Extant premieres tonight - are you going to watch?
- Thread starter DarthTom
- Start date
Hmm... not particularly impressed. Production values were pretty good aside from some cheesy CGI compositing here and there, but conceptually it's not very engaging. Let's see...
The treatment of AI ethics was pretty rudimentary. When the woman asked Goran Visnjic (did I spell that right?) what safeguards would be in place on the "Humanichs" (silly name), I wanted him to say, the same ones that are in place on humans -- laws, police, morals, the social influence of the community. Heck, religious people shouldn't be rejecting AIs as soulless (who are they to declare what entities God can or can't give a soul to?), but seeking to teach them religion, because religion itself is a potent moral regulator. (Or then again, maybe not, given that religion is also a potent motivator to violence in many cases.) Instead, I didn't hear anything here I haven't heard in dozens of other SF stories over the decades.
There was, as I feared, not the slightest attempt to explain the utter absurdity of a 13-month solo space mission. It was an unbelievable premise contrived merely to justify the impossible pregnancy. Unless it turns out the corporation that Knows More Than It's Telling intentionally sent her out there alone as bait or something. But then you'd think people would be asking why they'd do something so bizarre and dangerous as sending an astronaut out alone.
Seraphim is a strange name for the station, because it's plural. The singular is seraph. Someone didn't do their research.
The guy in charge of the corporation is too much of a Japanese stereotype. Basically the only characterization he was given was "Look, he's doing another Japanese-y thing now! Oh, look at all the Japanese stuff in his office! Sushi! Tea ceremony! Samurai photo! Bowing!" They really overdid it. And what the hell was he doing in hibernation? I'm all for bits of futuristic texture allowed to speak for themselves, but that was a big enough deal that not explaining it felt rather random.
The bit where the (presumably) alien communicates by repeating the last word of everything the human says is a hoary cliche. If this entity could hack her brain well enough to identify her dead husband as someone significant to her, to simulate his appearance and his movement under gravity, and to simulate him writing "HELP ME" in the condensed moisture on the glass, why couldn't they tap into her speech centers and have the hallucination actually converse with her coherently? It's inconsistent.
Acting-wise, nobody really impresses me much yet. Except maybe Camryn Manheim -- it's startling how different she looks and acts from her cold, ruthless Person of Interest character. But that's more a comparison with another work than something that stands out within this work.
On the plus side, the design of the station and the handling of the shifting gravity and free fall scenes were pretty plausible -- certainly better than The 100 ever managed. The futurism isn't too bad aside from the midair holograms that SF films and shows insist on assuming we'll have in the future even though they don't make a lot of sense (what is the light reflecting off of?). I think the only way we'll ever have something that appears like that is if we all wear augmented-reality visors or contact lenses (or eye/brain implants) that create an illusion of text and images hovering in midair, whereas someone not hooked into the network would see nothing (as in David Brin's Existence, for example).
The treatment of AI ethics was pretty rudimentary. When the woman asked Goran Visnjic (did I spell that right?) what safeguards would be in place on the "Humanichs" (silly name), I wanted him to say, the same ones that are in place on humans -- laws, police, morals, the social influence of the community. Heck, religious people shouldn't be rejecting AIs as soulless (who are they to declare what entities God can or can't give a soul to?), but seeking to teach them religion, because religion itself is a potent moral regulator. (Or then again, maybe not, given that religion is also a potent motivator to violence in many cases.) Instead, I didn't hear anything here I haven't heard in dozens of other SF stories over the decades.
There was, as I feared, not the slightest attempt to explain the utter absurdity of a 13-month solo space mission. It was an unbelievable premise contrived merely to justify the impossible pregnancy. Unless it turns out the corporation that Knows More Than It's Telling intentionally sent her out there alone as bait or something. But then you'd think people would be asking why they'd do something so bizarre and dangerous as sending an astronaut out alone.
Seraphim is a strange name for the station, because it's plural. The singular is seraph. Someone didn't do their research.
The guy in charge of the corporation is too much of a Japanese stereotype. Basically the only characterization he was given was "Look, he's doing another Japanese-y thing now! Oh, look at all the Japanese stuff in his office! Sushi! Tea ceremony! Samurai photo! Bowing!" They really overdid it. And what the hell was he doing in hibernation? I'm all for bits of futuristic texture allowed to speak for themselves, but that was a big enough deal that not explaining it felt rather random.
The bit where the (presumably) alien communicates by repeating the last word of everything the human says is a hoary cliche. If this entity could hack her brain well enough to identify her dead husband as someone significant to her, to simulate his appearance and his movement under gravity, and to simulate him writing "HELP ME" in the condensed moisture on the glass, why couldn't they tap into her speech centers and have the hallucination actually converse with her coherently? It's inconsistent.
Acting-wise, nobody really impresses me much yet. Except maybe Camryn Manheim -- it's startling how different she looks and acts from her cold, ruthless Person of Interest character. But that's more a comparison with another work than something that stands out within this work.
On the plus side, the design of the station and the handling of the shifting gravity and free fall scenes were pretty plausible -- certainly better than The 100 ever managed. The futurism isn't too bad aside from the midair holograms that SF films and shows insist on assuming we'll have in the future even though they don't make a lot of sense (what is the light reflecting off of?). I think the only way we'll ever have something that appears like that is if we all wear augmented-reality visors or contact lenses (or eye/brain implants) that create an illusion of text and images hovering in midair, whereas someone not hooked into the network would see nothing (as in David Brin's Existence, for example).
Will the Blue Fairy show up?
Extant was a DC comics villain in the event crossover Zero Hour, which had to do with timetravel and the end of the universe, so I went to look up the definition of extant, assuming that it had something to do with reality or time travel, wondering if the Producers were trying to sneak some obvious shit past me with an SAT word... "Extant" means a moment(unit?) of "existence".
Meh?
(I feel asleep twice watching this.)
Although did you see the series logo at the end where the word "Extinct" morphed into "Extant"? which probably has as much to do with what the story winds up being about as Revolution did as it's logo morphed into Evolution.
Meanwhile I did not have to look up the word Seraphim meant.
Tedious.
Boring.
She was playing with plants in zero gravity for 13 months?
I suppose that she had to run several life cycles through to completion to investigate possible mutation or adaptation?
Meanwhile the character is fantastically immature and selfish not to stick a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger if she was aware that she had become a Trojan horse to some sinister alien plot set to perhaps doom humanity.
What this pilot felt like was that I was watching was an 80s episode of the Twilight Zone, which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just is what it is.
Meh?
(I feel asleep twice watching this.)
Although did you see the series logo at the end where the word "Extinct" morphed into "Extant"? which probably has as much to do with what the story winds up being about as Revolution did as it's logo morphed into Evolution.
Meanwhile I did not have to look up the word Seraphim meant.
Tedious.
Boring.
She was playing with plants in zero gravity for 13 months?
I suppose that she had to run several life cycles through to completion to investigate possible mutation or adaptation?
Meanwhile the character is fantastically immature and selfish not to stick a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger if she was aware that she had become a Trojan horse to some sinister alien plot set to perhaps doom humanity.
What this pilot felt like was that I was watching was an 80s episode of the Twilight Zone, which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just is what it is.
Actually, the coming attractions looked better than this was... but it might become an incoherent mess, a kind of Believe and Touch retread with an alien twist.
It was decent enough, but I feel as if it was trying to do too much. Don't know if that's just an effect of it being the pilot. Agree that the initial premise of her being up there alone for so long as being really flimsy. Don't know if it means anything, but they've listed Barry as executive producer in the credits. I'll keep watching for now. It definitely got tense at times.
It seems as though it's heading in the direction of her having been an experiment herself, without her knowledge. Going to guess they wanted to test the effects of pregnancy in zero-g.
It seems as though it's heading in the direction of her having been an experiment herself, without her knowledge. Going to guess they wanted to test the effects of pregnancy in zero-g.
Let's see:
Mrs.Q2 bailed after 15 minutes
Daughter.Q2 bailed after 30 min.
Both stated it was dull and quite boring ...
Not a positive sign. I watched the whole thing. I thought it was OK and
will give the next episode a shot. Quite a bit of room for improvement in terms
of pacing and story development.
Q2
Mrs.Q2 bailed after 15 minutes
Daughter.Q2 bailed after 30 min.
Both stated it was dull and quite boring ...
Not a positive sign. I watched the whole thing. I thought it was OK and
will give the next episode a shot. Quite a bit of room for improvement in terms
of pacing and story development.
Q2
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Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
My predicition is that it's going to be Aliens vs. AIs, with Humans just trying to survive (hence the title shifting from Extinct to Extant).
Most big stars these days are executive producers on their own shows. It usually just means they have a financial stake in the show, and presumably that they have approval over story direction.
If that were the case, though, why have it happen so near the end of her 13-month tour that she isn't showing by the time she returns to Earth? It can't have been more than a month or so before her return. So most of her pregnancy is going to happen in Earth gravity.
The impression I get is that the ISEA/corporation is aware that there are aliens trying to make contact, that that's what really happened with the other astronaut who's alleged to have died, and that they faked his death to cover it up, then sent Molly out to see if it would happen again.
Uh, OK - sort of. Just interesting enough to tempt me back for episode 2. My intuition tells me the slow, clinical and "detached" feel of this show will persist though - and that style is simply not working for me in this instance.
Which begs the question, are we sticking with this shite because it might turn out to be good after all, or because we are hypercritical assholes who want to jeer and rail at the top of our lungs that this is crap and that we could do better?
How come the three time's I saw Swordfish, it was the edited kids version without boobs, or I blinked?
How come the three time's I saw Swordfish, it was the edited kids version without boobs, or I blinked?
When the boy asked for his battery to be flipped, I wondered if the entire population had been replaced by robots while she was in space?
Which of course turned out not to be the story we were watching.
Hardcore Sci-Fi fans, hypercritical assholes - surely not, sir?
As for Swordfish, I do remember a scene where Hugh Jackman is hitting golf balls off his camper van or whatever. I remember noting Halle Berry looked drooling, super-hot in the dress she was wearing.
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
I keep watching Under the Dome and Falling Skies for reasons I, myself, can't even fathom. So giving a show with near futuristic high tech, AIs, and potentially aliens a few episodes to draw me in won't be that difficult to accomplish.
Ah ok. I thought maybe it would have shed some light on what you had quoted her as saying, as I thought maybe she would have had a say on direction the story was being taken in.
Hmmm, good point. I still think they were maybe hoping for it to have an effect. It poses an interesting question to explore.
At this point, there's so much secrecy that I don't know what to believe. Sounds like you might be onto something, though. The thing that really puzzles me is her recordings. Nothing can be seen in them (unless the aliens have a way to make themselves invisible), and so proceeds to delete them to avoid making her look like a fool. That's my interpretation. So even if there had been footage, they wouldn't have seen anything. And I'm assuming that was a past husband that the entity took the form of.
Another theory I have could be that the entity is actually currently inside her, being detected as a pregnancy. But don't know how they would explain that.
Exactly. Couple questions that perhaps I wasn't getting on the show. Is the Japanese business owner a clone? A robot? Didn't get his deal.
Obviously the black guy and Berry used to have a relationship. Is he an alien?
The footage shows her reacting warmly and intimately to someone who isn't there. If her superiors had seen it, they would have thought either that she was hallucinating in the middle of a crisis or taking a sexual fantasy break in the middle of a crisis, neither of which would be very good for her. And I can't blame her for not wanting other people to see video footage of her having a sexual experience.
Do you remember the earlier scene where she was looking through a video album? He was the man in the photos, Marcus. Her current husband came in and they talked about how they never would have met if Marcus hadn't died. (Which was a weird and awkwardly written scene, because it came off as Goran Visnjic saying, "Boy, I sure am glad your beloved first husband croaked, because it gave me the perfect chance to get into your pants.")
Presumably he was in some form of suspended animation for some reason. Maybe he has some kind of progressive illness and only comes out of suspension when something important requires it.
Rather, presumably, the alien entity drew the image of Marcus from her memories and used it to communicate with her.
