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OUTCASTS premire on bbca disscussions and comments

timothy

timothy

Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
I don't know if there is a thread for this show or not but here goes. outcasts starts tonight on bbca. and I don't know much about it. and wonder if any of you do? here is the cast:

Liam cunningham
Hermione Norris
Daniel Mays
Amy Manson

people have been settled into life on the planet of carpathia for a decade, and they await the arrival of what is likely to be the final human transport from earth; a group of settlers considers seceding from the colonists' pioneer town.

all so it begins tonight @ 8pm.
 
Since it's been cancelled, it's semi-pointless to watch it, but otoh, I could stand to see Jamie Bamber and Eric Mabius in something :drool:, for however long it lasts, so it's going in the ole DVR. Maybe I'll watch it as warm-up to Falling Skies tomorrow (which has been getting killer reviews! can't wait!!!)
 
Well, think of it as a temporary mini-series. Doesn't mean the first series will be bad.
 
Well stories do need to be planned to go somewhere, and have a good pace of doling out developments and character growth. So a show planned for five years is going to be different even in the first ten episodes than a show planned for one year, or for just ten episodes in its entirety.

Just so nobody gets caught off guard when the ending seems a tad...abrupt.
 
Well, I just finished watching the premiere. My verdict: meh. I've seen much worse, but I'd be hesitant to call this any good. They seem to have some good ideas in the mix but they didn't really do anything with them. Of course, this is only one of eight episodes, it's possible they're building things up for the other episodes.

My main problem is that it's by the numbers predictable. Once it's established that Jamie Bamber is trigger-happy to the extent that he doesn't abide by the weapons ban, we know he's a loose cannon who is going to cause trouble. Then we learn things between him and the wife are strained, and everything falls into place like a child's jigsaw puzzle with way-too-large pieces. His accomplice who turns on him when the pressure gets on, check. He knows secrets about the president dude and what's his face, the male cop that went after him, for lack of better term. I was actually a bit surprised he got killed at the end, since I thought they were setting him up as a main character, but I guess Bamber does have commitments to Law and Order UK which take priority.

The storyline about the orbiting starship was just as cliched. Everyone on board is rowdy to the point of being uncontrollable until president dude gives them an inspirational speech which makes them act civil again. Among the passengers are a family member of a main character and someone of apparent infamy (who I'm guessing is they guy in the escape pod at the end).

Oh well, I'll continue watching this for now. Partly out of curiosity to see if it does capture any of its potential, and partly because there's so little sci-fi on TV anymore that I'll take what I can get. But so far I'm not impressed.
 
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I found it watchable, and not as bad as most of the reviews quoted on Wikipedia suggested. It's not delightful, but I thought it was executed competently. And Amy Manson is kinda hot, and Hermione Norris isn't bad either. I guess I'll stick around for now.

The premise has some big credibility problems -- the show is set in 2040 and they colonized the planet ten years earlier, and the travel time from Earth is five years (sayeth the Wiki), so we're supposed to believe humanity develops interstellar capability within the next 14 years? Even as Earth simultaneously degenerates to the point of global nuclear cataclysm between unspecified powers? The whole thing feels like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. But maybe it could work if treated as an alternate history.


The Wormhole said:
I was actually a bit surprised he got killed at the end, since I thought they were setting him up as a main character, but I guess Bamber does have commitments to Law and Order UK which take priority.
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Ironic that BBC America made a point of doing this ad calling themselves "the Bamber Broadcasting Corporation," touting the fact that they're simultaneously showing three series with Jamie Bamber in them (since they've just begun Battlestar Galactica reruns, despite it not being a British show), and then 20 minutes later, Bamber's character on this show gets killed.

The storyline about the orbiting starship was just as cliched. Everyone on board is rowdy to the point of being uncontrollable until president dude gives them an inspirational speech which makes them act civil again.
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Huh? That never happened. The transporter captain said that there was a rush for the evacuation pods, that people weren't behaving with dignity, and the president's farewell statement to the captain was that he, the captain, had shown nothing but dignity throughout. The captain thanked him and then the transmission cut out for the last time. There was never the slightest indication that the president's words directed solely at the captain were heard by the rest of the passengers or that it had any effect on their behavior.
 
^^It was around the middle of the episode. The captain reports there's unrest on the ship, the president asks if he can be patched through to shipwide, which the captain arranges. The preisdent then gives an Inspirational Speech(tm) and when he's done, a sound is heard aboard the ship, the president asks what that is, to which the captain says "everyone on board is clapping." The president remarks "it's been awhile since I've heard clapping."
 
The Wormhole said:
^^It was around the middle of the episode. The captain reports there's unrest on the ship, the president asks if he can be patched through to shipwide, which the captain arranges. The preisdent then gives an Inspirational Speech(tm) and when he's done, a sound is heard aboard the ship, the president asks what that is, to which the captain says "everyone on board is clapping." The president remarks "it's been awhile since I've heard clapping."
Click to expand...

That must've been cut from the version shown on BBC America.
 
Yeah, BBCA has a habit of cutting things down to a nice tidy hour after commercials. Thankfully they now show Topgear in it's entirety.
 
Seriously, BBCA cuts shows like that? How odd. Space showed the whole damn thing. It meant giving the show a 70 minute slot in order to accomodate commercials as well, but still. Damn, I really should appreciate Space more than I do.
 
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BBCA used to run new Doctor Who episodes in an extended slot for the first airing so they could be uncut and then trim them down for rebroadcasts. But with "A Good Man Goes to War" last weekend, they just accelerated it to give it a shorter runtime -- which I guess is better than cutting scenes, but still annoying
 
That's where Space came through for us again. They actually had shorter commercial breaks in order to fit A Good Man Goes to War into the hour time slot.
 
Talking about Doctor Who and a Canadian TV channel brings back my anger at how CBC dropped the show after the Eccleston series.
 
I've noticed that sometimes BBCA On Demand will have the original uncut length of whatever show.

Edit: though just checking now, Outcasts isn't up yet on BBCAOD. At least not on Brighthouse cable.
 
Anwar said:
Talking about Doctor Who and a Canadian TV channel brings back my anger at how CBC dropped the show after the Eccleston series.
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They didn't exactly drop it, they did show the Tennant years. But, they were several months behind, the extended episodes cut to fit into an hour, Christmas specials delayed or not even showed. Space is definately treating Doctor Who with more respect than CBC did. They even give Journey's End a 90 minute slot everytime it comes up in the daily reruns.

So, trying to nudge things back on topic, did no one else watch Outcasts, or is everyone so unimpressed with it that this discussion thread has gone off topic after only actual reviews?
 
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