Premier, solid ratings
In the Extant premier, Berry plays an astronaut who comes back home from a voyage in space and finds her circumstances altered due to an unexpected pregnancy. The episode gets 9.4 million viewers, which is enough to help CBS win the ratings race for the night. It is also the largest number for any scripted premier so far this summer.
Doctor Who inspiration
Spielberg’s Co-Producer on Extant, Mickey Fisher, tells The Daily Telegraph in an interview that the classic British Science fiction series Doctor Who was a big inspiration for him while he was writing the Extant pilot.
Because I’m a big Doctor Who fan, I had a Post-it note on the corner of my monitor that said, ‘WWSMD; what would Steven Moffat do?’ [Doctor Who] has such a great heart at the centre of it, and I think that was really important to me. It’s not a dystopian world. We want [Extant] to be something that people could relate to, this story about this family that people would appreciate.
Licensing deal
CBS and Amazon announce an exclusive licensing deal for the upcoming science fiction series. Amazon will be given exclusive rights to air the episodes online via their Prime service. Episodes will be available for streaming on the service four days after they premiere on Television. CBS:
Our partnership with Amazon for ‘Under the Dome’ helped build a creative, financial and marketing model for event television in the summer. We look forward to using the same model for Extant, a series whose creative auspices, on-screen talent and intriguing concept is already generating great excitement.