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The number of great works of art about climate change could be comfortably counted on one hand of the soon-to-be-extinct orangutan. As with all the most pressing issues of our time, the process of turning grim reality into impressive art is too much alchemy. The product thus becomes either sentimental and sensational, or indigestible in its overcooked virtue. Extrapolations , the big-budget AppleTV+ anthology about a world on the brink of destruction, achieves something quite extraordinary: it manages to be both sentimental and preachy.
The story begins in 2037, when the Middle East is plagued by fires and the sea level threatens low-lying cities. Governments are trying to agree on new climate agreements (we see negotiators at COP42 in Tel Aviv), and the key to them could be tech genius Nick Bilton (Kit Harington; not good for my SEO) and his company Alpha. Their patents on desalination technology would give the parched Earth some respite - but what conditions will be placed on the release of this lucrative invention? Everything could be hidden in metals and minerals under the melting Arctic ice (Apple knows a lot about batteries after all).
Extrapolation creator Scott Z. Burns is best known as the screenwriter of Steven Soderbergh's 2011 film Contagion, which gained new attention during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Extrapolations, Burns addresses the climate crisis, which is somewhat easier to predict. The story arc takes place over the course of 33 years, at the beginning of which people are saying generally sensible things like, "There's no negotiating with fire, the floor, or famine!" But the series quickly degenerates into sci-fi when the multinational cooperation on carbon neutrality falters to a man murdered by a vengeful walrus, not to mention technology that instantly translates a whale's song into perfect English. "Now it becomes another," hums the gnomic Meryl Streep-voiced humpback whale, "until we fall back and give back what we took."
