Superboys last whole eternity
I wasn't sure what to think about Extant at first. The premise didn't seem all that interesting and I'm not a fan of mystical pregnancy but once the action concentrated on Ethan I really started getting into it. I have a thing for AI emergence. Also, Space! There is little right now that even mentions space that just having some space station action made this feel like a space ship show.
[SPOILERS for Extant]
What they were selling in trailers made it look like maybe some weird version of first contact with semi-friendly aliens trying to resurrect their species. And at the beginning it seemed like Ethan would become the evil/crazy/creepy fake child (they are popular in moving pictures, aren't they?). But at the end it was exactly the opposite and it became a story about Ethan's growth and not being afraid to let him do that. Trust A.I. and he will save the world.
I know that the show was also about Molly and her marriage and her working through her trauma (death of fince and their child, inability to have children). That it was about weird alien lifeform that could maybe grant immortality but also mind control people and wanted to invade us Body Snatcher style.
This storyline started badly as it was full of people behaving stupidly - from the conspiracy guys who seem to always make the stupidest mistakes that allowed one woman to just escape and break into secret facilities despite their manpower and tech advantage - to Molly just doing the something that seemed suicidal (telling Sparks she was pregnant, searching for Ethan alone in the woods, going into that building where they were holding her son). At least Molly managed occasional moments when she was smart and brave and been able to find solutions to problems and figure out what is happening. Sparks family not so much. Also villains in this really went nowhere - so lets assume arrested or dead.
I don't know what to think about Molly's alien offspring. I was with her at the beginning - with him just trying to protect himself (and her) from people who wanted to use/kill him - so I didn't mind the turning soldiers against each other and using hallucinations to make people help him. But once he started to, I think, eat people minds I switched to team Harmon. If next season was a possibility (not with these ratings) we might've seen something that let us understand his perspective but we are left with what he said to Molly and believe that without the others forcing him to help take over human race he will just do what is right. And maybe go back yo Molly. (on the other hand he might be plotting to take over the Earth still and Molly and Enver Gjokaj's character have been infected)
John often spoke like he was lecturing not having conversation and his arguments with Molly and Julie were mostly about his ideas about who Ethan should be and how they should react to him and how they were rising him wrong. But it felt like Molly, after she got over her initial doubts, actually loved Ethan. And Julie was right to be mad at him for basically taking Ethan all for himself because it suited his needs. In all of this John was the one who objectified Ethan the most while lecturing everyone how they shouldn't. The way how he tried to force Ethan to develop in the way he wanted, at a speed he was comfortable with, and only do things he approved of as part of some imagined human-like normalcy tattered dangerously on the edge of abuse. In the end it almost cost him everything as Ethan stopped trusting him. I like how they combined this with the variation on how machines turn on use because we want to destroy them (Skynet) and chose the other door. John letting go and allowing his kid to become what he could be saved everyone in the end.
The magical happy ending seemed a little too convenient. I kind of like the symmetry of the two sons confrontation but it was hard to get into it as we saw too little of the alien boy to really care for him so they weren't really equal. We saw the Offspring (didn't even have a name) actions not him so there was no emotional connection there which made Molly's insistence on saving him never truly resonate and Ethan was one of main characters so we cared about him much more and wanted him to win. However, Ethan surviving the bomb when we were told noone can save him was a little cheesy (and the glowing-heart-like scene even more so) but he was my favourite character so I chose to believe that was the way Culture was started. It's certainly better ending that the one A.I. had (and if the series continued they wouldn't have to deal with explaining robot boy growing up).
Half way through the season I realised I really got into the story and waited for the next episode to see what will happen next. Too bad that the beginning of the season was boring and made most of characters unlikeable and unreasonable. The ratings never recovered. Too bad - the second half was much better and made way more sense then anything on The Dome this year.
[SPOILERS for Extant]
What they were selling in trailers made it look like maybe some weird version of first contact with semi-friendly aliens trying to resurrect their species. And at the beginning it seemed like Ethan would become the evil/crazy/creepy fake child (they are popular in moving pictures, aren't they?). But at the end it was exactly the opposite and it became a story about Ethan's growth and not being afraid to let him do that. Trust A.I. and he will save the world.
I know that the show was also about Molly and her marriage and her working through her trauma (death of fince and their child, inability to have children). That it was about weird alien lifeform that could maybe grant immortality but also mind control people and wanted to invade us Body Snatcher style.
This storyline started badly as it was full of people behaving stupidly - from the conspiracy guys who seem to always make the stupidest mistakes that allowed one woman to just escape and break into secret facilities despite their manpower and tech advantage - to Molly just doing the something that seemed suicidal (telling Sparks she was pregnant, searching for Ethan alone in the woods, going into that building where they were holding her son). At least Molly managed occasional moments when she was smart and brave and been able to find solutions to problems and figure out what is happening. Sparks family not so much. Also villains in this really went nowhere - so lets assume arrested or dead.
I don't know what to think about Molly's alien offspring. I was with her at the beginning - with him just trying to protect himself (and her) from people who wanted to use/kill him - so I didn't mind the turning soldiers against each other and using hallucinations to make people help him. But once he started to, I think, eat people minds I switched to team Harmon. If next season was a possibility (not with these ratings) we might've seen something that let us understand his perspective but we are left with what he said to Molly and believe that without the others forcing him to help take over human race he will just do what is right. And maybe go back yo Molly. (on the other hand he might be plotting to take over the Earth still and Molly and Enver Gjokaj's character have been infected)
John often spoke like he was lecturing not having conversation and his arguments with Molly and Julie were mostly about his ideas about who Ethan should be and how they should react to him and how they were rising him wrong. But it felt like Molly, after she got over her initial doubts, actually loved Ethan. And Julie was right to be mad at him for basically taking Ethan all for himself because it suited his needs. In all of this John was the one who objectified Ethan the most while lecturing everyone how they shouldn't. The way how he tried to force Ethan to develop in the way he wanted, at a speed he was comfortable with, and only do things he approved of as part of some imagined human-like normalcy tattered dangerously on the edge of abuse. In the end it almost cost him everything as Ethan stopped trusting him. I like how they combined this with the variation on how machines turn on use because we want to destroy them (Skynet) and chose the other door. John letting go and allowing his kid to become what he could be saved everyone in the end.
The magical happy ending seemed a little too convenient. I kind of like the symmetry of the two sons confrontation but it was hard to get into it as we saw too little of the alien boy to really care for him so they weren't really equal. We saw the Offspring (didn't even have a name) actions not him so there was no emotional connection there which made Molly's insistence on saving him never truly resonate and Ethan was one of main characters so we cared about him much more and wanted him to win. However, Ethan surviving the bomb when we were told noone can save him was a little cheesy (and the glowing-heart-like scene even more so) but he was my favourite character so I chose to believe that was the way Culture was started. It's certainly better ending that the one A.I. had (and if the series continued they wouldn't have to deal with explaining robot boy growing up).
Half way through the season I realised I really got into the story and waited for the next episode to see what will happen next. Too bad that the beginning of the season was boring and made most of characters unlikeable and unreasonable. The ratings never recovered. Too bad - the second half was much better and made way more sense then anything on The Dome this year.