightful art about the climate crisis has proven so elusive.

Extrapolations is at its best when it finds the sweet spot between lecturing and enlightening, but these moments don’t come frequently enough. More often it finds itself stuck at the student debate level set in the first episode.

This big-budget, A-list-stuffed dystopian vision has occasionally shaky execution, but worthy intentions, and some intriguing future-concepts peppered among the sillier ones.

Extrapolations does sometimes compel. But when opposing speechifiers go at it hammer and tongs about causes, effects and solutions, it can drag like a long night at the debating soc.

Together with the dull, discolored and unremarkable visual palette we’ve come to expect from speculative fiction that really wants to be taken seriously, Extrapolations often feels like it’s challenging you to stay focused on the screen. It’s noteworthy as a collective effort in arguing that hope will survive in humanity’s darkest days, but by playing straight some pretty silly material.

True, “Extrapolations” has its heart in the right place but its pedantic volume rises just like the sea level and all but overwhelms the characters and the drama itself, spinning the whole enterprise sadly right off its storytelling axis.

This lack of character development renders the show’s big, dramatic confrontations inert.

Scott Z. Burns’ AppleTV+ climate crisis anthology series squanders an urgent premise and star-studded cast with preachy drama and one dimensional characters.

When characters aren’t laboring through expository dialogue about how the bees are almost all gone and why a Miami synagogue is falling into the ocean, they’re asserting again and again that humans are too flawed not to fail at saving the planet, and themselves. This conclusion isn’t necessarily wrong, but it neutralizes any momentum the show might have had.

Extrapolations is both patronising and predictable.

The show works a bit like a breezy and brisk collection of linked short stories, constantly moving forward, continually showing new consequences of our own inaction. Keeping the characters flat and underserved, though, makes the lavishly depicted world they inhabit feel less like a matter of concern. ... Clumsy in its delivery of information, “Extrapolations” is also maudlin where “Black Mirror” is icy.

The cast is star-studded, and the production design lavish. But all this gravitas comes at the expense of the human characters who should be at the center of its stories, turning the series into a well-intentioned but mostly dry series of discussions.