Steven Spielberg’s ‘Extant’ Series Should’ve Survived Longer Than 2 Seasons

With science fiction currently enjoying a popular resurgence on television, thanks to shows like Alien: Earth, Foundation, Invasion, Upload, and Severance, among others, CBS’s premature cancellation of Extant a decade ago is all the more lamentable. Backed by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and starring Oscar-winner Halle Berry, Extant remains a vastly overlooked sci-fi mystery space drama that deserves to have lasted more than two seasons and 13 episodes.

Fortunately, Extant was added to Netflix on August 18, 2025, making it discoverable for a whole new generation who missed it during its initial run. Although it sometimes falls into broad network trappings and becomes too familiar, Extant belongs in the same breath as TNT’s Falling Skies and CBS’s Under the Dome, both of which take cues from Amblin Entertainment’s family-friendly M.O.

What Is ‘Extant’ About?

Molly floats in a spaceship in Extant

CBS

Created by Mickey Fisher and executive produced by Steven Spielberg for Amblin Entertainment, CBS’s Extant ran for two seasons and 26 episodes between July 9, 2014, and September 9, 2015. The story centers on Molly Woods (Halle Berry), an infertile astronaut working for the International Space Exploration Agency (ISEA). ISEA dispatches Molly on a solo mission for 13 months in deep space, where she lives and works alone on the Seraphim space station.

While aboard the Seraphim, Molly has a surreal vision of her deceased former boyfriend, Marcus (Sergio Harford). When she returns home from her 13-month solo mission in space, Molly and her husband, John Woods (Goran Visnjic), are mystified to learn that Molly is suddenly pregnant.

While the central mystery of the entire show revolves around how the infertile Molly got pregnant while alone in outer space, Molly must also deal with how the pregnancy affects her artificially intelligent son, Ethan Woods (Pierce Gagnon), who was created as the first android prototype by his father. Dr. John Woods is the head of the “Humanichs Project.”

In evoking Spielberg’s forward-thinking 2001 feature film, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Extant‘s “Humanichs” (name for human-robot androids) call to mind the futuristic “Mechs,” such as David (Haley Joel Osment) and Gigolo Joe (Jude Law). Given the rapid advancements in AI in the last decade, Extant is more relevant and resonant than ever in 2025.

Why Was ‘Extant’ Canceled?

Following its 26-episode, 2-season run, CBS canceled Extant due to a decline in viewership and quality from Season 1 to Season 2. In addition to decreased live viewership, the show became less popular on subsequent Prime Video airings. For a scintillating Spielberg sci-fi spectacle produced by Amblin TV, the high cost of producing Extant relative to its viewership was no longer profitable enough to keep the series going beyond Season 2.

The most significant reason the show was canceled stemmed from the sudden shift in storytelling from Season 1 to Season 2. The first season deliberately leaned into the central mystery regarding Molly’s inexplicable pregnancy, echoing the sci-fi tone Spielberg was known for in his cinematic heyday. By contrast, Season 2 became a broader, action-packed spectacle that inadvertently alienated fans of Season 1 and led to poorer ratings.

As Variety noted at the time, Extant‘s abrupt casting overhaul also led to a sharp decline in Season 2’s viewership. Goran Visnjic (John Woods) left after 16 episodes and was replaced by a new character played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, which only confused fans. With at least three additional major casting shakeups, Season 2 hardly resembled any of the appeals that made Season 1 so promising.

Past the waning viewership, the critical marks also decreased over time. Extant‘s first season garnered an 81% Rotten Tomatoes rating, while its second season earned a 73%. Between the sharp drop-off in quality and audience participation, CBS had little choice but to end Extant early.

CBS and Berry went on to develop a follow-up legal drama entitled Legalese, which was never produced. While that makes Extant‘s cancellation hurt more, it’s worth wondering where the show could have gone if it were properly continued beyond Season 2.

Where ‘Extant’ Could Have Gone If Continued

One of the most positive aspects of Extant‘s premature cancellation is how the Season 2 finale felt like a natural fit. So often these days, a TV series is abruptly canceled without having the benefit of completing a story arc. Sometimes, a show will deliberately end a season on a dramatic cliffhanger, with every intent to pick up where the show left off in the next season, only to be canceled in the interim. Fortunately, Extant‘s finale does not feel like one of those shows that ends without notice and cheats fans by raising more questions than providing answers.

Still, even though the series ends satisfyingly enough, it’s impossible not to think of what could have been if Extant had continued longer than 26 episodes. Berry’s magnetic charms and acting aplomb speak for themselves, while Spielberg’s blessing as an executive producer could have led to bigger and bolder storylines relative to AI.

Falling Skies is an apt comparison, another Amblin TV sci-fi spectacle driven by a proven star (Noah Wyle) that lasted for five seasons and 52 episodes on TNT from 2011 to 2015. Of course, TNT is a bit edgier and more adult-driven than CBS. But even CBS’s Under the Dome, which aired concurrently with Extant, received a third season and 39 episodes despite earning equal-to-lesser acclaim than Extant.

If more people enjoyed Extant than Under the Dome, there’s no reason that the former should have been canceled before the latter. More to the point, had Extant continued, it undoubtedly would have explored the moral and ethical ramifications of artificial intelligence, the prospect of human-AI hybrids, parental and adolescent AI, and what it means to be a biological entity in the 21st century. Considering how far AI has advanced in the last decade, CBS dropped the ball by ending Extant too soon.