Outcasts (BBC) series 1 discussion thread

[Scotty]

Tonight BBC's new high concept sci-fi series will debut on BBC 1. From the writers and producers of Spooks and Life on Mars comes this 8 part series about "a group of courageous pioneers that face a unique opportunity: the chance to build a new and better future on another planet." It stars Hermione Norris and Jamie Bamber amongst others and was shot on location in South Africa.

From the BBC

Settled in the town of Forthaven on Carpathia, the Outcasts are passionate about their jobs, confident of their ideals and optimistic about the future. They work hard to preserve what they've built on this planet they now call home, having embraced all the challenges that come with forging a new beginning.

They are led by President Tate and his core team of Stella, Cass and Fleur – they took charge and settled here first alongside Expeditionaries Mitchell and Jack.

They are a diverse group of individuals who left their old lives behind in extraordinary circumstances; promised a second chance at life they created a society, far away from their home, friends, family... and their pasts.

The planet offers the possibility for both corruption and redemption; while they try to avoid the mistakes made on Earth, inevitably our heroes cannot escape the human pitfalls of love, greed, lust, loss, and a longing for those they've left behind.

As they continue to work and live together they come to realise this is no ordinary planet... is there a bigger purpose at work? Mystery lurks around them and threatens to risk the fragile peace of Forthaven.

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii7YgGsppck&feature=related

I am really looking forward to this series. BBC has a knack for producing some truely original scifi shows and this one has a fascinating premise and looks visually stunning. I'm getting ready to sit down for part one. Anybody else following this?

 

[WillsBabe]

Anybody else following this?

I've set it to record. I'll get around to catching it at some point.

 

[Dac]

Visually, it was great - but the trailer for next week in the super-wide aspect ratio looked amazing. An I mean that in an "OMGWTFAMIWATCHINGTHISISAMAZING" amazing.

As for the show, well, the only thing that kept me going was finding out what made Jamie Bamber's character tick, and, well, they put an end to that early on. Mays from A2A was great as well, and im glad its looking like he's sticking around.

I missed the first 5 mins so im probably missing some important backstory which is supposed to make it all click, so i'll rewatch it on iPlayer later - but what I did see was very interesting, if not outright fantastic.

Considering it seems no one wanted to label it as science fiction, the production design was very sci fi, and looked really nice. It has the potential to be brilliant though, so i'll keep watching.

 

[Angel4576]

Some good, some bad. Will check it out tomorrow night in the hope that it picks up a bit.

On the plus side, the location shooting was stunning.

 

[Starkers]

^Not next week's tomorrow!

Well I liked that. It was a touch overly earnest, but its nice to see the BBC making a proper science fiction series that doesn't involve Daleks (much as I love Daleks and all things Who).

After his role in A2A it was nice to see Mays play against that type, and he was probably the best thing about it. Always liked Liam Cunningham (such a wonderful voice, amusing that it isn't his natural accent!) and I have a curious lust for Hermoine Norris so that's good! I like her as an actress too honest!

Not a whole lot of surprises so far

Spoiler: spoilers

I figured the ship wouldn't make it, and the outcasts are obviously the plague ridden children and Bamber was supposed to kill em but didn't

. But the arrival of newcomers looks like it will throw more than a few spanners in the works, and Mays' character obviously is keeping some sort of secret.

Liked the Expeditionarys as well, and though there was a lot of exposition I thought they kept it to a minimum, always tricky when you're trying to world build.

 

[wamdue]

As for the show, well, the only thing that kept me going was finding out what made Jamie Bamber's character tick, and, well, they put an end to that early on. .

yes I fear they may have killed off the most interesting character in the first episode, but there are making a big deal of the guy from Ugly Betty, so maybe it wont be a totally fatal decesion.

 

[Starkers]

I'm not sure Bamber was that interesting really...

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Dammit, I meant to try and catch this. Ah well, you never know what the ex is actually interested in watching these days, so there's no guarantee she'd have allowed me to use her Sky box for such a programme

 

[Tom]

It was good, kinda dragged at some points..we will have to see how it goes.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm half way through.

Jamie sounds odd. He's not so gruff on the BSG BHTS.

Kids in scifi are target practice.

Gotta wonder if tigers fought man and man lost.

 

[Candlelight]

Hadn't heard of this. Gonna have to keep an eye out.

EDIT: After seeing the trailer I'm not so sure. Looks like a bunch of whiny colonists that get angry.

Why can't anyone have the 'right stuff' anymore?

 

[firehawk12]

^
It's Season 3 of BSG!

Watching it now... we'll see how it goes.
Interesting concept, although if it turns into "monsters in the wild" or whatever, I wouldn't be surprised. But, hey, for 8 episodes I'm all in.

 

[Guy Gardener]

There's no way that the next episode can be the balls to the wall like the ad is suggessting after seeing the first instalment.

Imagine how Bush would have felt if Abe Lincoln walked through a time aperture into the middle of that administration and declared "Get out of my damn office you boob."

 

[JoeZhang]

I thought it was pretty boring and Norris needs to get another expression besides "I am sucking a lemon".

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Es ist nämlich ein Irrtum, daß die Toten irgendwie tot sind.

 

[Scotty]

I missed the first 5 mins so im probably missing some important backstory which is supposed to make it all click, so i'll rewatch it on iPlayer later -

Actually, the first 5 minutes didn't offer any explenatory backstory whatsoever. You didn't miss a thing.

I liked the first episode. But I really wanted to love it, and I just didn't.

From a producation standpoint, this was superb. The BBC 've really done themselves proud. No studio set can match location shooting like that. The acting was top notch all round. The real fault lies with the script and the directing. This first episode jumps right into the story but doesn't properly introduce the characters or the setting. That's why all the way through I had the feeling I was watching the second of third episode, instead of the first.

Throughout the episode we slowly get some clues as to what is going on. Welearn that living conditions on Earth have become so bad (how or why we don't know) that many humans have left their planet to colonize other worlds. Carpathia was colonized 10 years ago and Forthaven is a settlement of about a 1000 people. When the colonists first arrived a virus killed most of the children. Now they are awaiting the arrival of a transportship carrying supplies and new colonists.

But we don't know what happened to Earth and why these people were some of the first colonists to leave the planet. In fact most of the episode centers around Bamber's character Mitchell Hoban as a paranoid chizophrenic expedetionary who starts killing his family for no apparant reason.

The show misses the confident flair that other recent BBC shows like Sherlock and Doctor Who have. It's also very slow. Each episode is 60 minutes long (without commerical breaks) but I can't help thinking that trimming the episodes down to 45 mins would've helped the pacing a lot.

 

[Starkers]

Yeah I've never understood why some people seem to think Science Fiction can't be fun any more (outside of Who) but at least the Beeb are taking it seriously. Agree as well that the 60 minute length did it no favours, but we have the set up now at least.

I actually liked that it dropped us right into the story, too many shows spend their first episode just explaining everything to you, so this made a pleasant change, and you get the feeling what happened on Earth was all man made; mention is made of the Taiwan incident, nukes in shanghai and chicago.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Heard about this sometime last year. Hopefully it will air sometime on ABC here later in the year.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

It seemed kind of odd that Fleur and Dickhead (forgotten his name) didn't speculate about who pounced on them in the night, although maybe it's related to Dickhead's secret. I did have problems hearing some of the mumbled dialogue so I might have missed something.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I thought it was a pretty good start. Shame they killed off the most interesting character. He may not have been a big mystery but he'd have lived up to the shows name at least. I have a feeling he isn't the person who killed his wife and whoever jumped them in the night wasn't him either.
I'll stick around, I'll support British sci-fi we need more of it.