Scott Z. Burns
Apple TV+
SIENNA MILLER as a conflicted animal conservationist. Kit Harington as a smarmy tech overlord. Meryl Streep as, erm, among other things, the voice of a humpback whale. If star power could be converted into energy, then Extrapolations from Apple TV+ would have enough to fuel the national grid.
The brainchild of Scott Z. Burns, producer of An Inconvenient Truth, the interweaving eight-part drama gives its ridiculously stacked cast (I haven鈥檛 even mentioned Forest Whitaker, Diane Lane, Marion Cotillard, Edward Norton, Tobey Maguire or Eiza Gonz谩lez) a rather weighty issue to tackle: the end of civilisation as we know it.
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With its A-list talent and apocalyptic themes, comparisons will inevitably be made with Don鈥檛 Look Up. But while the Netflix movie is more of an allegory for climate change, Extrapolations delivers an explicit warning. As news footage in the opening exposition dump reveals, a rise in the average global temperature of nearly 2掳C from pre-industrial levels has caused mass forest fires, droughts, winds and floods. And things are about to get worse.
Set in 2037, the first of the three episodes available for review is something of a whirlwind itself, lurching from the Arctic circle to the Adirondack mountains in New York and from brash corporate satire to heartfelt family drama without much pause for breath. Extrapolations isn鈥檛 exactly subtle in its messaging, either, with even fleeting characters, like Heather Graham鈥檚 pop diva, prone to speechifying at the drop of a hat.
Of course, you could argue that such vital subject matter needs the sledgehammer approach, especially when a notable section of the political elite appears to echo Matthew Rhys鈥檚 Junior, a pantomime-ish property magnate determined to build a super casino in Greenland. 鈥淚t will all go to shit at the end of the century鈥� But we鈥檒l be smiling in gold-plated coffins,鈥� he says. His comeuppance, by the way, is the show鈥檚 first immensely satisfying moment. Still, there is a sense that Burns is preaching to the converted.
Extrapolations finds more of a groove once it completes its world-building 鈥� or should that be world-ending? Fast-forwarding to 2046, episode two centres on Menagerie 21, a nature-interfering firm that revives extinct species using DNA from their last known survivor. Miller鈥檚 Rebecca appears to be the company鈥檚 only human conscience, striking up a touching relationship with the lone humpback whale, whose thoughts can be translated into human words (voiced by Streep, who is also briefly on screen as Rebecca鈥檚 mother).
Sure, the whale seems to speak solely in grand poetic statements about humanity 鈥� artificial intelligence technology is now apparently so advanced it can even interpret sea mammals鈥� musings on the music of Gustav Mahler 鈥� which requires a suspension of disbelief. But the bond between the pair gives Extrapolations a more hopeful and intimate side among the shots of doom and despair, no matter how National Geographic-esque those may be.
It is harder to get emotionally invested in the faith-based story set in 2047 that comprises the third episode, in which a rabbi (Daveed Diggs) battles to save his flooded Miami temple from ruin. The episode spends much of its lengthier running time posing a question it can鈥檛 possibly answer: if there really is a God, why is there no divine intervention? Meanwhile, a jarring, on-the-nose homage to Singin鈥� in the Rain feels designed purely to shoehorn in Hamilton star Diggs鈥檚 musical talents, while a bribery subplot 鈥� which reaches the remarkable conclusion that power can corrupt 鈥� seems trite compared with the series鈥� overarching theme.
Extrapolations is far more compelling when it delves deeper into the near-future setting, where every type of cancer has been eradicated, but so has a third of the animal kingdom. Only time will tell whether the planet of the show has a distant future: the finale propels the action to 2070, by which point we presume that Earth will be in recovery mode or facing total extinction. Should the show continue to lack focus, though, even climate activists may have stopped watching.
Jon O鈥橞rien is a writer based in Preston, Lancashire, UK
