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.

We have now watched 3 episodes and this is the turning point for pretty much any new show we take up. Almost Human, Intelligence, these shows made it to exactly 3, they were good mostly and well done but there was no "Intrigue" to keep our interest so a 4th was never watched. The Strain, was bad enough 1 episode was enough, but we watched a 2nd just to be sure, terrible writing ruined that show.

So here after 3 episodes are reasons why we are still interested, its not as good as many other top notch shows, but it is "good enough" so to speak and better than many others:

STORY - So far its kept our interest, and that interest has been increasing with each episode not decreasing. I'm not going to give anything away here so will leave it at that, main thing is they give you some questions, and then slowly drop you clues to answers. I find without this element and something to link shows together, shows in general do not keep our interest. Blacklist is a prime example of a show that did a GREAT job of this, you always want to keep watching to see how things will unfold and have questions answered and so far we're on board here.

WRITING - Others have pointed out some flaws, and I see what they are pointing at but overall I think flaws are minor and writing and scripting is decent to good, certainly miles ahead of the Strain, but sure not up to the level of Dexter (very subjective however, I'm sure there are people who would point out numerous flaws in Dexter)

ACTING - Halle does seem a little "stiff", but overall we have found the acting to be good and believable from all characters, though the child really does not shows signs of his true self

DIRECTION/PRODUCTION - Good to very good, with SS (says exc producer, not sure how much he is really involved) in the mix you would not expect less, pacing seems good, budget seems decent, no issues that we found here anyway

SUMMARY - Like I mentioned in comparing two other somewhat new sci-fi type shows Almost Human and Intelligence, this one is done about as well but has the edge on them just for the reason of Intrigue. Its not as intense (yet) as something like Helix, but the ending of episode 3 ramped things up and shows it could be heading in that direction (tension-wise).

Other rating from me for reference and comparison:

Game of Thrones - 10 Dexter - 9 Blacklist - 8 Almost Human - 6 intelligence - 6 The Strain - 4

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!

A vision of a not too distant future, slow to start but some interesting things start happening in the later episodes. Give it a chance please as we are lacking good Sci-Fi at the moment.

Characters are good but they need more to work with. Interesting concept with Ethan and Molly's child but don't want to give anything away about that.

I like the understated technology uses in the everyday environment, it is used well in order to improve everyday tasks (which is why we make things in the first place).

This is not Sci-Fi on an epic scale, it's about the human condition - it's not perfect but it's got potential.

I enjoyed this show. Its over-all quality was superior to most currently available shows.

That doesn't mean the show was not flawed, but I suspect a lot of the criticisms I have read here were due to overly high expectations. As pure SciFi, I did not see the inconsistencies with potential reality that has become so common in recent SciFi productions, although the show did fail, as many SciFi stories do, to keep the "magic" limited. The aliens portrayed failed to use their established abilities whenever consistent use of those abilities would have prevented more exciting stories. I also found the stark black-and-white portrayal of good and evil and the frequency with which main characters switched sides unnaturally contrived.

However, the acting was excellent, covering for many inconsistencies with nuanced changes in motivation demanded by the script so that the overall experience was still captivating.