OUTCASTS premire on bbca disscussions and comments
- Thread starter timothy
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Swearing, no, not so much. Sex? yeah, and blurred body parts.
Well it was better than I expected - from all the squalling about it, I was expecting unwatchable crap, skiffy sat night monster movie style. But the production values were nice, South Africa is passable as an alien planet, and the situation is interesting.
But I found almost all the characters to be colorless and interchangeable and not very convincing in their bad-ass posturing. Bamber was the only exception - he at least held my attention - but I really didn't buy his "crazy" routine. Not sure why. Perhaps he's just too conventionally good-looking for a role like that. Not exactly fair of me, but there it is. I already knew his character dies, and it was ok by me. The character was too far over the top to be much use on an ongoing basis. A less utterly crazy character could be a good main character for this story.
The dialogue was clumsy and overly expository. This series is all about pacifism vs militarism, blah blah blah, okay, I get it, put away the sledgehammer.
The pacing seemed absolutely plodding in comparison with Falling Skies, which I watched right after and was like being hit by a freight train.
Since it's cancelled anyway, it's low-investment to keep watching. Maybe Eric Mabius' character will be the element that is worth watching, because that element is missing right now.
But I found almost all the characters to be colorless and interchangeable and not very convincing in their bad-ass posturing. Bamber was the only exception - he at least held my attention - but I really didn't buy his "crazy" routine. Not sure why. Perhaps he's just too conventionally good-looking for a role like that. Not exactly fair of me, but there it is. I already knew his character dies, and it was ok by me. The character was too far over the top to be much use on an ongoing basis. A less utterly crazy character could be a good main character for this story.
The dialogue was clumsy and overly expository. This series is all about pacifism vs militarism, blah blah blah, okay, I get it, put away the sledgehammer.
The pacing seemed absolutely plodding in comparison with Falling Skies, which I watched right after and was like being hit by a freight train.
Since it's cancelled anyway, it's low-investment to keep watching. Maybe Eric Mabius' character will be the element that is worth watching, because that element is missing right now.
I watched it too. It wasn't spectacular, and didn't capture 100% of my attention (my nose was in my iPod during much of the ep), but it kind of has a nice look. It was neat seeing some familiar faces too, such as that woman from Spooks, and...
I thought it odd that the TV listings for SPACE's airing called it "Outcasts: A Love Story", even though that subtitle is nowhere in the show itself. As a result I didn't pay it any mind when I was going through the guide and marking up my viewing for the week. It was only when I saw the promo on TV a few days later that I wondered How did I miss that?
Didn't she play Daisy on Being Human too?
I thought it odd that the TV listings for SPACE's airing called it "Outcasts: A Love Story", even though that subtitle is nowhere in the show itself. As a result I didn't pay it any mind when I was going through the guide and marking up my viewing for the week. It was only when I saw the promo on TV a few days later that I wondered How did I miss that?
Also the stuff with the woman worrying about whether her daughter (who is conveeeeniently onboard a spaceship-in-danger) will survive was groanably manipulative. Of course we have to wait a week to see if she survived. Not that I care one way or the other.
One last post and then this thread can die. I tuned back in to the second ep to see if Eric Mabius could save this show by being what it desperately needs, given that all the characters are intensely boring, namely a great, kick-ass, attention-riveting villain who might constitute a reason to keep watching all by his lonesome while the audience waits for all the other elements to click (the role Damon successfully served in the early episodes another series I'm trying to get into, The Vampire Diaries.)
Well, he's a villain all right, but so clumsily written that he just contributes to the general suckitude rather than ameliorating it. Jesus. They should have given him a mustache to twirl. I think Mabius could have delivered a better performance if the writers had given him the least little bit of help.
Here's what they should have done (and not that this would necessarily be enough to save the show): have Mabius' character be someone popular and well-regarded from Earth, who was thought of as a savior who stepped in to try to salvage the fucked-up evacuation, who was credited with saving countless lives.
He should be welcomed with open arms at first, and he should seem like a true visionary leader, just what the colony desperately needs. Give him scenes and dialogue that give hints of something not quite right, that create that uh-oh feeling in the pit of your stomach. Even when the main characters figure out that he's a dangerous megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, he's already got such a following that there might be no way to stop him. Develop the story and the characters, don't come right out with a frakking sledgehammer and blow all the suspense!
Well, he's a villain all right, but so clumsily written that he just contributes to the general suckitude rather than ameliorating it. Jesus. They should have given him a mustache to twirl.
I think Mabius could have delivered a better performance if the writers had given him the least little bit of help.Here's what they should have done (and not that this would necessarily be enough to save the show): have Mabius' character be someone popular and well-regarded from Earth, who was thought of as a savior who stepped in to try to salvage the fucked-up evacuation, who was credited with saving countless lives.
He should be welcomed with open arms at first, and he should seem like a true visionary leader, just what the colony desperately needs. Give him scenes and dialogue that give hints of something not quite right, that create that uh-oh feeling in the pit of your stomach. Even when the main characters figure out that he's a dangerous megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, he's already got such a following that there might be no way to stop him. Develop the story and the characters, don't come right out with a frakking sledgehammer and blow all the suspense!
^ Believe it or not, that does get an explanation in The Final Five comic.
As for Outcasts, I forgot that the second episode was even on.
The original Book of Pythia had its corners burned off in an explosion. I gather that it became tradition after this to have books and documents with their corners taken off.
As for Outcasts, I forgot that the second episode was even on.
^That does get explained.
I don't see why everything has to, I mean no one ever explained to me why the paper in NuBSG had the corners cut off but I lived with not knowing
Because vehicles are useful to a civilization? The lack of them is going to need one hell of a good rationalization. Two episodes in and it's already becoming a plot hole.
cutting the corners off paper isn't at quite the same level.
Maybe the planet has no fossil fuels? But that's a small quibble compared with the much larger problem of having a bunch of characters who are not worth watching.
In the future, the oil companies ensure that EV's remain nothing more than a fad...
But seriously, these folks have FTL flight, so EV's should be like stone knives and bear skins to them. My hunch is that the hold-up is the expense of creating a futuristic looking vehicle that runs safely enough that it can be filmed trundling across the landscape.
They should take the Trek option - come up with something analogous to the transporter that seems whizzbang but actually exists because it's comparatively cheap to film. So as not to copy the transporter, it could be some device that "warps space around an individual person" and sends them to their destination seemingly instantaneously, with just an SFX burst across the landscape to indicate that "something happened."
And it can be a bit kludgey and sometimes place them a bit short of their destination (again, just like Trek transporters), so that we can have dialogue while the characters trudge the rest of the way, which is the other reason besides budget for them not having hovercars.
I wasn't enthralled either, though I'm hard-pressed to say why it didn't hold my attention. I can't point to anything in particular and say "This is bad." But maybe that's the problem -- not much about the show is standing out one way or the other.
Unless Carpathia is a planet of Alpha Centauri, in which case the purported 5-year journey could be made at about 86% of lightspeed (though then the shipboard time would be about half that). But even so, relativistic flight would require a very advanced technology, so your point still stands.
It wouldn't have to be too futuristic. I gather the show is supposed to be set in 2040 (which is rather ridiculous, unless we assume an alternate past in which spaceflight technology advanced somewhat faster). Their technology overall doesn't look much more advanced than present-day stuff; their space guns are just ordinary guns with orange paint. So they could get by with fairly ordinary Land Rover-type things, maybe with just some blinkies and graphic tape here and there to make them look a bit futuristic, and maybe a sound effect to suggest an advanced engine.
Like a few others - I gave up sometime in the first episode. The first episode aired here around 4 weeks ago. Very meh. I saw a review which gave it one out of five, but still wanted to watch it. I think it only last 2 or 3 weeks in an 8.30pm timeslot before being shifted to a later time.