TV Review: Outcasts by Bren
The latest piece of big-spend drama from the BBC sends us far, far in to the future. Well, 2040 allegedly, so not that far ahead after all.
But, we are so far in the future that mankind has finally destroyed Earth and the last few thousand survivors have fled, in enormous transport spaceships, to a distant planet called ‘Carpathia’ which, in 2011, we haven’t even discovered yet.
Outcasts is set so far in the future that intergalactic travel is a reality. Also a reality in that far distant time are the 9mm Glock-style pistols, the SA80(2)-style semi-automatic rifles, the 1950s-style torches clipped to the 1960s-style backpacks, and the 1970s Z-Cars-style walkie-talkies that are everywhere.
That description, in one sentence, sums up everything wrong with this pile of utter rubbish: an epic lack of imagination.
By the way, that’s the last time I’m going to use the word ‘style’ when referring to Outcasts.
Because, right, if we were looking so far in to the future that we could identify a distant Earth-type planet, design, build and hurl a bunch of transport spaceships at it, mankind wouldn’t have evolved itself some serious technological leaps in the weapons, lighting and communications sphere?
In 2011 we have more hi-tech two-way radios than the cardboard props that the hapless victims cast of Outcasts carry around.
And there was something else that was issued to the Outcasts that was totally unconvincing. The dialogue. And the piss-poor space-flight jargon. And the acting. And, actually, not just the dialogue, but the whole stinking script.
Although writing talent is to be encouraged as it emerges, blinking, in to the daylight, the eight-year old mind who wrote fucked up the dialogue for this pile of rubbish deserves to be spanked and sent to bed without any tea.
Adopting the ‘Lost’ model of TV production, so that episode 1 ends on a cliff-hanger, and leaves the viewers with more questions than answers in a kind of edge-of-seat production is a bold move. But it is only going to work if the script, the staff and the production are up to the job. What episode 1 of Outcasts left me with was a big bag of ‘couldn’t care less’.
Our Outcastees have been marooned on Carpathia for five years. Yet they are remarkably clear-skinned, healthy-looking, organised and, erm, white. Oh well, perhaps the other minority ethnics will be along later in the next shuttle. Still, we do have a token black guy, so woo for being right-on and PC.
Also, we need to Big Up the diction that mankind’s survivors speak in the future. Yes, in 2040 you and many of your descendants will speak with wonderfully clipped, Home Counties accents, circa 1963.
This correctness of diction leads the viewer to the inescapable conclusion that England invaded the rest of planet Earth – before blowing it up or polluting it or flooding it to death with robot-clones of Justin Bieber or something equally hideous – and taught everyone how to speak properly. Received pronunciation rules, OK?
To inject a note of realism for a moment: back here on Earth in the 21st Century, we have made sufficient technological advances to enable television productions that look and feel as if they are ‘big budget blockbusters’. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to Outcasts.
Given that the press releases tell us it is a ‘big budget’ production, this must be somewhat disappointing to the BBC. It is very disappointing to the viewer.
Looking for something positive to say about this drama is easy; finding something positive to say is impossible.
One can only hope that Outcasts goes the way of Survivors, that other, much better-produced but equally flawed scifi production from the BBC. But one hopes that the chop happens much quicker to Outcasts than it did to Survivors.
Outcasts is an 8-episode piece of tedium. The writers, commissioners, actors and directors should all be thoroughly ashamed of this load of utter toss.
Outcasts is is all artifice and no art.
Outcasts
BBC1
Verdict: Bilge. Piss-poor writing, awful dialogue, wooden acting, unbelievable characters. You’ll have more fun shutting your hand in the car door than watching this.
Score: 0/10
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Id like some sci fi with my sci fi please. Not just the usual soap opera murders and baby kidnappings. How about some adult sci fi without the usual quota of stabbings and other unpleasantness. The guns werent too bad however, dont let the people responsible for this programme start designing rayguns. That would be even worse.
I notice the beeb have realized this is a disaster and have kicked it to a late night slot on Sunday. The graveyard slot. Someone’s head should roll for this diabolical heap of shot, but won’t. The production company responsible for this waste of money is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elizabeth. A go getting business woman who has built her production company up through gritty hard work, steely determination and being the daughter of a billionaire media mogul with all the right connections. That last fact didn’t play much of a a part in her success, I imagine. This is the same company responsible for Spooks and Hustle so at least it is consistently shite.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/16/outcasts-bbc1?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/14/elisabeth-murdoch-ponders-sale-of-shine-to-news-corp?INTCMP=SRCH
So how prescient was this review at just episode one? ‘Outcasts’ has been, erm, cast out. Cancelled. Canned. It has ceased to be. Even the broadcasting channel recognised, shortly after the 3rd episode, that it was a sack of shit.
Yet the writer, Ben Richards (who deserves to be suspended from the highest point of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. By his testicles), is clearly suffering from delusions of adequacy. In this interview – http://dlvr.it/KBMp7 – he blames *everyone* for the failure of the show. Everyone except himself and his really shit script and really really fucking awful dialogue.
Wake up Ben. You wrote a stinker. We all do it now and then. You just happen to have done a bigger stinker than most of us are capable of even dreaming of.