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Pinwiz11
Jan 26, 2009

I'm becom-, I'm becom-,
I'm becoming
Tana in, Tana in my mind.





Extant is a new SciFi series on CBS that tells the story of Astronaut Molly Woods (Academy Award Winner Halle Berry) who returns to Earth after a 13-month solo mission. As she tries to reconnect with her family, it becomes clear that something unusual happened during the mission. Wackiness ensues.

The series is brought to you by Amblin Entertainment, the people who brought you Under the Dome and... HEY. COME BACK HERE. I know we've been burned before but this show can't possibly be worse. At the very least the show concept isn't as limiting as that stupid loving Dome and I have faith in most of the actors to sell the story.

The Cast:

Halle Berry as Astronaut Molly Woods
Goran Visnjic as her husband John Woods
Pierce Gagnon as their son/"son" Ethan Woods
Camryn Manheim as her friend/coworker Sam Barton
Hiroyuki Sanada as Hideki Yasumoto (previously seen on Helix :gonk:)
Grace Gummer as Julie Gelineau
Michael O'Neill as Alvin Sparks

(Remember when they would put up cast photos and quick descriptions of the characters on a website that you can easily put into a OP to make it more interesting? Thanks for nothing, CBS.)

Extant premieres on Wednesday, July 9 at 9:00 PM Eastern for a 13 episode run.

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MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

Pinwiz11 posted:

The series is brought to you by Amblin Entertainment, the people who brought you Under the Dome and... HEY. COME BACK HERE. I know we've been burned before but this show can't possibly be worse. At the very least the show concept isn't as limiting as that stupid loving Dome and I have faith in most of the actors to sell the story.

The Cast:

Hiroyuki Sanada as Hideki Yasumoto (previously seen on Helix :gonk:)


Oh god, why would you tell us about this. Now I have to at least watch the pilot. :psyduck:

Pinwiz11
Jan 26, 2009

I'm becom-, I'm becom-,
I'm becoming
Tana in, Tana in my mind.



Bumping the thread back up in anticipation.

OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Xoidanor posted:

Oh god, why would you tell us about this. Now I have to at least watch the pilot. :psyduck:

Hiroyuki Sanada was like, half the reason I watched the entire series of Helix (other half was Billy Campbell's whisper growling acting), so I've gone from "I might as well watch the first episode on Amazon Prime" to "yay Hiroyuki Sanada is in this".

(Helix wasn't that bad. It was really stupid, cheesy sci fi, and it was stupid fun :colbert:)

Amazon are really plugging this in the UK, since Prime is the only place you can watch it over here. They want to be a big draw, so hopefully they've backed something at least entertaining.

Odoyle
Sep 9, 2003
Odoyle Rules!
So this is :lost: in Space?

Pinwiz11
Jan 26, 2009

I'm becom-, I'm becom-,
I'm becoming
Tana in, Tana in my mind.



The nice thing is that almost all of the main plot points from the commercials were in the first 15 minutes.

A A 2 3 5 8 K
Nov 24, 2003
Illiteracy... what does that word even mean?
Extant: The Astronaut's Husband's Wife

ElectricSheep
Jan 14, 2006

she had tiny Italian boobs.
Well that's my story.
Pierce Gagnon was a creepy little fucker in Looper and I'm kind of tempted to watch just to see what they'll do with him.

vvVVVVvv

ElectricSheep fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Jul 10, 2014

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.
That loving kid is a demon monster and needs to be killed.

Rena
Aug 21, 2012

"Things are...disasterrific."
Well this managed to hook be better than most pilots, I'm not super excited but it has me interested. Over the top, but the actors are doing well selling it for the most part, and it reminded me of the good parts of Caprica.

...Not that great with the sex scene in spaaaace, Berry seems more robotic then her admirer there.

The last line was a peach though :allears: I knew an Under the Dome-esque line would slip in somewhere.

Anticheese
Feb 13, 2008

$60,000,000 sexbot
:rodimus:

At least it isn't Falling Skies.

Pinwiz11
Jan 26, 2009

I'm becom-, I'm becom-,
I'm becoming
Tana in, Tana in my mind.



The big twist that I didn't expect was that it was apparently a vision and not an alien (for now) that Molly encountered so that was a surprise.

Factor Mystic
Mar 20, 2006

Baby's First Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Pinwiz11 posted:

The big twist that I didn't expect was that it was apparently a vision and not an alien (for now) that Molly encountered so that was a surprise.

I'm most interested in that the SpaceCorp guys were fully aware that it wasn't a normal plama burst and that it had happened before with Didn't Kill Himself Afterall Guy. Almost like they're running an experiment, putting people in this situation. That's interesting. What are they up to and why?

Slamhound
Mar 27, 2010
So it's a combination of Solaris and AI, with probably some Blade Runner and I, Robot down the line.

Sure, what the hell. I'm in.

Pyzza Rouge
Jun 25, 2011

La Mano de Dios

Slamhound posted:

So it's a combination of Solaris and AI, with probably some Alien, Blade Runner, and I, Robot down the line.

Sure, what the hell. I'm in.

The baby ain't human. :unsmigghh:

Anyone else irked by how casually people are treating an android that's emulating people so well? Spanish husband didn't just invent androids, he perfected* them on his first try. That's singularity-level hardware and software some guy jury-rigged from his garage. If the next episode doesn't involve him flying to Sweden and accepting a Nobel Prize I'll be shocked.

Sanada's brunch scene was nice, every scene involving food so far has been decent let's have more of those.

*Apart from the demonic possession bug, but that's basically unavoidable.

EDIT: I remember Amblin Entertainment from the Power Rangers, which sort of explains Under the Dome to me now. Hopefully this will be less geared for children than their previous shows.

Pyzza Rouge fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Jul 11, 2014

Anticheese
Feb 13, 2008

$60,000,000 sexbot
:rodimus:

El Murguista posted:

The baby ain't human. :unsmigghh:

Anyone else irked by how casually people are treating an android that's emulating people so well? Spanish husband didn't just invent androids, he perfected* them on his first try. That's singularity-level hardware and software some guy jury-rigged from his garage. If the next episode doesn't involve him flying to Sweden and accepting a Nobel Prize I'll be shocked.

Sanada's brunch scene was nice, every scene involving food so far has been decent let's have more of those.

*Apart from the demonic possession bug, but that's basically unavoidable.

EDIT: I remember Amblin Entertainment from the Power Rangers, which sort of explains Under the Dome to me now. Hopefully this will be less geared for children than their previous shows.

Children have no souls anyway, so this robot is working precisely as intended.

The real answer is because him getting a Nobel and recognition in his field would undercut the plot about his miracle bot being forced to accept funding from a mysterious, possibly evil immortal Japanese scientist.

Josh Lyman
May 24, 2009


While searching for the trailer, I came across this comment, which I have full reason to believe is 100% sincere:

"I'm watching the show right now and I'm wondering what year it's supposed to be. The lack of information it irritating since Molly and her husband have a "child" who isn't their biological kid. He's supposed to have been created by her husband. We should be told what's going on instead of having to try to figure out what's going on!"

This is why we can't have nice things. :(

Also, the pilot was fine. Not great, but I'll watch since it's a summer miniseries.

Kin
Nov 4, 2003

Sometimes, in a city this dirty, you need a real hero.
So does Academy Award Winner Halle Berry have a clause that whenever anything ever references her name it has to be Academy Award Winner Halle Berry?

It seems that over the last few years, whenever her name is mentioned it's always led by the Academy Award Winner, for the award she won almost 10 years ago.

I think she's been in so many bad things since then that not only does it nullify the award she got, but it should be the references for her name:

Catwoman's Halle Berry
Movie 43's Halle Berry
Dark Tide's Halle Berry
New Years Eve's Halle Berry

and so on.

I've still to watch the first episode but Academy Award Winner Halle Berry doesn't really strike me with the confidence in a show that I think the marketing is trying to.

Josh Lyman
May 24, 2009


Kin posted:

So does Academy Award Winner Halle Berry have a clause that whenever anything ever references her name it has to be Academy Award Winner Halle Berry?

It seems that over the last few years, whenever her name is mentioned it's always led by the Academy Award Winner, for the award she won almost 10 years ago.

I think she's been in so many bad things since then that not only does it nullify the award she got, but it should be the references for her name:

Catwoman's Halle Berry
Movie 43's Halle Berry
Dark Tide's Halle Berry
New Years Eve's Halle Berry

and so on.

I've still to watch the first episode but Academy Award Winner Halle Berry doesn't really strike me with the confidence in a show that I think the marketing is trying to.
It's possible, but usually Oscar and Emmy winners are advertised as such for obvious reasons.

SHVPS4DETH
Mar 19, 2009

seen so much i'm going blind
and i'm brain-dead virtually





Ramrod XTreme

A A 2 3 5 8 K posted:

Extant: The Astronaut's Husband's Wife

Exactly correct. Up until the twist I was bored as hell, but after I'm hooked for at least another few episodes. You'd think Spielberg would want to take the opportunity to do something stylistically different than A.I. but no, exact same muted palette and gentle focus. Also the "SOULS are REAL!"/"ohoho you still believe in GAWD dummy?!" part had me rolling my eyes a bit just from how heavy-handed the dialogue was.

Cuddly Tumblemumps
Aug 23, 2013

Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to what is worth pursuing and in the name of what one should pursue it.

Pinwiz11 posted:

The big twist that I didn't expect was that it was apparently a vision and not an alien (for now) that Molly encountered so that was a surprise.

Depends on how alien intelligence manifests itself. Spielberg only portrays benevolent alien contact/intent.

Let's go full sperg on this and project the course of the first season:

My early speculation is that there some some sort of aliens that are saving humanity from extinction through genetic fiddling with astronauts (check how show logo/title shifts and interviews with Goran/Slavic Computer Dad and Husband of Astronautberry). The Eeeeviiillll corporate/government interests do not understand the alien experiments but still send astronauts out there to do their own experiments on the astronauts the aliens are experimenting on or some such horseshit. There will be a revelation of what all the experiments have in common, maybe the aliens are hiding secret messages in 'junk DNA' so that the show can pull some TNG-esque hand-waving misexplaination of epigenetics #discovermagazine #IFLScience.

Maybe the aliens helped guide human evolution and are activating fail safe codes to prevent an incoming plague or allow for adaptation to space so that humanity can flee a dying earth into the stars.

The alien intent will be misunderstood and the antagonists will react in some oversimplified Spielberg-attempting-to-be-Cameron's-Abyss manner and the super advanced robot kid will somehow find a way to show the truth to the antagonist/alien doubters/people who are trying to exploit alien genome additions in Solar Flare Astofetus, this will somehow imply that the android has what can be seen as a soul (because the humans are too dumb to just accept that maybe android intelligence can parse the advanced alien intelligence or some such horseshit and maybe androids don't necessarily need to have souls to receive or discover insight into alien horseshit). It will be cheesy and awful, like the Blue Fairy poo poo from AI and we will again wonder why we trust Spielberg with anything anymore. It probably won't be as awful as any potential to portray Astronautberry's Solar Flare Fetus as an immaculate conception, if we're lucky all the Catholic subtext will be ignored in favor of Perseus's conception via a rain of gold and instead of being yet another boring loving Messiah the Solar Flare Fetus is instead going to be some Clash of Titans poo poo, promising more exciting hijinks from future seasons if this show continues on.

The precious and precocious day saving android moment will bring Skeptic Slavic Computer Dad and Husband to Astronaut towards having faith in the unseen but benevolent alien power as some metaphor/extension of pure faith through critical thinking, opening him to adopt and love Solar Flare Astrofetus as his own miraculous child just as Astronautberry comes to accept creepy android kid as a child capable of love because of his miraculous world saving insight that is so far beyond mere human comprehension has to be a soul.

Cuddly Tumblemumps fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jul 12, 2014

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang
Back when Helix premiered I predicted in that thread that we were in for a third wave of dollar store LOST rip-offs, and between this and a couple other shows that just started airing I think it's about time we start bracing ourselves for this poo poo. Using Helix as a calibration point, I think it might be possible that we're in for even worse than The Event and V. Good luck and God bless, see you all on the other side.

Pyzza Rouge
Jun 25, 2011

La Mano de Dios

Cuddly Tumblemumps posted:

words predicting Alien Vs. Corporation, Skeptic Slavic Computer Dad accepting Solar Flare Astrofetus, and Astronautberry accepting creepy android kid (you lost me with the Catholicism and Hercules stuff however)

This will probably definitely end up happening. Which is unfortunate for us because if they got divorced we'd get to see the precedential custody battle for a devilbot and a martian baby.

Cuddly Tumblemumps
Aug 23, 2013

Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to what is worth pursuing and in the name of what one should pursue it.

El Murguista posted:

This will probably definitely end up happening. Which is unfortunate for us because if they got divorced we'd get to see the precedential custody battle for a devilbot and a martian baby.

re: Catholic vs. Greek/Classical Mythology: If Solar Flare Astrofetus is a unique result of alien meddling then the immaculate/unseen 'father' could result in the Catholic Messiah type savior of humanity, right? But in Greek mythology Perseus was conceived when a frustrated Zeus rained himself down on Perseus's mother in the form of a golden rain since her dad had locked her up to prevent the conception of a hero foretold to overthrow him blah blah blah. Perseus was a badass hero that did all sorts of cool poo poo and a hero along those lines could be used to expand the universe of Extant and fight bad guys or something, oooooorrrr we could get stuck with a boring, placid enlightened Martian Baby that gets played off of the Devilbot kid. If it gets super awful and decides to mirror pop-Biblical mythology poo poo seen in other current TV shows the Martian Messiah kid will actually be Martian Abel and Devilbot will be Cain and maybe humanity will be doomed to extinction because Devilbot ain't his half(????)-brother's keeper. And also somehow angels, probably aliens as angels. This means the end of S1 is Devilbot Cain killing Martian Abel, cliffhanger as some weird poo poo starts happening, S2 opens with some alien freakishly manifesting as some Book of Enoch bad-trip wrathful angelic being with five flame shooting heads coming to enlighten humanity. They probably won't have the effects budget for that, so we'll get something with slightly better production values than the episode of X-Files about Nephilim where Scully looks upon the true face of a Seraphim (S5E17).

The aliens may be presented as some inter-dimensional beings that we can only perceive and interact with as energy disturbances, a departure from them being fully corporeal and just being silicon based lifeforms in traditional scifi/cyberpunk depictions. This is be an edgy departure and lend itself to an 'immaculate conception' for Solar Flare Astrofetus since Astronautberry was making freaky either with a total hallucination or an alien intelligence screwing with her electrical brainwaves because woah wouldn't it be like totally spooky if aliens could rewrite genetic code by interacting with humans on levels that we do not understand, so much so that it feels like magic/supernatural intervention. Even the least educated viewer is aware that radiation poo poo can mutate things? So how far fetched is benevolent alien technology remotely rewriting human DNA to save us from extinction, facilitating the interactions via 'hacking' our brains with 'hallucinations' from the X'th Dimension? OoOoOoooooOoOo. :ghost:

Aliens as inter-dimensional or energy beings could be used to reinforce the connections to any bullshit religious/mythological allegory because what if we were always in contact with them but could never see them before without our science (or peyote).

All told though I really do hope that this show doesn't turn into some pop trainwreck of science vs. spirituality anxiety filtered through the abuse of classic texts. If it does I hope that we at least get a shot of a naked Goran Visnjic/Skeptic Slavic Computer Dad as a consolation prize.

wormil
Sep 12, 2002

Hulk will smoke you!
I almost didn't watch the premiere since Halle Berry was attached but have to admit it was better than expected (she wasn't). I'm curious where this will go.

Damiya
Jul 3, 2012
so did anyone watch episode 2 tonight? I'm becoming more intrigued, though there's a lot of touching around the edges of the mysteries. looking forward to seeing where they take things

wormil
Sep 12, 2002

Hulk will smoke you!
I feel like a lot happens but the end surprised me both episodes because it also felt like nothing happened. I can't explain it any better than that.

This is going to be one of those perpetual mystery shows that gets cancelled with a season one cliffhanger. I should stop watching now.

Baloogan
Dec 5, 2004
Fun Shoe

wormil posted:

This is going to be one of those perpetual mystery shows that gets cancelled with a season one cliffhanger. I should stop watching now.

SHVPS4DETH
Mar 19, 2009

seen so much i'm going blind
and i'm brain-dead virtually





Ramrod XTreme
I feel like the first 40 minutes of each episode are just table-setting for the last 20 minutes and it's going to get really tiresome if they keep following that formula. And yet, I'm compelled by the last few moments to watch again next week.

So is her husband just emotionally cheating with his colleague or are they loving?

Binary Logic
Dec 28, 2000

Fun Shoe

wormil posted:

I feel like a lot happens but the end surprised me both episodes because it also felt like nothing happened. I can't explain it any better than that.

This is going to be one of those perpetual mystery shows that gets cancelled with a season one cliffhanger. I should stop watching now.

I'm worried about that too except alien-induced pregnancies usually go faster than normal. Really hoping 'baby' is born before the end of Season 1.
I think there's some connection between the 'alien' fetus and the husband's work in robotics and AI. Like, the ISEA has implanted a robot seed to germinate/develop like a human right from 'conception' so it will be born, raised and develop as a human.

But that's impossible.

VorpalBunny
May 1, 2009

Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog
I just feel like there are no real stakes in this show. Everyone is so...calm about everything. She had a crazy vision in space, is halfway through a mysterious pregnancy (while not showing, kudos for her I guess) but isn't freaking out about it or really doing anything about it even though she's supposedly infertile, and she learned her friend faked his own death to hide from the people she works for. And she seems cool with it all, not even really upset at anything.

This feels like Under the Dome, interesting premise drowning in lazy dramatics and frustrating character development. Or the V remake. I'm only sticking with it for another episode for the cool sci-fi touches, but if nothing else really happens then I'm out.

Pinwiz11
Jan 26, 2009

I'm becom-, I'm becom-,
I'm becoming
Tana in, Tana in my mind.



It's still keeping my interest, but I agree about the tone. Can we get a bit more emotion?

ShakeZula
Jun 17, 2003

Nobody move and nobody gets hurt.

SHUPS 4 DETH posted:

So is her husband just emotionally cheating with his colleague or are they loving?

I get the sense it was completely one-sided on the colleague's part, and the husband was just kind of working and spending time with her as a friend and business partner. Otherwise, if he told Molly "I had a lot of fun with her while you were gone" and was referring to an affair, that's a pretty stone-cold/scumbag move by him and would change that character significantly.

Binary Logic
Dec 28, 2000

Fun Shoe

ShakeZula posted:

I get the sense it was completely one-sided on the colleague's part, and the husband was just kind of working and spending time with her as a friend and business partner. Otherwise, if he told Molly "I had a lot of fun with her while you were gone" and was referring to an affair, that's a pretty stone-cold/scumbag move by him and would change that character significantly.

It's the future maybe they have a more relaxed attitude towards sex, like in Sleeper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isrd7E5nzIQ

No, if anything I think the co-worker is going to turn out be obsessed with the husband but he's career-oriented and about as emotional as little Ethan.

Fiendish Dr. Wu
Nov 11, 2010

You done fucked up now!
Dumb Woman: Believe it or not, Dr. Woods, there are plenty of people in this world who still believe there is more to us that can be explained by science.

Dr. Woods: Well... those people are idiots.

Dumb Woman: I am one of those idiots.

Dr. Woods: I'm sorry.

Dumb Woman: I accept your apology.

Dr. Woods: No. I mean I'm sorry you are one of those idiots.

Fiendish Dr. Wu fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jul 20, 2014

oneof27
May 27, 2007
DSMtalker
Dr. Woods: Can I have your money now?

ChickenMedium
Sep 2, 2001
Forum Veteran And Professor Emeritus of Condiment Studies
Dr. Woods: Google pays a billion dollars for apps that tell you the perfect time to get a haircut; I've designed and built a living, learning machine.

Dumb Woman: Not interested.

Pinwiz11
Jan 26, 2009

I'm becom-, I'm becom-,
I'm becoming
Tana in, Tana in my mind.



Oh thank god she told him.

spronk
Feb 5, 2011

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
Still enjoying this show, a lot better than I expected it to be.

The kid is both awesome and creepy.

spronk fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jul 24, 2014

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Maduo
Sep 8, 2006

You see all the colors.
All of them.


That kid manages to get on just the right side of both creepy kid acting and creepy robot acting. It's really impressive.

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