Did you watch the finale?

They managed to wrap it all up, for the most part, so there's that. It felt like it was almost too neatly tied up though, so I kind of think it was meant to be a one season deal.

For most of the season it felt like the Ethan storyline didn't gel with what was happening with Molly - like they were two completely separate things that barely intertwined. But in the finale, they finally made sense together. I had a feeling as soon as Molly's alien offspring got into the ISEA building that Ethan would wind up being the only option to save Molly from dying in space. That need for him to warm his body temp up in order to control the computer to override Ben so Molly could disengage from the Seraphim before it exploded helped deal with the explosive that conveniently couldn't be removed from him. It was a nice happy thing though that in the end it turned out Ethan had managed to upload himself into the backup system after all so he feasibly could be recreated. And it turned out to make for an interesting statement that in the end, Molly came to realize that it was Ethan who was her real child that she had genuine love for versus that alien child that may have been a part of her physically but was in actuality less human than the machinery that made up Ethan.

I suppose the only real question hanging out there is where the alien kid was off to and what would become of him now that his alien family are gone (or at least scattered to bits). I couldn't help but wonder when Molly was blowing up the Seraphim whether such an explosion in space wouldn't just hurdle mold spore covered space station bits into Earth's atmosphere anyway - and I found it odd they were so certain that had the Seraphim returned from space to Earth that the spores would spread out while entering the atmosphere rather than burn up on reentry. Actually that brings up another question too - Ben wouldn't let Molly disengage because she and Glass were compromised by the spores and they could bring back the spores to Earth but we just advanced a few days from that moment and she was back home and all was seemingly fine with her and we never saw what happened with Glass. So are we to assume they were both spore-free when they landed? Or at least that Molly was since she wasn't in isolation?

Yes I loved the finale!! I'm hoping it won't be cancelled but I won't hold my breath. If it's not I'd really like to see Odin brought to justice.

I really liked what they did with the Molly/Ethan storyline! I'm glad that Ethan uploaded himself into a backup system. I knew he would sacrifice himself to save Molly. I couldn't have put it better about the statement that it made in the end. :)

I think the alien kid will do whatever it takes to survive. There must be more spores up there somewhere. I wonder if he will continue to age at an accelerated rate? If that's the case it wouldn't be too long before he's adult.

Maybe the heat from the explosion would kill the spores so that the debris would be spore free. I would think that Molly and Glass would have gone through some type of decontamination in order to free them from spores. That's if that could be done.

Well presumably Molly and Glass were both spore free when they got back because it was only 5 days later that she was home again, and surely decontamination would've taken some time to be certain they were free and clear. She did inject him with something (not sure if it was just a sedative or if it had some sort of antibiotic to it that could've warded off the spores) so perhaps that plus being in the capsule would've spared him, but she rather stupidly took her helmet off after somehow losing her glove (she literally was fighting a mold spore mist to get out of that room so how did she lose the glove?) so even if she had only minimal skin contact from the hand she was possibly breathing them in once she took her helmet off. Just because they didn't implant themselves into her uterus to create another baby (that we know of) doesn't mean she wasn't infected. But I guess because they were pressed for time, they didn't think it was necessary to worry about in the end...

I liked how the Molly and Ethan storylines finally tied in too and it was a nice happy moment when he was able to contact them through the house computer system - and also that Julie and Charlie saw him back online on the computer systems in the lab too. It at least leaves us with the notion that Ethan's still "alive" and thus can be rebuilt.

My impression is that CBS let the show run its course because they had only ever planned for it to be a limited-run mini-series in the first place. I mean, what would be the likelihood that a movie star of Halle Berry's ilk would want to do more than one short season on tv anyway? I think that maybe had the show managed the ratings "Under The Dome" got in its first season, then it would've possibly been considered for another limited-run next summer as well. But surely the soft start and ratings drop off after made the show cost prohibitive for any future return. It's just as well I guess, they pretty much did tie up most of the loose ends. I mean sure, it'd be nice to see Odin brought to justice (but it would make it a different type of show then) and it'd be a happy moment to see them rebuild Ethan, or possibly interesting to see what becomes of the alien offspring as he ventured off with that other couple - whether he learns to control his alien abilities, whether he further terrorizes the world with his ability to control people in his presence, whether he ever tries to reunite with his human mother. But my assumption is we're just supposed to be left wondering or make our own conclusions or just not care much about the kid aside from knowing that he ran when Ethan told him to and he cleared the building before the explosion.

I didn't understand how Molly lost her glove either. She should have left her helmet on!!! Maybe only having them on one hand wouldn't have been as hard to fight as the mist. I'd love to see Ethan rebuilt too! I agree it's unlikely that Halle Berry would want to be a tv series for long. It would be nice to see another limited summer run but I doubt we would see that.

I honestly think the only reason why it wasn't cancelled midway through the run was because Halle Berry was involved - had it been an actress of lesser distinction, or on NBC, the show wouldn't have even been allowed to air its full season for sure. The ratings dropped off dramatically in the first couple of weeks and it never recovered - and it was obvious the network was basically giving it the "burn off" treatment after the last ditch effort to bump up the ratings by putting it on later didn't help it by moving up the finale and doubling up episodes. My guess is something on the CBS Fall schedule wasn't planned to start at the end of September so "Extant" could've finished 2 weeks later which would've been the initial plan since we had two weeks of doubles. But since the ratings were tanking, they saw no reason to drag it into the fall season after all so they rejiggered.

Oh well. It wasn't a great show, but it was a decent time-passer for the summer and at least we got to have a good chat about it, which made it more enjoyable to me. Thanks for chatting with me about the show, Darkness!

I'm glad that we could chat about Extant! I really enjoy chatting with you about tv shows! Maybe sometime we can talk about movies too! :) I love movies as well and books! :)

Well the group is all about tv and movies, so if there are specific films you want to discuss or just general film topics you want to bring up, feel free to post them, Darkness!

We've strayed a bit from talking about movies of late because it seems a lot of people who do come to chat in the group at any point aren't frequent movie-goers... but we do have a lot of old movie-related topics too so if there's an old topic you want to revive, feel free to do that too!

We haven't generally covered books here save for I think one or two old topics about books that were turned into movies or tv shows, something along those lines. I don't necessarily want to veer into doing a book club sort of thing (I know there are other member groups that have done that with mixed results), but we can talk about books in relation to tv and film (like ones that have already been adapted or are in the process of being adapted or happen to be about a tv show, film, or a celebrity... we've covered some of those here and there too).

http://deadline.com/2014/10/under-the-dome-extant-renewed-reckless-cancelled-cbs-848606/




Extant renewed!!!!!!!!!

I know, a bit surprising isn't it?!

I really thought for sure with the ratings being what they were that they'd say the value didn't equate to the cost... but apparently they made a lot off international rights to air it and Halle Berry's producing some other series possibly for CBS so I'm sure that worked in the favor of "Extant" too.

It is surprising but I will be very interested to see what they do for season 2.