Why did it take Halle Berry 15 years to return back to TV? Playing the ever powerful Storm in the "X-Men" films, a Bond girl, and raising two children would keep one busy.

Berry's return to TV on the CBS mini-series "Extant" is like a breath of fresh air, and nothing like opening the nearest air-lock.

It is Berry's quiet strength and conflicted performance, the stellar cast and the futuristic technology, and with Steven Spielberg at the helm, this is shaping up to be a fascinating and exciting mystery-science-fiction-drama.

Berry plays astronaut Molly Woods, who has returned back to Earth after spending 13-months on a solo mission aboard a super sophisticated space station called the "Seraphim." Berry's Molly has to acclimate back to her home life with her robotics scientist husband John Woods, played Goran Visnjic ("ER") and her literal robotic son Ethan Woods, played by Pierce Gagnon ("Looper").

But surprise, surprise, Molly returns home pregnant! How is that possible on a solo mission?

Spoilers!

The first episode, titled "Re-Entry," attempts to set up mysteries, assumptions and hypotheses that will lay the groundwork for the entire 13-episode serial. Molly relies on her friend and doctor Sam Barton, played by Camryn Manheim ("Boston Legal," "The Ghost Whisperer"), to at least hold off on telling anyone about her mystery box, i.e. pregnancy.

After Molly gets the news that she is pregnant, she drifts back into the time of her mission. The flashback segment is very organic: Molly looks at an object, then she, along with the audience, is pulled into the memory. The flashback sequences in this episode are refreshing from seeing "Lost"-like flashbacks these days. And the natural way this story is told seems fresh and new.

Molly, while aboard the Seraphim, experiences a solar flare which causes a power outage. As she investigates parts of the station, she soon discovers her long dead "ex-husband" outside the airlock. Molly burns her hands to find her center or to wake up from the dream that she is having. It is no dream.   

The audience endures Molly's transformation from astronaut, to scientist, to surrogate mother, to a growing paranoid person. Meanwhile, Visnjic's John and Gagnon's Ethan are both struggling to convince the scientists and people of Earth of their vision for the future. John wants to build what he calls robots with a consciousness, but they would be autonomous, gifted, and intelligent. As as far as John is concerned, Ethan is his son.

Ethan, however, is a mixed bag of calmness, but also very disconnected from humanity. And at the same time, when he does try to show emotion he could be borderline psychopathic, which would freak out any surrogate parent like Molly. And then there is Hiroyuki Sanada, from "The Last Samurai," "Lost" and "Helix," playing the scientist benefactor Hideki Yasumoto for John's robotics works. Sanada is turning out to be the go-to guy for the thinking-man's science-fiction performances.

Ethan and Hideki are very similar because they both seem like outsiders, but with catastrophic secrets. While Ethan is an "innocent," he could get away with it, but Hideki's agenda seems controlled by the NASA-like organization that both he and Molly must answer to.

"Extant" is set in the not-too distant future, but the technology is nothing like "Almost Human," which was very distracting; in "Extant" it is as commonplace as having a smartphone or a smart home. The technology is seamless without a hindrance to the story.

The science-fiction universe of "Extant" is inspired by Spielberg's own "A.I.," and others such as "The X-Files," "Gravity" and "The Astronaut's Wife." With all of these movie elements and nuances, "Extant" should perhaps shape up to be a winner. It just needs to be a faster than a rocket.