Halle Berry’s ‘Extant’ leads in TV ratings

Halle Berry made her small screen debut at a spot befitting an Academy Award winner — first place in the television ratings — but it’s too early to call her summer drama Extant a hit.

The limited run series, in which Berry plays an astronaut who mysteriously returns from a solo space mission pregnant, had 9.6 million viewers for its first episode on CBS last week, the Nielsen Co. said.

That was enough to make it the most-watched prime-time show during the week. By comparison, the second-season debut of Under the Dome a week earlier had 9.4 million viewers, a number considered disappointing given its hit status a year earlier.

With time-shifted viewing within three days of the premiere added in — people who watched a recording afterward — Under the Dome had 13.2 million viewers. The extra days boosted the total viewership for Extant to 11.9 million.

The show has not been slotted for the UAE yet.