Extant - Series Premiere - Recap: Space Oddity

And it's a good hook, in that it doesn't really hurt the pilot to know these things beforehand. Sure, I'd have preferred to go in blind, but as a TV reviewer/critic/whatever, it's hard to avoid these sorts of things. So it helps that the pilot is built around a story that is more about character than mystery. In every sense, this pilot is a setup for the future, succinctly establishing the world, the story and the complicated relationships at its heart without giving us a particular excess of plot in the way other drama pilots have in recent years. For this reason, I found the pilot totally engaging, as it keeps a refreshing, slightly urgent pace, and cultivates an atmosphere of relentless dread and unease.

Credit: CBS

For as hyped as this was, "Re-Entry" is about as good as pilots come, especially for a series that couches so much of its premise in mystery. Yes, I want to know how Halle got pregnant, and I want to know why her robot son is reacting strangely to her, and why her former colleague faked his own death, and why her dead ex is appearing to her in hallucinations. These are all questions I want the answers to at some point; but the strength of "Re-Entry" is that, once the credits rolled, I didn't feel the need to have those answers right now, because the characters surrounding those mysteries felt worthy of investment. And that's not always the case in pilots for even the best of shows. In short, this pilot left me feeling that Extant is off to a strong start.

Credit: CBS

The story is fairly straightforward: Molly Woods (Halle Berry) is an astronaut in the near future who has just returned home following a 13-month solo mission. She's happy to be home, but she hasn't exactly been feeling all that great, physically. She's been vomiting a lot and generally dealing with nausea and headaches, which she attributes to her body struggling to readjust to Earth's atmosphere. But things take a turn for the supernatural in a hurry when she learns that she's pregnant...after being alone for well over a year, and after years upon years of infertility. It's a phenomenon she can't really explain, and it shocks her to her core.

Or does it?

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What I'd initially chalked up to a weirdly ineffectual performance from Berry actually appears to be purposeful as the pilot continues: if Molly is underplaying how shocked she is about her sudden pregnancy, it's not because she isn't stunned, but because she might actually know more than she's leading on. For one, her 13-month mission wasn't exactly uneventful. While running calculations (or whatever it is astronauts do when they're stuck by themselves in the vacuum of space for over a year), she is visited by a hallucination of the long-dead love of her life, who scrawls the words "HELP ME" on the door window, and who speaks with the robotic cadence of...well, a robot. Somebody who doesn't entirely know how to be human, and has only theoretical experience when it comes to talking. This projection of "Marcus" touches her face and her womb, suggesting that he could very well be responsible for her unexplained pregnancy. Not that anyone will believe Molly anyway, since Marcus doesn't turn up in any of the security footage. So now Molly is left with all this stuff she can't explain, and people she can't really explain it to. Case in point, her husband John (Goran Visnjic), a leading scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, who feels that Molly doesn't view their robot son Ethan (Pierce Gagnon) as a real boy.

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And he's not exactly wrong. While Molly does view Ethan as her son, she doesn't really think of him as a real boy. In an outburst back at home, Molly argues that their son isn't displaying human emotions, but is simply acting out programmed responses, since he's incapable of feeling those emotions honestly. This is a blow to John's ego, particularly since he just bombed during a presentation to investors about the possibility of moving even further ahead with the artificial intelligence. Granted, this is mostly his own fault for proudly trumpeting that, thanks to free will, there's no failsafe to prevent a robot uprising, as if that's something everyone was supposed to be happy to hear. Naturally, this leads to more tension in the marriage, and I kind of enjoyed that so much of the pilot was centered on this unusual family dynamic, as Molly struggles to figure out why her son is treating her so strangely, while her husband wonders if he'd even be in Molly's life if not for the death of Marcus. It's stuff that would actually work even without the sci-fi trappings. My only issue is the complete lack of any chemistry whatsoever between Berry and Visnjic, but then, I wonder if that's not on purpose. Focusing more on the characters than on the sensationalist mystery aspects was a big risk that proves wise from a narrative standpoint.

Credit: CBS

With that said, I could have done without the resurfacing of Berry's conspiracy-obsessed colleague, who has long been thought dead, and who is insisting that Molly avoid trusting anybody. It just seems too cliche by half, and overwrought to the point of camp. But the rest of the episode surrounding this was strong enough not to shake my faith in the series. And really, that's the big takeaway here: the writing is solid and Berry is even better, to say nothing of the intrigue of the premise. I'm legitimately fascinated to see where this goes. Will Extant be the show of the summer? Maybe, maybe not. But it's certainly off to a great start.