Actress Halle Berry agreed to star in new TV show "Extant" because the script was much better than the movies she was being offered.

The 47-year-old, who has children Nahla, six, with ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, and eight-month-old Maceo with husband Olivier Martinez, was unimpressed with the movie scripts and had no desire to return to work until she was approached to appear in sci-fi drama series.

"I was being offered parts that I felt like I had done before. They weren't exciting enough for me to leave my family for four months. I realised some of the best writing especially for women, was on television," contactmusic.com quoted her as saying.

"The minute I started to read ('Extant'), I couldn't put it down. I thought, 'Wow. This is different.' It's innovative," she added.

The highly-anticipated miniseries sees Berry play infertile astronaut Molly Woods who returns from a year-long solo space mission pregnant.