Extant: Season One, Episode Eleven – “A New World”

First Aired September 3rd, 2014.

Sparks (played by Michael O’Neill) is having doubts about his actions after shooting Kryger (played by Brad Beyer). His ex-wife, Anya (played by Jeannetta Arnette), is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect the Offspring and it’s imitation of their daughter, Katie (played by Shree Crooks).

Back at the campsite, Molly (played by Halle Berry) and Kern (played by Maury Sterling) are detained by soldiers sent by Yasumoto (played by Hiroyuki Sanada). However, when they hear the other team that went after Sparks being massacred, they get the hell out of dodge. Yasumoto makes a subtle threat against Molly’s family to ensure she delivers the Offspring to him, so she and Kern continue the search and eventually find Sparks at a hotel without Anya or the Offspring. He claims they left him behind and surrenders. Kern and Molly take him to the ISEA and into the custody of Ryan Jackson (played by Adam O’Byrne), a contact Kern has there. Sparks is interrogated about the whereabouts of Anya and the Offspring but claims he doesn’t know where they’ve gone and later attempts to escape the building. He is then recaptured. Molly asks Sparks what he did inside the building but he tells Molly to worry more about what she did, referencing the code she put into his laptop last episode. Sparks may change his tune about helping the Offspring when he finds out his daughter, Katie (played by Tess Ferrer), is alive. Sean Glass (played by Enver Gjokaj), the astronaut on the same ship Sparks made change course, had Katie delivered to the ship by a French vessel that found her floating in hyper-sleep.

I was surprised to see those soldiers take off, it’s very rare that you see the no-named, red-shirt characters make a smart, life-saving decision. Where was this new character Ryan several episodes ago when they could have used him? He could have put a stop to things before they got so crazy, instead coming into the picture out of the blue so late in the game. But as much sense as that makes, it would have meant less action. Sparks letting himself get caught to infiltrate the ISEA building was a solid plan but what could he have done? His fingerprints couldn’t even open the door to a stairwell. He also made the classic Bad Guy move of revealing too much when he reminded Molly how he used her to put a code into his computer, now she’ll try and find out what that’s all about. Katie being alive is not going to be good for anyone. She was way too calm when she stepped onto the ship. When you compare that attitude to the girl terrified in that video, the only conclusion is she isn’t the real Katie or those aliens somehow took control of her mind.

Meanwhile, over in Yasumoto’s apartment/prison, John (played by Goran Visnjic) overhears Yasumoto arguing with one of his guards about the alien substance that keeps him alive. Using a phone app, John translates and learns that he only has one vial left and it can only keep him alive a few more weeks. Molly bluffs Yasumoto into thinking she has the Offspring so he will arrange a trade. After finding out she lied, he is ready to shoot her, but John reveals he stole the vial with the alien substance and will smash it if Yasumoto doesn’t surrender, which he does. Molly interrogates Yasumoto at the ISEA and he explains that he used to work for a mining company and found the substance in a meteorite after being buried in a cave-in. It kept him alive for a month until he was found. Later on, he went back for it to keep himself alive. He used the subsequent buyoff to take control of the company he now owns after outliving the original heads of the organization (it’s kept him alive for a hundred and forty years so far). Yasumoto spent decades researching the origins of the substance in order to keep up his quasi immortality and believes the Offspring is the key to keeping himself alive.

It’s easy to see why Yasumoto won’t spare any expense when it comes to finding the Offspring. He’s already waited more than a century for results and is starting to get impatient. While it’s cool that he’s lived for so many years, it’s a little weird that nobody seems to have realized how long he’s been living. Even if he takes regular naps in a hyper sleep chamber, a hundred and forty years is a long time for nobody to realize and especially ask what it is that keeps him alive and looking the same, especially if he’s the face of a multi-billion dollar corporation. It probably sounds like I’m nitpicking at just one detail, but that’s a pretty big one in my opinion.

That meteorite being inside of a cave on Earth could mean these aliens have been to Earth at some point in the past. It opens up questions like what did they did when they first arrived and whether any of them could still be on Earth in hiding. Another working theory is that the aliens sent out that meteorite hoping it would land on a planet. Since they have a need for host bodies, maybe the meteorite was meant as a trap to get a species to track them down and give them access to a whole planet of host bodies. It sounds slightly far-fetched, but I think it works.

Over at the Woods’ home, Odin (played by Charlie Brewley) is hanging out with Ethan (played by Pierce Gagnon), who starts feeling faint when his battery power gets low. Odin offers to flip his batteries but instead removes them so that Ethan shuts down. He takes him to the garage and plants a small bomb inside of his back before replacing his batteries, pretending that Ethan must have been tired and fell asleep. Ethan happily reunites with his family later, completely unware that he is literally a ticking time bomb.

It took us a while but we finally got to the juicy part of the technology terrorist plot. Whatever Odin’s planning has to be very public if he wants to spread his propaganda of machines being evil. I hope he doesn’t suddenly have a change of heart because he bonded with Ethan and decides he can’t kill him that would be such a huge cop out. As well as a major anticlimactic ending after we waited almost half the season for this to happen.

Quotes & Thoughts

“You still need to bring me the baby.” “Really, why?” “I imagine you would like to speak to your family again. You can interpret that however you like.”

I think the way to assert any control over the Offspring is for Molly to be an authoritative mother, though I wouldn’t spank the kid ’cause that wouldn’t end well.

“Anya, I killed him, I killed Kryger.” “Like you said, we have to make our peace with it.”

Katie is alive but Anya was killed by the Offspring, I feel like there’s some kind of lesson or metaphor in there somewhere but I can’t put my finger on it.

If you enjoyed Manny’s review, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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