Extant

It has a good developing story line and I have found the early episodes built up a level of suspense.

The actors have done a good job to get you trapped into it but I have found it a bit confusing having Hiroyuki Sanada playing yet another inscrutable Japanese hate character so soon after Helix.

The series is definitely work watching but I am concerned at the very slow pace. You get to the end of each episode feeling that not much progress has been made. I can only hope that this is not due to a lack of story direction.

I am starting to feel like saving the rest of the episodes of this series and watching them all in one hit to get some sense of pace.

In all, not a bad bit of SciFi and, hopefully, it will start to progress a bit quicker as the plot broadens.

I was intrigued at by the story and the series starts fairly well.

However, it didn't take very long to realise that not a lot was happening by the end of each episode.

It kept teasing that something would happen, but it never did. The pace of the story is too slow in my opinion and then a whole slurry of events happen all at once.

That wasn't a show stopper for me, just a minor gripe.

My biggest problem is Halle Berry's character.

She becomes increasingly annoying as the episodes progress. It came to the point where I just couldn't watch anymore as her character just became to annoying too bear anymore.

Lots of promise, but sadly poorly executed!

After two episodes, I was intrigued although not totally sold. There are definitely some logic issues, and motivations aren't always clear, but I was really curious to see where this is all going.

But while it's kind of held my interest, the season's has proven remarkably devoid of logic. People do hugely stupid things (like go exactly where people would look for you while in hiding), Berry, her husband and her boss seem to be in some emotional fog that prevents her from thinking at all clearly. They're all supposed to be science types, yet there decisions are not just based entirely on emotion; they're based on the id emotions you would expect from a teenager. By the end of the season it would be easier to list the few things that make sense than the vast number that don't.

It's still generally watchable, and keeps me more-or-less interested, but it's quite possibly the dumbest sci-fi show ever made.

Extant has an interesting premise but the execution feels clumsy and overworked. While it is still a good Sci-fi show I think it still needs some time to develop and find it's stride. The positives include the great production values and that it has a blockbuster movie feel. I also think it has the potential to be better it just needs to up the excitement level.

Personally, I'm not thrilled with the casting and find Halle Berry's performance to be quite weak. She needs drama roles to shine but doesn't fare so well with "everyday/normal" roles. It just feels too bland and forced. The rest of the cast are fine, not fantastic, but they do their job.

Overall I think as the story unfolds it will keep me interested. I have noticed that each episode is slightly more interesting than the last so that's a good sign.

"Extant" can go in either the nonsensical direction of shows like "Lost" and "Under The Dome", or it can deliver. It is too early to say which.

The show takes place in a future similar to that from "Almost Human".

It also appears to be influenced by Stanislav Lem's "Solaris".

The episode sparked my interest in just the right ways. It was competently written, acted, filmed, scored. It didn't go for bombast or cheap scares, but rather for a subdued sense of unease.

It really could go either way from here, and it is impossible to tell just yet, because shows built on an overarching mystery often de-evolve into ramblings of a lunatic as the writers thrash inside the web of inconsistencies they spun from one episode to the next.

But the pilot gives me hope. This review will be updated when more episodes come out.