Extrapolations review: Like a boring college lecture on climate change, Apple’s star-studded anthology series deserves to be bunked

We begin in the year 2037, and end in 2070, as climate change irrevocably changes how human beings live. Cancer has been cured, but children are born with congenital heart diseases; Texas has been lost, Mumbai has a sea wall, and major portions of Miami have been flooded in this accursed future, imagined by series creator Scott Z Burns — the same man who was hailed as some sort of soothsayer when people discovered his film, Contagion, in the early days of the pandemic.

Extrapolations is more speculative than that rigorously researched film. But still, it’s a trip to watch a Blade Runner-style version of Mumbai in episode five, starring Adarsh Gourav as a bigot driver tasked with transporting valuable cargo to Varanasi. In this version of the future, oxygen is being sold on ‘thelas’, and a janta curfew is imposed during the daytime. But the police are still as corrupt in 2059 as they are now, and always have been. Interestingly, Richie Mehta is the credited director on this episode; he’s the same filmmaker who brought such a uniquely dystopian vision to the first season of Delhi Crime. That show correctly captured what it is like to live in a city whose simmering class tension is often brought to boiling point by its frankly inhospitable climate. Extrapolations paints an even bleaker picture of the future. It’s depressing to note that, according to this show, independent India won’t last even 100 years.

But getting to episode five — which itself is nothing to write home about — is such a slog that I wonder if people will even stick around that long. The abrupt time-jumps between chapters only heighten the sensation that things are changing rapidly. In the regular world, we don’t register such environmental disintegration because it’s happening before our eyes. It’s like meeting a relative after a gap of several years; you notice immediately if they’ve grown, or lost weight, or started greying, even if they themselves haven’t realised this.

Every conversation in Extrapolations seems to be about the climate, which is completely unbelievable. Humans simply aren’t wired that way. We don’t address issues like this. We get bored. We lose interest. We have short attention spans. Something as world-changing as ChatGPT could hold our attention for barely two weeks. Racial injustice is an accepted truth; the economic divide has been normalised; climate change is causing wild fluctuations in weather patterns across the globe, but how many people actually care?

The majority of our planet’s population certainly doesn’t. And after a point, you begin to wonder who Burns is lecturing to. Could this be an echo chamber situation, in which case, what’s even the point? Or does he actually believe that he’s going to convert the climate change deniers by making fun of Elon Musk, without realising that many of those people actually idolise him.

What made Contagion so effective was the matter-of-factness with which it predicted exactly how humanity would self-destruct when confronted with a cataclysmic event. Extrapolations positions itself more like a Greek tragedy. There’s a poetic sense of doom to the entire thing, but crucially, its revolving door of characters makes it impossible to form a connection with the larger story. Having a sprawling cast — the opening episode alone features a dozen people — isn’t the problem. But the show’s attempts to give them all backstories feels like an afterthought. You never know if you’re supposed to be paying attention to the science-y stuff, or if you’re supposed to care about Sienna Miller’s dead mother.

It also doesn’t help that most characters don’t reappear after their respective episodes, which leaves little room to forge any sort of bond with them. For instance, you know that Edward Norton’s character isn’t going to stick around for too long. When the preachy stuff gets too preachy, you automatically turn towards the human stories to help you weather the storm, but in Extrapolations, people are sacrificed as pawns for a larger agenda. It’s as if the show itself is a greedy government looking to capitalise on the vulnerability of its subjects. How ironic.

Extrapolations
Creator – Scott Z Burns
Cast – Meryl Streep, Kit Harington, Edward Norton, Sienna Miller, Marion Cotillard, Adarsh Gourav, Tobey Maguire, Diane Lane, David Schwimmer, Daveed Diggs, Gemma Chan, Forest Whitaker, Keri Russell, Eiza Gonzalez, Judd Hirsch
Rating – 2/5