Extrapolations

By Hap Haggerty, Content Coordinator

We could recommend Scott Z. Burns’ Extrapolations based solely on Meryl Streep’s likeness in the promo banner, without having viewed a single episode featuring said high priestess of screen. Meryl carries weight, even though we’re traditionally not fans.

Extrapolations piles on with Cherry Jones, Forest Whitaker, Indira Varma, Sienna Miller, Russian spies Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings, Heather Graham, David Schwimmer, Frida Khalo’s Sister, Edward Norton, Diane Lane, Ben Harper, the original cinematic Spider Man, and a slew of dee-lish millennials we’ve never heard of. Need we say more?

The A-list ensemble cast of Extrapolations traverses a vivid hypothetical apocalypse spanning the next 50 years, not so different from the one currently underway: science will continue to evolve at breakneck speed – to the point of verbal communication with the last extant humpback whale – but not fast enough to save us from ourselves; AI was really nothing to worry about after all; terra-formation and subsequent colonization of Mars would have taken too long; prisons run more efficiently in space; Cherry Jones should be the next president of the United States. 

We were able to extrapolate all of the above after watching the full eight episodes of Extrapolations once. We’re not necessarily compelled to watch it again. A skillfully crafted script and artful cinematography bedazzle, but by episode three or four, not even Taylor Sheridan could have saved this profound farce from the giveaway we all saw coming from the jump.

Some speculate that the scenarios depicted in Extrapolations focus more on the stories of wealthy westerners than of… whoever else. On the contrary, the cast is ethnically diverse, the characters from various walks of life. Perhaps the plight of those at the helm of our own real life kingdom come provided inspiration for an engaging narrative, but the other 99% are more prominently featured.

If you like stars, lush tip-top budget production, and are at least a little excited about the upcoming end of the world, give Extrapolations a gander.