SCIENCE-FICTION is not my thing, never has been, but I did watch Extant (Ten, Sunday) mostly because Halle Berry was in it and, to my surprise, I enjoyed it.
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Astronaut Molly Woods (Halle Berry) has just returned from a long solo mission in space.
Her husband John (Goran Visnjix) is a cybernetic scientist and, as the couple are infertile, John's big project is creating artificially intelligent robots, who, through love and cherishing, will be able to experience human emotions.
To this end Molly and John have adopted an android Ethan (Pierce Gagnon) and he is being trotted out to show sponsors that John's work is succeeding, but they aren't convinced, and nor are we as what John doesn't see, but the viewers do, that Ethan is a sneaky little lad up to no good.
When Molly goes to her physical she is told she is pregnant.
As she's infertile and has been away for 13 months this is obviously a problem.
Flashbacks of her time on the mission showed that a ghost (or was it?) of her dead boyfriend appeared on the spaceship.
So lots of fascinating plots and sub-plots and I'll certainly watch again.
I DO ENJOY Who Do You Think You Are? and SBS has a great field lined up for this latest Australian series on Tuesdays.
First there was Andrew Denton, who investigated the Jewish side of his family from his father Kit.
Kit had been an atheist and hadn't told Denton of the Jewish side of his background, so he was surprised to find out his father had been brought up in traditional Jewish household.
Thankfully a lot of Denton's relatives fled from Poland to other countries, England in his grandfather's case.
However, others in the family who stayed behind in Poland were taken to the notorious Treblinka concentration camp and gassed and the scenes there and the interview with a survivor were very emotional.
Rebecca Gibney is a New Zealander and she had had an abusive childhood as her father was an alcoholic.
She found out that one of her ancestors, her great-great-grandfather had been involved in an invasion of a Maori village in the late 1800s.
The Maori descendants of that invasion held a peace and reconciliation ceremony with Rebecca, which was very moving.
Jackie Weaver's next and Lisa McCune, Adam Goodes, Amanda Keller, Paul McDermott and Richard Roxburgh are yet to come.
Great television.
