The Question, Wednesday 7/9/14: Will Extant Ratings Blast Off?

CBS' big event premiere of the summer has arrived: the science fiction drama Extant, starring Halle Berry as an astronaut who returns to Earth. The comparisons with last season's huge Under the Dome premiere (3.3 last summer) are inevitable, but there are a lot of differences with this show. It has a Big Brother lead-in; that will bring good ratings, but Extant is probably not much more compatible with Big Brother than CBS' other drama efforts. The show brings a far bigger star to the table than Under the Dome did, but though CBS' promotion has been extensive (and the reviews relatively positive), this show does not have quite as elegant a concept as did Under the Dome. Some of the promotion has seemed a bit confusing to me. So I see this premiere rating hinging to some degree on Halle Berry's ability to draw. I think that will happen to a pretty solid extent, but not on an eye-popping Under the Dome-esque level. Over/Under: 2.05.