As filmmakers go, Steven Spielberg is legendary. He’s one of the most popular directors in film history, thanks to movies such as Schindler’s List, Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park, and his eagerly anticipated next film, Disclosure Day, is set to hit theaters this June. But while Spielberg is well-known for his big screen work, he’s no stranger to television as well, both as a director and as a producer. Spielberg has been a part of a wide range of series over the years, but there’s one sci-fi series on that list that was cancelled too soon and now time is running out for to stream it.
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Set to leave Netflix on February 18th, Extant ran for two seasons between 2014 and 2015 on CBS. The series, which Spielberg executive produced, starred Halle Berry as an astronaut who comes home after a 13-month solo mission in outer space. The series also starred Goran Visnjic, Pierce Gagnon, Michael O’Neill, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Season 2. While the series was met with positive response from both critics and audiences, CBS cancelled the series after two seasons due to a combination of declining viewership, high production cost, and a creative shift in terms of story between the first and second seasons.
Extant Deserved More Than Two Seasons
While Extant arrived during the peak of television’s so-called Golden Era of the 2010s that saw the rise of prestige television, it was among the shows that just didn’t take, which is a shame. Not only did Extant feature some truly strong performances, particularly from Berry who was particularly great on the small screen, but the series fit neatly into similar alien sci-fi offerings. While some criticized the series for being derivative, particularly of projects like Ridley Scott’s Alien, it was also just different enough. With the first season taking an approach that was more focused on family, with Molly and her husband having tried for years to become pregnant before she inexplicably returned home from space expecting. The addition of their exiting child actually being a prototype android — and that becoming a major element of the second season — also added an interesting element. While the second season ended in a way that worked as a series finale and completed the arc, there was still so much more story the series could have told.
But Extant wasn’t unique in terms of Spielberg executive-produced series that didn’t quite thrive during roughly the same time period despite being interesting and well made. The Whispers and Minority Report both debuted in 2015 and lasted for just one season, and a few years before that in 2011, both Terra Nova and Locke & Key also only got one season each. At least in the case of Extant, the show’s arrival on Netflix last year saw it find a whole new audience — and with just a few days left before it departs the platform, the time is perfect to check it out and decide for yourself if the series should have had more time.
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