# Outcasts



## Ursa major

So, is anyone going to be watching this 8-part BBC series about colonists on a distant world?

(The world is called Carpathia. It can't be an attempt to draw in people who watch programmes about vampires, can it?)







** - I'm not sure it's deliberate, but the security chief is apparently called Isen, which may allude to Isengard.


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## Mouse

Hoban... Washburne. 

All a bit crappy so far really. I'm not really a fan of Hermione Norris. Her face annoys me.


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## Dave

I'm watching it now. The story hints at much deeper layers and complex character histories that will only slowly be uncovered. There has been some disaster on Earth, and this is set ten years later on a distant planet where the survivors have washed up. It remind me of _Earth 2_ and I think there will be similar mysteries about the planet that we have yet to find out. There is a division between the scouts who relish their freedom, but have made the colony possible, and the other settlers who have done some reprehensible things for the greater good of the colony. Something happened after the children fell ill and people were quarantined. Some people were meant to have been executed, but instead were allowed to escape. It ended with the destruction on re-entry of a ship from Earth, but a few survivors in lifeboats escaping.

I also hoped that it might be what _Survivors_ could have been a few years on if that hadn't been cancelled. Unfortunately, it isn't as good as _Survivors_.


Ursa major said:


> The world is called Carpathia. It can't be an attempt to draw in people who watch programmes about vampires, can it?


The world is named for the first ship to rescue survivors from the RMS Titanic.


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## Ursa major

Dave said:


> The world is named for the first ship to rescue survivors from the RMS Titanic.


So I saw.


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## Dave

They also explained it on BBC Breakfast last Friday.

It is already on iPlayer:
BBC - BBC One Programmes - Outcasts

I think I was a little disappointed in the lack of exposition. I do like mystery, but there just seemed to be a lot of unanswered questions in this first episode.


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## thaddeus6th

Not sure if this'll always happen, but episode 2 is tomorrow, so more explanation may be forthcoming then.


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## sloweye

Well i quite enjoyed it, was a good opener.


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## Susan Boulton

I quite liked it, sure it had a lot of SF cliches in but they were not too badly done and the production values were quite good. It made a change from Cop shows anyway. (And Jamie Bamber in a vest is always easy on the eye)


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## Ursa major

Dave said:


> I think I was a little disappointed in the lack of exposition. I do like mystery, but there just seemed to be a lot of unanswered questions in this first episode.


I think I'd prefer (so far) unanswered questions to too much info-dumping. But with new arrivals ... er ... arriving, there will be more opportunities for various explanations. (This episode, we only had the transporter captain to ask for information that everyone already on the planet knew.)


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## alchemist

It's been absolutely torn to shreds on digital spy, which surprised me. I thought it was decent, and worth watching the next episode.
Worryingly, it's setting is similar to my WIP, but my settlers have moved on from using walkie-talkies.


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## Dave

alchemist said:


> It's been absolutely torn to shreds on digital spy,


I just took a look at their thread, and I'm not sure "torn to shreds" is warranted. "Nitpicking" certainly, and they said much the same as I did - a bit like 'Earth 2', why did they cancel 'Survivors' for this, lack of exposition - the other things I also agree with - "its very beige", "the people are clapping", clumsy dialogue and poor child actor. But there were also people saying, "if you didn't like it, don't come back again tomorrow." They were also comparing it to 'Bonekickers' - I can't agree there - nothing could be quite as bad as 'Bonekickers'! I will be watching again, if just to get a few answers.


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## Purdy Bear

It didnt catch me as well as some other programmes (Star Trek, Survivors etc), Im hoping it might in the second episode.


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## Dave

SJAB said:


> I quite liked it, sure it had a lot of SF cliches in [it]



a secret community of clones
a rag-tag army struggling against a technological superior foe
a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate
attempts to find a cure to an illness which affects only children
each and every character has a tainted history
a token black guy
a token American
the clones grow to match the cloned person's state of physiological development in a small fraction of the time (less than 15 years but they look 20 to 30 years old.)

I also quite liked it.


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## HareBrain

Dave said:


> the clones grow to match the cloned person's state of physiological development in a small fraction of the time (less than 15 years but they look 20 to 30 years old.)


 
I thought the clones came to the planet as soldiers; I didn't think those on the planet had created them. Though that was only thanks to one line of possibly misheard dialogue, so I could be wrong.


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## Dave

HareBrain said:


> I thought the clones came to the planet as soldiers; I didn't think those on the planet had created them. Though that was only thanks to one line of possibly misheard dialogue, so I could be wrong.


I missed that part then, and it would explain it, thanks. But they keep mentioning them as an 'experiment' (which could be an 'experiment in soldiering'). The leader of the Clones also asked if Tate could tell him who his father was - which doesn't mean he created him, but he isn't very likely to know if he didn't create him - I see now it was meant sarcastically.


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## Ursa major

Isn't Tate the leading representative** of the organisation that both began the colonisation of Carpathia and put in place the technology, including those clones, that facilitated it? In which case, Tate would be the person to ask about the origin, technical and biological, of the clones.







** - Or was until Mr Berger arrived.


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## Menion

I loved the first episode, but halfway through the second, the power went off in my house! plus since I live in Spain I can't use I player... anybody know if it'l be on BBC2 soon?


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## Null_Zone

alchemist said:


> It's been absolutely torn to shreds on digital spy, which surprised me. I thought it was decent, and worth watching the next episode.
> Worryingly, it's setting is similar to my WIP, but my settlers have moved on from using walkie-talkies.


 
Digital Spy is a rather strange and scary place, I'm not sure I'd trust there opinion on wha to have for lunch. So it should be quite good.

I'm saving up the episodes to watch on Iplayer.


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## HareBrain

I'm not sure what to think of the fact that absolutely everyone seems potentially morally grey, almost to the same degree, but no one is an obvious baddie. "Grey area" characters are widely held to be a sign of greater realism, but when done to this extent it feels a bit contrived.

The series doesn't seem to be doing anything wildly original so far. Yes, characters are the basis of a story, but it would be nice to have some original ideas too. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic that it will be worth continuing with.


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## JagLover

Dull and univentive so far.

The characters are mostly uninteresting and you don't care if they live or die. The only really interesting one thus far was killed off in the first episode.

The writing and the characters reflect the usual BBC corporate mindset when it comes to such shows. They are simply unable to write good sci-fi because they are too PC and uninventive.

Watch the ratings plummet and I would be amazed if this gets a second series.


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## thaddeus6th

Thaddeus' Recipe for success:
Take Outcasts,
Sharpen the dialogue
Remove some conspiracy
Add a substantial quantity of adrenaline-pumping excitement

Thaddeus the Sixth: Outcasts, episodes 1 & 2


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## alchemist

Looks like the main points of conflict will be the dis-enfranchised clones, and Berger's cultish push for power. Maybe a re-occurrence of the virus, and a dose of let's-all-get-along-and-eliminate-those-nasty-human-emotions-that-got-us-in-the-mess-in-the-first-place. 
I don't know where another six episodes are going to come from.


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## thaddeus6th

I'd guess there's some kind of alien (or perhaps another human) presence on Carpathia, which will feature in the later episodes.

***big spoiler for episode 1***




Damned shame Mitchell got killed so early on. He was my favourite character.


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## Dave

It might be refreshing if (like _Firefly_) we don't actually meet an alien presence on Carpathia. When the show was discussed on BBC Breakfast last week, the writer (Ben Richards) said that he didn't set out to write science fiction. The inspiration behind Outcasts was the desire to tell a pioneer story, and the only place you can do that really now is in space. He said he wanted to explore second chances, most fundamentally whether humanity is genetically hard-wired to make the same mistakes again and again. It was only after he started writing that people told him that this had been done before in this science fiction show, and that had been done before in that science fiction show. So, I think the possibilities of aliens appearing are slim. 

On the other hand, I think the show needs something like _Earth 2_ aliens to put some life into it.

And if you want to see it really ripped to pieces, then read some of these posts:
BBC - BBC TV blog: The inspiration behind Outcasts


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## Lenny

Almost missed this! I saw the trailer after Doctor Who at Christmas and told myself to look out for it... which I soon forgot to do. 

Then, on my weekly iPlayer scavenge, I noticed that the first two episodes were up.

I'm downloading them now (rather slowly - the fool upstairs is playing WoW again...). Will give my thoughts when I've watched them.


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## Lenny

Just watched the first episode - I rather enjoyed that. The sets were nice, the few special effects were done well and the story gives me the feeling that it might pick up.

The only thing I didn't really experience was the supposed loneliness of the people living in Fort Haven. You'd have thought that, for a thousand souls who are probably the last of their species, there'd be more... I don't know, despair, maybe.


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## Ursa major

Lenny said:


> ...there'd be more... I don't know, despair, maybe.


Given some of the things written about the series elsewhere on the Web, I could be persuaded that that part is being left to audience participation.


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## Anthony G Williams

*Outcasts* is a new BBC TV SF eight-part drama, of which I have so far seen the first two parts. The scenario is far enough into the future for humanity to have developed huge starships, one of which had managed to establish a settlement on the distant planet of Carpathia (named after the ship which rescued survivors of the Titanic disaster) some years before. The name is significant, as civilisation on Earth appears to be in its final throes, and the last starship is due to arrive.

All is not well on Carpathia, however, as the team of explorers who spend most of their time away from the settlement are planning a rebellion. The president (Liam Cunningham) aided by the head of security (Hermione Norris, who famously played a formidable MI5 agent in *Spooks*) try to hold the line while preparing for the arrival of the starship. All is not well with that either, as it has suffered some damage which threatens disaster if it tries to land on the planet, so it launches an escape pod to ensure that some survive. Just to complicate matters further, there is a band of renegade humans in the wild, rejected by the settlement years before. 

The focus is on the human drama and the acting is reasonably good (Norris being the stand-out performer) although some of the dialogue still sounds rather stiff and awkward to me - a perennial screen-SF problem. However, the SF elements are weak so far, and even the big CGI effort of the starship is hopelessly unconvincing, simply because the plot requires this vast structure, with living space in two huge counter-rotating artifical gravity wheels, to try to land on the planet. Now you don't have to be an SF geek to realise that such a vessel cannot possibly enter a planet's atmosphere let alone make a landing, a fleet of shuttles being required for that task, but the programme makers don't seem to realise that.

Overall it's moderately promising so far and I'll keep watching; I'll return to it to make some final comments once I've seen the lot.

(An extract from my SFF blog)


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## JagLover

Ursa major said:


> Given some of the things written about the series elsewhere on the Web, I could be persuaded that that part is being left to audience participation.


 



I have noticed a wide difference of opinion of this series from this board to other, non sci-fi ones, I frequent. It is perhaps that we sci-fi fans are so starved of sci-fi TV shows that we hail any that come along. No matter how poor the writing or casting. 

I am as guilty of this as any other and I will stick with this till the end, just as I stuck with Defying gravity and the Deep to their damp squibs of a conclusion.

Leaving aside the extremely dull portrayal of a frontier existence, the dubious casting of many characters, the stilted dialogue and the dubious underlying sexual politics of woman as both out machoing the male and also a gentler voice of reason and wisdom (even more confusingly embodied in the same character). The reason why the pilot failed is it didn't follow any established rule of introducing a TV show.

Think back to the successful TV shows of the past and what do they all have in common almost invariably in their pilot episodes, why action. We don't know the characters yet, so while we are introduced to them we have action to keep us entertained.

BSG-Cylon attack on the colonies
Voyager-Exile to the delta quadrant and battle at the array
DS9-Moving the station to the newly formed wormhole to repel a Cardassian takeover of it.
Babylon 5-Gripping assassination plot.

In contrast what did outcasts have? Man goes nuts and goes into the wilderness, two dull characters set off on a camping trip to find him and quickly dispatch him. At no point do the characters or the audience become the slightest bit concerned about the drama overhead as the last ship from earth breaks up in the atmosphere.

Now that to me should have been the central thrust of the pilot episode. The last ship from earth arrives and there is a desperate struggle both inside the ship and on the ground to get it down safely. After all some permanent members of the cast were already on the ship, so it could have been done with a few more guest stars to represent doomed crew and passengers, and a minimal expenditure on additional sets. 

On the whole Outcasts is not a failure due to budget. The sets, camera work and SFX seem perfectly adequate for TV sci-fi. It is a failure of writing.


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## purple_kathryn

Mouse said:


> Hoban... Washburne.
> 
> All a bit crappy so far really. I'm not really a fan of Hermione Norris. Her face annoys me.


 I quite enjoyed the pilot

But I'm also not a fan of Hermione Norris something about her really puts me off a tv show.


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## Susan Boulton

Actually better tonight... I quite enjoyed it.


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## sloweye

Agreed, tonight was very good.


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## Menion

I second that.


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## HareBrain

What?? I thought last night's was terrible. Did my TV receive a different episode? From the way people were running about in it, the storm was no worse than a force 8 gale. It beggars belief that the writer thought he could get away with a plot where calculations showing a white-out _unprecedented in the colony's history _should show up _the day before it happened _(italics added to denote screaming). And we're expected to care (as the soaring mushy music indicated we should) about the death of a bit-part character who delivered about two lines of dialogue (one of them indicating that he's the colony's token gay character, so that's one of the other minorities checked off without having to put in any effort). And after the super-schmalzy ending, I didn't know whether to barf or take a bath. And still no trace of a single intelligent idea. Utter tosh.


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## TheEndIsNigh

Well I was 'Lost'

However,that aside, I wasn't impressed. HB has covered most of it.

Why on, oh it isn't Earth, would someone specially selected for his math talent be allowed (Given the take them out and shoot them mentality of the glorious leader) to just sit and take up food and space. Surely they are in a contribute to your full capacity or out you go, situation. Then given ten minutes he works out this old Prof life's work and as HB says just in the nick of time.

Surely it would have been easier for the old duffer just to say - Oi! You with the cross, tell em it's going to get windy.

As for the damage, again as HB says. But in addition, How and on what planet (Oh sorry forgot) does no one get killed but the streets get littered with rusty old bedsteads and bike frames and bits of structural steel and walk ways. Most of which seem to have been picked up from the local tip/recycling centre just up the road from the film set - Despite the fact that a 'lock down' had been ordered.

I'll ignore (well actually I wont) the stupid scene where someone keeps shouting not that building. OK so it paintd him as a hard bossy type but it was the same bloody building he was working on. Why any unsound building wouldn't be 'secured' is beyond me. Unless the corrugated steel in that one is softer when whipped around at 80 MPH of course.

What exactly did they do at the magic tower and why on Ea.. (oh rats) would it need to be set up miles from a perfectly good location where it seemed to work perfectly during the long voyage (IE the space ship roof). Has anyone ever heard of "checking the fuses so that dust doesn't get into them????" I know, it's a bit windy and there's lots of dust already. The best thing I can do is open the sealed door and let all that dust into the cabinet so it can get inside the hermetically sealed fuse units. 

Nice wedding, so your best mate got killed because you abandoned him to his fate. No probs, this is a new world and that's what we do here. He would have wanted it this way. No need for recriminations. After all the glorious leader has just announced that he ordered a mass murder (which got no response at all - more tea vicar?) and they seem happy enough about that.

The obvious telling smirk at the end from the religious nutter indicates to me which way the series is going and to be frank I think it will be making the journey without me.

Although, it is fun to pick holes in the plot.


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## thaddeus6th

TheEndIsNigh: I'm confused. Did you like episode 3 or not?

*hides*


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## JagLover

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Well I was 'Lost'
> 
> However,that aside, I wasn't impressed. HB has covered most of it.
> 
> Why on, oh it isn't Earth, would someone specially selected for his math talent be allowed (Given the take them out and shoot them mentality of the glorious leader) to just sit and take up food and space. Surely they are in a contribute to your full capacity or out you go, situation. Then given ten minutes he works out this old Prof life's work and as HB says just in the nick of time.


 
Aside from the laughable dialogue (of which last night's episode had more than its fair share-a professional writer wrote some of those lines?) that is one of the biggest problems I have with Outcasts.

It is just a british middle class existence transferred to an alien setting. There is no sense of a colony's struggle to survive. As far as we know, this colony may be the last hope of humanity, and yet we have some characters dossing around not contributing the collective good, we also have women of prime child bearing age remaining unmarried and childless.


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## Dave

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Has anyone ever heard of "checking the fuses so that dust doesn't get into them????" I know, it's a bit windy and there's lots of dust already. The best thing I can do is open the sealed door and let all that dust into the cabinet so it can get inside the hermetically sealed fuse units.


It was worse than that. IIRC they only went out to fix the unit. The new dust storm had not been announced yet (the season had supposedly finished.) They were supposed to be quick to get back for his Wedding (not because of any impending storm.) Suddenly, without any explanation, all that changed.


TheEndIsNigh said:


> After all the glorious leader has just announced that he ordered a mass murder (which got no response at all - more tea vicar?) and they seem happy enough about that.


A good day to bury bad news? 

I also thought it got worse. I won't be watching tonight but might catch up on iPlayer later in the week, so let me know if I should bother.

I also don't understand why they avoid the real problem of the colony that is clearly staring them in the face, vis-a vis making babies!


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## HareBrain

JagLover said:


> It is just a british middle class existence transferred to an alien setting. There is no sense of a colony's struggle to survive.


 
Absolutely right -- and also, not one of the characters has so far shown any idea of a plan for the future, apart from to muddle along as they have been doing so far. None of them (apart from perhaps the implied plans of the sinister mystic) has articulated any long-term goal or ambition, whether personal or for the colony in general.

First rule of writing: drama arises from the conflicting goals of the characters. Hard to get any genuine (as opposed to soap-opera) drama out of set of characters who have no goals. These ones are just milling around like water in a sink does before it goes down the plughole.


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## thaddeus6th

Mitchell did.

Damned shame that particular storyline isn't going any further.


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## StormFeather

I found this on the iPlayer at the weekend, and watched the first 2 episodes whilst catching up with the ironing (my exciting life!!)

Now, I don’t know enough about sf enough to be able to recognise that the transporter wasn’t a design that can make surface landings, and there are other aspects of such tales that I’m happy to take at face value.

But it seems to me that certain basic elements of telling a compelling story were missing, not that I’m an expert there either.

For me, the plot line that seems exceptionally weak is that of the transport, it’s passengers and crew, and the relationship with the citizens of Carpathia.

The transport appears to be the last they’ll see from Earth, and yet the general population, or anyone who is seen on screen, apart from the leaders, seem fairly apathetic about the whole thing. As it finally disintegrates on entry to the atmosphere, a barely perceptible shrug of shoulders and a muttered ‘blessing’ for the lost souls is all that is made of it.

In episode 2 it becomes apparent that more than one escape shuttle made it, and we see scenes of the survivors walking into Fort Haven. I would expect the general population and key workers to be there to meet and greet them – a triage set up for minor injuries, someone showing them where to line up and give their details – families desperate for news of loved ones crowding and pushing to get to these people who are their last lifeline to Earth. Not, as it seemed to me, a bunch of interestingly dressed people (wouldn't they be wearing ship suits or some kind of evacuation suit in the event of an emergency evacuation – not knowing where you might land??) just randomly walking through a town, not knowing where to go, and no one there to say ‘hello’. 

There were other things too, but this really stood out for me as a very weak aspect of the plot, and I found it most annoying!

Anyway, I’ll catch up on last nights episode when I’m next doing the ironing and avoiding the Football/Rugby/Cricket/Golf etc and see if it gets better.


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## Vertigo

I must admit I watch little TV these days (I just find very little on TV that is appealing other than most Horizons). However I did watch the first episode and didn't bother with the second. I wasn't outraged by the appaling plot etc. etc. but it just seemed to me to be drab and uninspiring - I thought the actors looked frankly bored with their jobs. To be honest it just seemed par for the course on TV these days.

That's basically why I stopped watching TV three years ago and started reading seriously again - maybe I should actually thank the TV producers for that


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## Menion

Tonights episode was better then the last three I think, much better written, no daft little mistakes.



*Spoilers!*






And what do you think about that jawbone? very nice twist there.


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## sloweye

Starting to get interesting now. looking forward to seeing where they go with that.


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## thaddeus6th

I agree that episode 4 was the best so far.


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## HareBrain

It wouldn't be the first time I've thrown in the towel with a series only for it to at last get worth watching. (Why don't series writers bring in the good stuff right away, rather than faff around losing audience?) Did any of the other nay-sayers watch episode 4? I might watch it on iplayer later.


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## iansales

The worst episode yet.


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## HareBrain

Or maybe I won't.


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## sloweye

I think the problem is thats it's not been writen for the 10% hard sci-fi fans who understand/pull apart the science, but for the 90% who want to watch a show just to enjoy it. IMO  last nights was really quite good, it had some overlapping story lines which i think will come together closer to the end. I for one am enjoying it at face value, and lets face it... theres nothing better on TV at that time on a mon/tues night.


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## iansales

Apparently it's been moved to late on Sunday nights... so the non-sf viewers weren't impressed either.


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## Dave

I didn't see episode 4, but for me twice a week is part of the problem. I can keep up once a week, but clearing two evenings free to watch a TV show would require something much more gripping than this. I've starting watching a lot of TV through iPlayer and the Wii so that you get it full screen on the normal TV, and on demand. Given that is possible, it no longer matters which day something is originally broadcast.


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## Ursa major

Dave said:


> I can keep up once a week....


 
According to the online Radio Times, _Outcasts_ is still on on the Mondays (fifth episode on the 21st and the sixth on the 28th), but the Tuesday slot has been given over to another (six-part) series, _Silk_.


(Perhaps Ian's sources are more up-to-date, though.)


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## JagLover

sloweye said:


> I think the problem is thats it's not been writen for the 10% hard sci-fi fans who understand/pull apart the science, but for the 90% who want to watch a show just to enjoy it. IMO last nights was really quite good, it had some overlapping story lines which i think will come together closer to the end. I for one am enjoying it at face value, and lets face it... theres nothing better on TV at that time on a mon/tues night.


 
I would consider myself a sci-fi fan but I certainly don't read the books/watch the TV shows for the science. I am looking for stories uncontrained by the realities of this world and new social structures that can be formed under different internal and external pressures.

Getting the science right is merely a bonus, getting say the spaceship battle mechanics right (as Star Trek didn't) is merely incidental to the requirements of plot and characterisation.

Going back to Outcasts it has neither the inventiveness to keep a sci-fan interested, despite poor dialogue, acting etc (after all many a past sci-fi show has had wooden acting), nor the plot and characterisation to attract the general public.

Good Sci-fi can still attract a mass market. The same forums which are hammering Outcasts loved BSG.


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## iansales

Ursa major said:


> According to the online Radio Times, _Outcasts_ is still on on the Mondays (fifth episode on the 21st and the sixth on the 28th), but the Tuesday slot has been given over to another (six-part) series, _Silk_.
> 
> 
> (Perhaps Ian's sources are more up-to-date, though.)



Next week's will be broadcast as currently, but the week after it's moving to Sunday.


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## Ursa major

Thanks, Ian.


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## Dave

Messing around with the days and times is even worse, but as Science Fiction fans we are use to that. It does seem to indicate that it wasn't quite as popular as they expected.


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## TheEndIsNigh

HareBrain said:


> It wouldn't be the first time I've thrown in the towel with a series only for it to at last get worth watching. (Why don't series writers bring in the good stuff right away, rather than faff around losing audience?) Did any of the other nay-sayers watch episode 4? I might watch it on iplayer later.


 
Sadly, I did.

However there is hope. I'm signed up for the local evening classes. I've always wanted to learn knitting. Fortunately they are on Monday and Tuesdays at about the same time as this c**p is broadcast.

Oh damn, I've just read Dave's post. All that money wasted on course fees. Bu**ger!.

I wonder if the local art club has paint watching sessions.


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## Menion

*Spoilers!*








Where did thoose CUT diamonds come from? the sea can't do that.

And that gun blazing run the african-american dude did? and the fact he used pistols not the rifle that was over his shoulder, puuuur-lease, dramatic affect or what!

Did they check the watar for radioactivity, before they ran in? NO!

The cliffhanger at the end seems interesting, should give them a few more episodes to leech out of.

By the way, I think the actress that plays Fleur is stunning!


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## Ursa major

I liked the way they kept standing up, presumably to give the ACs a bigger target to shoot at.


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## thaddeus6th

Haha, that bit was fun 

Outcasts is developing an almost Star Trek: TOS habit. Beware, companion who gets one line to utter, for thou shalt meet thine end with great haste 

Good ending, though.


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## alchemist

And Berger's taken my username now. They've gone too far.
(so he's got a laptop that can communicate with space, but they can't communicate with someone who's outside the gate)


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## Dave

I'm still watching, because I'm interested in where they are going with the ancient Hominidae colony, but I agree that it is far too easy to poke holes in almost everything.



Menion said:


> Where did thoose CUT diamonds come from? the sea can't do that.



My hope is that IS explained by something later on, but I'm not overly hopeful.



alchemist said:


> (so he's got a laptop that can communicate with space, but they can't communicate with someone who's outside the gate)


I thought they needed that huge aerial out in the desert to communicate; the one that bits fell off in the storm last week. Maybe communications technology has really advanced in the last ten years since they arrived, but in that case, wouldn't it be a priority to deliver it to them, rather than designer chairs, vinyl records and the display collection of rocks they have been sent, for instance? And where did Berger hide that laptop when he crash-landed?

I thought it strange that the first astronaut (or second) to step foot on Carpathia had been a mad Scotsman, Patrick Baxter. I can accept that Forthaven is formed of mostly British and Londoners, because it may have been the one ship among many others that never arrived. The original expedition would have been different though. It would be Earth's last chance to survive. I find it hard to believe that the UK is still in a position to run such a task in 2060, since it can just about organise an Olympics in 2012. More likely they would be all Chinese.


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## thaddeus6th

It's possible that they deliberately took simple technology (more liable to interference) on purpose, as it would be easy to produce and repair with limited resources.

Maybe they sent a mad Scotsman as a kind of canary? (cf Red Dwarf).


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## TheEndIsNigh

thaddeus6th said:


> Haha, that bit was fun
> 
> Outcasts is developing an almost Star Trek: TOS habit. Beware, companion who gets one line to utter, for thou shalt meet thine end with great haste
> 
> Good ending, though.


 

As will we all brother.


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## AdamCollings

alchemist said:


> It's been absolutely torn to shreds on digital spy, which surprised me. I thought it was decent, and worth watching the next episode.
> Worryingly, it's setting is similar to my WIP, but my settlers have moved on from using walkie-talkies.


 
I am also about to start writing something about Colonists on another world. Don't you just hate that.

In any case, it sounds interesting. I wonder when it'll come to Australia.


----------



## JagLover

Dave said:


> I thought it strange that the first astronaut (or second) to step foot on Carpathia had been a mad Scotsman, Patrick Baxter. I can accept that Forthaven is formed of mostly British and Londoners, because it may have been the one ship among many others that never arrived. The original expedition would have been different though. It would be Earth's last chance to survive. I find it hard to believe that the UK is still in a position to run such a task in 2060, since it can just about organise an Olympics in 2012. More likely they would be all Chinese.


 
Well given that China and the west have had a nuclear war I doubt they will be joining hands in a joint colonising mission.

I could believe say that Europe had cooperated on such a mission, but doubt that Britain would have the resources to do so alone. I'm surprised they didn't go down such a route to be honest. It would make the colony a less mono-cultural affair and perhaps with some overseas acting talent they could have employed some actors who didn't resemble blocks of wood so much.


----------



## Ursa major

The laptop works on the Quantum Flux principle, thus obviating the need to obey the laws of the universe (some of) the rest of the plot has to.







By the way, we are all assuming that the colonist's Earth is our Earth. This may not be so. (Or maybe Ros Myers wakes up in hospital, recovering after that explosion, determined to get back to work at Thames House....)


----------



## purple_kathryn

As it seems to be getting into lost territory I'm going to go with they're all dead and this is some kind of limbo


----------



## thaddeus6th

Ah, Lost, the series that went on forever and never bloody explained anything. I stopped watching that partway into series 2 (or maybe 3). 

Quite glad to see there appears to be more action on the way. Less wooden dialogue, more machineguns would be nice.


----------



## iansales

Why is it you will happily accept a TV series in which the future appears to be entirely US but moan about a British TV series set in the future which contains a mostly British cast? I'd be more annoyed if the cast were American, given that it's a British company that has made Outcasts.


----------



## Menion

I think it should be a mixture of all countries.


----------



## iansales

Why? They weren't multi-national expeditions to the Moon. British programme, British cast. There's plenty of ways they can justify it - as someone said earlier, perhaps all the Brits were on one ship.


----------



## HareBrain

I think they should all have come from a single village in rural Dorset. And the evil mystic guy should have come from Wolverhampton.


----------



## Ursa major

Perhaps everyone on the next transporter is going to be American.  But in amongst all the other beyond-unlikely goings on, the accents are a minor issue really. (And if these folk aren't the humans we think they are, their accents aren't relevant at all.)


----------



## JagLover

iansales said:


> Why is it you will happily accept a TV series in which the future appears to be entirely US but moan about a British TV series set in the future which contains a mostly British cast? I'd be more annoyed if the cast were American, given that it's a British company that has made Outcasts.


 
For a TV series set in the far future it is entirely reasonable that they all speak English and Americanised English at that. English is already the language of international business and on a future colonisation programme it would be rational for all to adopt a single language, which would logically be English. The actual characters usually come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (or indeed non-human for the Star Trek spinoffs).

Outcasts is set in 2040, and the colonists have only been there ten years. If this were set in 2140, yes all the colonists would speak the same language with no accent, but it isn't. It isn't a massive point but it would make Outcasts seem a bit less like Islington in an alien world if there were a bit more ethnic and accent diversity.


----------



## Ursa major

JagLover said:


> Outcasts is set in 2040, and the colonists have only been there ten years.


This is by far the biggest anachronism. Labrador Man set foot on Carpathia, a planet orbiting a distant (from Earth) star and he did it, at the latest, in 2030. Nineteen years from now, he will be many light years from here. Even if someone worked out how to achieve FTL travel on this very day, there wouldn't be time to organise a series of large missions to Carpathia. Who, for instance, provided the resources? (I thought there was turmoil/war back on Earth. If an advanced technology was emerging, I expect it would be diverted to the war (or coming war).

So something else is going on. Setting aside the writer stretching our suspension of disbelief beyond breaking point, what are we left with? The most likely scenario is that we will, in the next year or so, discover a convenient worm-hole. Other scenarios - aliens aiding the process - seem unlikely because even in a place as news-averse as Forthaven, someone would have mentioned it. Another candidate is that we are seeing the world as the characters are experiencing it, but not as it really is: they are still on Earth** (but don't know it); they're in some sort of after-life; they are on Carpathia but aren't there for the reasons, and by the means, they think.

If we really are in Lost/Ashes to Ashes/Life on Mars territory, I wish we'd been given more obvious clues (i.e. ones that couldn't be easily mistaken for bad writing).


By the way, who are the outcasts? The ACs? The whole human population on Carpathia? And who has cast them out?



** - That extra moon would be difficult to conjor up, though, and both seem closer to Carpathia than our moon is to us. (Being on Earth would probably require some sort of Matrix-like technology.)


----------



## Dave

Who mentioned the date of 2040 and when? I missed that, and when I searched online I keep seeing 2060 being given. Only twenty more years to play with though, and most of what you say still applies.


Ursa major said:


> If we really are in Lost/Ashes to Ashes/Life on Mars territory, I wish we'd been given more obvious clues (i.e. ones that couldn't be easily mistaken for bad writing).


 Dead children running around. When Tate told about seeing his dead family, I thought Isen took it rather well. He told her that he wasn't going mad and she just accepted it as quite normal.

Then there are the cut diamonds (unless that is bad writing) and the Earth vegetation (the tree in the compound looks more than 10-years-old.)



Ursa major said:


> By the way, who are the outcasts? The ACs? The whole human population on Carpathia? And who has cast them out?


I also pondered that.


----------



## Dave

I've found a really good Blog on outcasts here with excellent comments. Quite a few people sticking up for it, but most comments are along the lines of our own complaints:
Outcasts – Boring! The King’s Speech – Immense!  Dave Mc's Blog

The best post for me was quite a way in: 





> All the characters are misfits from the militant wing of the Ramblers Association who have been kicked off Earth because they obviously can’t integrate into a civilised society and are to dim to notice. They must WALK everywhere with only a light day knapsack. They like getting lost. On no account must they bring maps, radios, gps etc. They then find piles of CUT diamonds on a beach and think this is normal, no really!
> 
> An old man who is a total stranger!!! walks into a bar, pays with CUT diamonds and the locals instead of barraging him with questions on the lines of “We thought we were the only settlement on this planet, where have you come from?” instead try to beat him up! This might explain why they were kicked off Earth in the first place.


The thing about them having no vehicles does need some further explanation.

And I've never heard of "Godwin's Law" before but it is so true. I'm seeing the Nazi King's Speech tonight.


----------



## TheEndIsNigh

Dave: The cut (polished diamonds) made a little bit of sense if they are the pebbles on the beach. Millions of years of scrunching against each other in the waves would do it.

As for this weeks episode, it was the least worst so far.

Which isn't saying a lot.


----------



## Dave

I'm no expert on gems, but I've seen diamond cutting in Amsterdam. They have to cleave them on machines to get those crystal faces, and its a skilled job. Rolling them around together would surely just give you the rounded pebbles you find on a beach or riverbed. I've seen Quartz pebbles on a beach before, but never the Quartz crystals you find inside undisturbed caves.

Anyway, I can confirm that the blogger is correct, "The King's Speech" is much better than "Outcasts". 

A bit off-topic, but entertain me for a moment and I'll turn it around: "Godwin's Law" - I was wondering if some variation of that Law could be applied to science fiction and cult TV programmes, (usually at the point at which they 'Jump the Shark'.) I was thinking how often Nazis turn up in those - Battlestar Galactica: 1980, The New Avengers, The Champions, Star Trek:TOS, Doctor Who, Time Tunnel, Danger Man, etc.

Anyway, how many Seasons of "Outcasts" before Nazis would turn up in that?


----------



## Ursa major

They appeared on ST: Enterprise as well.

As for Godwin's Law, which is:


> As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.


 
Examples of its validity (sometimes preceded by someone mentioning the law) is quite common, particularly on political topics. (I'm mainly thinking of the Grauniad's CiF - Comment is Free - threads; I don't really go to the even more strident places.) Thinking about it: with some topics, mentions of Nazi this or Hitler that arrive quite early in a thread.


----------



## Lenny

Oooh, I always knew there was something evil about that Julius Berger character. Now it all makes sense!


----------



## Ursa major

I can just see the script:

Julius Berger leads his most loyal supporters into Stella Isen's office.


................JULIUS
........Seize her!​


----------



## Dave

I guess I'm the only one watching now that it is on at 10.25pm on a Sunday. So for anyone else, last night, during a secret unauthorised op to assassinate, Rudi, the AC leader, Josie Hunter was replaced by an exact copy, murdered her colleague and attempted the murder the other colleague and her other self.

Now we are finally getting some clues but I still can't see where they are going with this doppelgänger stuff, not if it is being tied to the dead children and the fossilised Hominidae colony. Tate was happy to dismiss her double as an illusion, much like his children, but ghosts don't make radio calls, and illusions don't murder people. I would expect that the widowed Mrs Docherty might want some justice to be seen to be done.

At first, I was thinking_ Body Snatchers _but now I wonder if it will all come down to some parallel Earth such as in Gerry Anderson's Journey to the Far Side of the Sun. That film was itself considered clichéd and uninspired, so I'm not certain of being rewarded in the end for still watching. I don't see some imaginary _Lost_ scenario though, and I'm certain that the ACs are red herrings and have little to do with any of this.


----------



## thaddeus6th

I watched it. I thought Tate's 'illusion' view was a nudge nudge, wink wink 'Let's not tell anybody' idea rather than actually believing it was an illusion.


----------



## Dave

I think so too, and it was also said to Cass (with whom he has some history we don't know about yet, but looks like being revealed next week) however, as I said, a man was murdered and people will be looking for Josie Hunter to be tried for it. Tate cannot pretend it just didn't happen. And Cass is the person who must deal with it.


----------



## purple_kathryn

It was on after 11pm for those of us in NI, so I've recorded it as I work n everything


----------



## Ursa major

All we were lacking in last night's episode was someone called Basil saying, "Don't mention the alien. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right."


Was the real lieutenant's arm cut? I only mention it because she had a leg injury whereas the doppelgänger didn't. In fact no-one seemed to want to do much checking of what happened, which is odd given their mind-reading machine. (They could have at least mentioned that the doppelgänger had refused to undergo the procedure.

And high-security cells that open when the power goes off...?

* shakes head *


----------



## thaddeus6th

Hehe, that was fun.

My particular favourite was when Rudi ordered them to be precise and take out Jack.

The 'assassins' then proceeded to alert the entire colony to their presence, murder someone else, and then run around quite a bit behind Jack's back before accidentally shooting the wrong XP (who I think was white).


----------



## Ursa major

I think their running into full view of the XPs and Cass was some sort of tribute to Jack's comedy-cowboy routine of last week.








(By the way, they must have edited out the bit where Rudi was giving his assault team the rules of engagement: "On no occasion shoot at someone who is playing a game of cards. In other words, no pot shots...." )


----------



## svalbard

I reckon Cass is an AC. This series has had a few interesting plot lines it could have followed. The ACs, the fossils of a past civilisation, the apparations, political and religious upheavel. Plenty to build a story upon. Yet they have managed to drop the ball on all counts. Too many strands with no substance going into any of them. I am dissapointed, but will watch the series to the end.


----------



## thaddeus6th

Svalbard, I feel similarly. The ending to episode 5 (revealing the existence of the ship Berger was in contact with) was good, but then they followed it up with a wholly unrelated and entirely inexplicable storyline.


----------



## JagLover

Dave said:


> I guess I'm the only one watching now that it is on at 10.25pm on a Sunday..


 
I'm still watching, though on V+ now.

It still suffered from the familiar problems of laughable writing and acting at times. But that episode managed to hold my attention better than what had gone before.


----------



## Anthony G Williams

I was going to dismiss it as a soap opera in a mildly exotic setting, but the SFnal ideas are beginning to develop now, so it's looking more interesting.

Talk about a slow burn, though...

Must give credit to the background music, it's really quite powerful and certainly emphasises the drama - although the staccato sections when the action hots up are remarkably similar to the music in Spooks.


----------



## Ursa major

Just a message to anyone who has been watching the latest episode:

Step. Away. From. Any. Sharp. Object.



Dismal. Even the "Next Episode" trailer looked like an advert for _How Dry Is Your Paint?_


----------



## svalbard

There were so many holes in this episode it would make you wonder who was writing the script. Great possibilities again, but so dissapointing in the end. It really is a pity because Liam Cunningham is such a good actor.


----------



## Dave

There were a lot of things odd again: The domestic situation, the function of the basement trap.

Cass is not an AC, but they didn't tell us what he was, just something so terrible that we wouldn't like him. I found that unsatisfying. 

Well, at least the 'elephant in the room' is now recognised. I'm still seeing questions left unanswered after next week.


----------



## Ursa major

Unless my ears were deceiving me, they slipped in a mention of the oncoming ship switching from using anti-matter to fusion. Having seen 7 hours of this rubbish, I expect that's their way of explaining how humans got to Carpathia, confusing power source with transport technology. Or was it just a clumsy way of saying that the main deceleration phase had ended?

If we are supposed to think that interstellar flight is made possible by the deployment of great power, and thus great acceleration and deceleration, why the rotating sections on the ship? (I'm assuming they're there to simulate gravity, not as this years must-have style feature.) Constant change of velocity would provide all too much gravity, except when the ship got to the midpoint of the journey and entered orbit. Of course it could be being subject to simulated gravity in two, orthogonal directions is what has caused to humans on Carpathia to lose any trace of common sense and grounding in reality. The writers of this series have no such excuse.


But at least it's the final episode next Sunday, with the excitement** of seeing Fleur, silhouetted by a window, literally not knowing which way to turn. (Apparently she also has a dark past. *yawn*)




** - Which has already brought me out in a sweat.


----------



## Dave

Well, I've seen all of it now, so I can't be accused by Ben Richards of being "the same old chorus ...like the critics on The Muppets." Sorry Ben, it did not "build to a very moving finale", the last few episodes were not "great", and it was, in fact, utter pants!

I knew that nothing would be explained. Where did the hominid skeletons and fossil jaw come from? How does sending out DNA code by ultrasound cause people to be cloned or to develop a virus? 

I didn't see Fleur being an AC though.

But the worst part was Tate turning into Captain Kirk and trying to defeat them with love.

I'm with Spock: "Humans do claim a great deal for that particular emotion (love)."
		-- Spock, "The Lights of Zetar", stardate 5725.6

At least there won't be a sequel!


----------



## thaddeus6th

On the skeletal remains: there was a previous species that evolved on the planet and was killed by the, er, Noisy Ones [my brilliant name for the ultrasound creatures].

The Fleur AC twist was quite good, and the political shenanigans were ok (it lacked some impact, though, as most of the council leaders hadn't been seen until then).

The ultrasound virus was an unusual approach. Also, shouldn't it be RNA if it's a virus? 

I rather like the premise, but clunky dialogue and a lack of action meant it never really lived up to its potential. Also, killing off the best character in the first episode was not wise.


----------



## iansales

Was last night's the last episode? Did I miss something? Nothing was resolved. The ship from Earth arrived, there was some bollocks about disembodied creatures using ultrasound to give people a virus, and the battle between Berger and Tate didn't seem to comple to a conclusion...


----------



## thaddeus6th

I half-agree, Mr. Sales.

Tate regained the presidency and Berger was thrown into jail. That's pretty conclusive.

I've got to share your bafflement with sound waves (which are basically just vibrations) being turned into RNA/DNA. 

The ship landing was obviously meant to tee up series 2, though there was no announcement of it coming back.


----------



## iansales

Berger turned into a pantomime villain in the end, and they just dispose of him by throwing him in jail? That's not a resolution. That's a minor setback.

It struck me that Outcasts couldn't decide whether it was a series or a serial. It didn't know whether to focus on the story-arc or have a separate story each week. And that resulted in it coming across as confused and confusing. What few clues they did drop to the "mythology" didn't make sense and explained nothing.


----------



## thaddeus6th

Ha, I agree Berger was a pantomime villain. 

I think you're spot on regarding lack of focus. I'd add that there was a lack of action too.


----------



## Ursa major

thaddeus6th said:


> ...and Berger was thrown into jail. That's pretty conclusive


...if one ignores the precedent, that no-one stays behind bars for long (even if they're released only to be strung up).

It's an odd virus that requires a communication link to do its job**. Besides, the opening shots seemed to show a barely-substantial presence moving through Forthaven, suggesting that the ultrasound wasn't the carrier of the virus. (And if the SLPs*** can transfer matter over sound waves, I can't see why they'd be bothered by a species that locks itself away in a single town, give or take jaunts "to the lake"; and they don't seem to attack the the wandering humans - the ACs and the diamond-man - at all.)



** - As soon as they suggested the "barrier", I just knew that the patients would start getting better when it was switched on. Worryingly, this means that the show's anti-realistic take on the universe has already penetrated my brain. 

*** - Spectral Labrador People.


----------



## thaddeus6th

Oh yeah, I forgot about the 'sonic shield' flaw. 

Ursa, of course it's penetrated your brain, using the sound waves from your TV speakers


----------



## Ursa major

Watching _Outcasts_, I was reminded of this post by Troo: http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/1153678-post78.html.

The story (_Tranquil Sea_, I believe, in Issue 7 of Pantechnicon) had all sorts of non-realistic happenings (such as hearing sounds through a vacuum). The reader could either conclude the author had no concept of science or reality, or that things are not as they are portrayed.

In the case of the short story, I believe the author knew exactly what he was doing. In the case of _Outcasts_, I can only conclude that the writers haven't got a clue (about science, human nature or drama): there is not some altered perception of reality (as in _The Matrix_), only clueless screenwriters.


----------



## Dave

thaddeus6th said:


> On the skeletal remains: there was a previous species that evolved on the planet and was killed by the, er, Noisy Ones [my brilliant name for the ultrasound creatures].


I guessed that, but did we evolve from them, or did they evolve from us? How did one of us get from Earth to Carpathia (or Carpathia to Earth?) Or, are the 'Noisy Ones' evolved from them (in that, 'we don't need bodies any more' way that I never quite find believable.)

Also, I knew there would be no explanation for the diamonds.

And how do you make fully grown, identical human beings, even with their DNA? You can't! Even identical twins are not identical and such clones would be babies.


----------



## thaddeus6th

I'd argue you don't need DNA at all, just a visual and audio representation of the person in question (like with Star Trek's holograms).

But, you're right. The sheer number of gaping logical gaps is surprising. Even moreso is the fact that, apparently, not one of them got pointed out to the writer.


----------



## Ursa major

I think we're dealing with a range of different phenomena:

Tate's children and the Labrador were seen only by one person, even though others were sometimes present. This would suggest implanted thoughts, though this doesn't rule out "holographic" techniques under other circumstances.
The duplicate of Josie Hunter was a physical presence.
Tate has observed movement caused to inanimate objects. (These may have been "holograms", telekinesis or mind-implanted.)
Whatever excuse the programme-makers dream up on the spot: why should the alien activities make any more sense that the rest of the show?
I watched the equally-scientifically-dodgy _The Event_ last evening. Yes, the "science" is lame: how did the US government listen in on a message sent to a specific place** (i.e. it wasn't broadcast)? Having done that, how do they then not know the direction the message was sent? (And throwing in a random mention of SETI doesn't work.) However, though there were the usual longueurs, the show often had the kind of momentum that _Outcasts_ never achieved even the once.


** - The destination was a distant star system. How long would it take to get there? If it used the portal technology, it wouldn't even be in normal space to allow interception. (Or was the message intercepted between the Earth and the satellite?)


----------



## iansales

Scarily, I actually thought *The Deep* was better... and that was nonsense from start to finish. Dear BBC, must do better.


----------



## Ursa major

Scary, depressing and true.

And the thing that was bad about both of them was probably the cheapest: the script (and script editing). Yet after the money spent on these two disasters (not inconsiderable amounts, I'd guess), one wonders how keen the BBC will be to fund another sci-fi (let alone SF) show.


----------



## thaddeus6th

I stopped watching The Deep after some scientist chap or other magically recovered from oxygen deprivation when a woman outside his sub threatened to tell his wife about their affair (or somesuch nonsense).


----------



## Menion

Has the series finnished? because the ending of the last episode didn't have the "next time" preview for the next episode, like all the previous one have had.


----------



## thaddeus6th

Yes, it has.

It's unknown (to me anyway  ) whether there'll be a second series.


----------



## Dave

The only explanation for the vast number of loose ends left behind is that Ben Richards did expect to be busy now penning a second series. Thankfully the shocking audience figures mean that we have been spared that horror. My problem is that as Ursa rightly predicts, the BBC will now cancel any Science Fiction that isn't Doctor Who.

Just think that we could have had a third, and then maybe a fourth, series of 'Survivors' instead.


----------



## Ursa major

Let's not get carried away.


(Well you can be, Dave. )


----------



## TheEndIsNigh

All very sad really. As a premise for a good yarn an Earth colony has some merit. However all it needed was just that. Survival on a strange planet against new phenomena. A kind of Star Trek puts down roots Lost in space kind of thing with more than just five or six people.

But what do we get. Over complex, multiple convolutions.

This has set back SF on TV for twenty years. In fact there will probably be a colony on another planet before the BBC tries it again. They'll probably call it Alpha Enders or something like that or maybe ITV will go for Corona Street. 

As for The Event. Well all I can say is it's 24 meets The Fugitive, The Hulk and The Invaders. 

Sadly the scriptwriters of 'The Event' seem to have read Outcasts and thought it was a good.


----------



## Ursa major

I liked the original Fugitive when I watched it. (But then I was very young at the time.)



Checking the dates, I noticed that Lt Gerard was played by Barry Morse. (That fact had slipped my memory.)


----------



## Dave

Ursa major said:


> Let's not get carried away.
> 
> 
> (Well you can be, Dave. )



You would stop me from living in my own alternative reality where I'm currently watching Season Four of Survivors and Season Nine of Firefly? And I also got a conclusion to Odyssey 5.


----------



## iansales

Not to mention three more seasons of Caprica...


----------



## alchemist

I recorded the final episode and only watched it last night, so apologies for prolonging the agony. Perhaps this thread should be preserved forever as a warning to future generations.



Ursa major said:


> It's an odd virus that requires a communication link to do its job


 
I said something similar to alchemissus at the time. That was shockingly bad.



> and they don't seem to attack the the wandering humans - the ACs and the diamond-man - at all


 
That's because they're, like, at one with the planet, man.



thaddeus6th said:


> Oh yeah, I forgot about the 'sonic shield' flaw.


 
How did a sonic shield prevent the ship from finding them? Does noise interfere with radio waves?



Dave said:


> The only explanation for the vast number of loose ends left behind is that Ben Richards did expect to be busy now penning a second series. Thankfully the shocking audience figures mean that we have been spared that horror.


 That must have been it. I wonder what he had planned. Will we ever know? I am slightly curious about how the malfunctioning settlers could have dealt with a ship full of baddies, intent on homicide. 

All in all, despite the bad science, it was the implausibility of some of the characters that annoyed me the most. Tate said "There's no proof the ACs did it." Proof? There was never a shred of evidence they caused the virus. Yet genocide was planned, twice. And how could the ACs (not able to shoot a gun in Ep.2) develop this sophisticated virus? Do they have a lab behind a rock?

And the ease with which Berger took over? The invisible, and mute, Council? 

Finally, an annoying, obsessional image has haunted me since last night. When Cass and Fleur were sitting on a rise in the desert, waiting for the ACs, I imagined an AC head popping up from behind a rock for a second, then dropping. Then another head behind another rock, then another. Like a group of meerkats, in fact. I can't get rid of it.


----------



## Ursa major

alchemist said:


> I recorded the final episode and only watched it last night, so apologies for prolonging the agony. Perhaps this thread should be preserved forever as a warning to future generations.


If the thread is to endure as a warning, perhaps a secure copy should be made (as should threads about _The Deep_ and the like).

Bearing in mind the overall insignificance of _Outcasts_, I know just the place:
comparethemerecrap.com​


----------



## thaddeus6th

Boom boom, Ursa 

Is it me, or does the quality of British sci-fi seem to have an inverse relationship with the amount of money spent on it?

Early Red Dwarf > Recent Red Dwarf

Old Who > New Who


----------



## Anthony G Williams

I find it a bit amusing that amid all the criticism of the unreality of the method of transmitting the mysterious disease, no-one's commented on an even more glaring impossibility - the faster-than-light spaceships being built within the next few decades. Because they're, like, science-fictional, OK?


----------



## svalbard

I am sort of hoping that they do make a second series. I do want to see all the loose ends tied up and I am curious as the who or what Berger was communicating with. They sound pretty nasty. Call me a masochist, but come on BBC another go.


----------



## thaddeus6th

If it does return (I doubt it will), I hope the numerous flaws are ironed out.


----------



## Anthony G Williams

This eight-part serial has now finished, so as promised I'll sum up. To refresh your memories, I'll include some of what I said after the first two episodes.

The scenario is far enough into the future for humanity to have developed huge starships, one of which had managed to establish a colony on the distant planet of Carpathia (named after the ship which rescued survivors of the Titanic disaster) some fifteen years before. The name is significant as civilisation on Earth is collapsing, and the last starship is due to arrive.

Almost all of the 70,000 humans are concentrated in one walled settlement, Forthaven. The president (Liam Cunningham) aided by the head of security (Hermione Norris, who famously played a formidable MI5 agent in *Spooks*) try to hold the line while preparing for the arrival of the starship. All is not well, as the ship has suffered some damage which threatens disaster if it tries to land on the planet, so it launches an escape pod to ensure that some survive. 

All is not well on Carpathia, either, as the team of explorers who spend most of their time away from the settlement are planning a rebellion. Just to complicate matters further, there is a band of renegade artificial humans (advanced cultivars, or ACs) in the wild, rejected by the settlement years before, with whom there is intermittent but bitter conflict. 

The focus is very much on the human drama and the acting is initially variable (Norris being the stand-out performer) with some of the dialogue sounding stiff and awkward; a perennial screen-SF problem. This seemed to get better as the serial progressed, or perhaps I just got used to it. Also developing through the serial was the role and relationship of two of the internal security officers, played by Daniel Mays and Amy Manson.

I was amused to note that the one clear villain - the former head of the evacuation programme (played by Eric Mabius), who arrives on the escape pod and immediately starts to worm his sly and manipulative way up Carpathia's hierarchy - is constantly criticised for bringing religion to the secular colony and cynically using this as his vehicle for building a power base. I suspect this might not go down too well in some markets…

The SF elements are initially weak, and by the half-way stage I was ready to dismiss it as a soap opera with a few unusual plot elements in a mildly exotic setting. It is a puzzle to work out what everyone does or how they live, as the town is surrounded by wasteland and hardly anyone ever goes outside the walls. The discovery of natural diamonds lying around to be picked up is acceptable, but the fact that they are mysteriously gem-cut rather than in the rough is not. However, the background music is worth a mention as it is one of the strong points. It reaches elegaic heights, powerfully reinforcing moments of high drama. Intriguingly, the more stacatto music used to accompany action scenes is very reminiscent of similar music in *Spooks*.

The second half of the serial contains a lot more science-fictional mystery, although it frequently doesn't seem to make sense.  First comes the discovery of fossils of early hominim remains, despite the fact that there is no other animal life on the planet - just plants and insects (I still don't understand that: hominims dying out, sure, but they would only have been the tip of an enormous pyramid of animal life - did that all die out? We are not told). This is accompanied by hints from one of the first men on the planet, who has been living rough in the wild, that the planet did not want humans there. Then people begin to report seeing loved ones they know to be dead, a convincing duplicate of one of the explorers appears (the fact that this duplicate is clearly solid, whereas others appear and disappear instantly, remains unexplained), a mysterious disease strikes and it becomes clear that the colony is facing a deadly but hidden threat. Meanwhile, a further and unsuspected starship secretly approaches Carpathia with malevolent intentions.

By the start of the final episode I was wondering how all of the plot threads, both human and alien, could possibly be resolved in just one hour. The answer is that they weren't; it ends on a huge multiple cliff-hanger, the point of maximum crisis for the whole story so far, evidently lining everything up for a second serial. This would be fine if a sequel was coming along soon, but the viewing figures were disappointing and the BBC announced immediately after the finale that the planned second serial had been cancelled. So, rather frustratingly, we will never know the answers to the many questions.

Why did it fail? I think it was too adult and slow-paced to appeal to the usual Doctor Who/Primeval band of TV SFF followers, while containing too many unexplained inconsistencies to satisfy more mature SF fans (a nit-picking lot, we are). And of course, few people who are not SF fans bother to watch any SF programmes unless they are so good that they transcend the usual genre prejudice barrier. 

*Outcasts* is easy to poke holes in, but I found I had become strangely attached to it and will miss my weekly visits to Carpathia. Despite a slow start and the unexplained inconsistencies, it had managed to get its hooks into me. 

(An extract from my SFF blog)


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## TheEndIsNigh

Anthony:

I'm surprised. I found the final episode the most disappointing of the lot exposing the lack of any scientific knowledge on the part of the scriptwriters. 

To suggest that DNA/RNA could be 'injected/manipulated by ultra sonic pulses was bad enough but to then suggest that having re-arranged someone's (and not just any someone but a specific someone) genetic code it would somehow self heal itself if the stimulus was removed would require a religious transformation on my part. 

To then take it further and suggest those 'ultra sonic' blocking signals would somehow affect a spaceships navigational systems was bad enough but in spaceship in the outer reaches of the atmosphere?

Worse still the supposed success of the 'shield' was demonstrably useless (thereby showing it was nonsense even as it was apparently working) as the 'duplicate president was strolling about in his office even as the DNA was repairing itself in the medi-ward.

This series (given the general public's general ignorance) could easily put the advancement of human scientific knowledge back decades if not centuries. You wait, in years to come people (politicians, today's school children and the like) will be making important life changing decisions based on this program's bad science. Billions of pounds will be wasted investing in the cure for cancer using DNA manipulation by ultra sound.

Someone will pustulate that AIDS is in fact caused by an alien race trying to take over the planet using bombardment with ultrasonic waves. The search for these aliens will no doubt become the eventual downfall of humanity.


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## Dave

TEIN - I think it is stretching a little to blame the whole of societies scientific ignorance on the writers of 'Outcasts'. 

I think I have identified another of the main problems:


Anthony G Williams said:


> Almost all of the 70,000 humans are concentrated in one walled settlement, Forthaven.





alchemist said:


> And the ease with which Berger took over? The invisible, and mute, Council?





StormFeather said:


> In episode 2 it becomes apparent that more than one escape shuttle made it, and we see scenes of the survivors walking into Fort Haven. I would expect the general population and key workers to be there to meet and greet them – a triage set up for minor injuries, someone showing them where to line up and give their details – families desperate for news of loved ones crowding and pushing to get to these people who are their last lifeline to Earth.



There just weren't enough "people" shown. We only ever got to see about 10 or 12 characters (and some of those died). We only heard from about 4 Council members. It felt like it was really a very small colony, yet they kept telling us how large it was. From the top of the hill it was huge, but we only ever saw the entrance, the same street and a square with a tree. These are budgetary constraints obviously, but nothing to stop them dressing the street differently or giving more speaking parts. There were 12 Council members around the table, just that 8 of them sat and said nothing. Too many different things happened to Tipper Malone; he had some different experience every week. 

Added to the bad science, the bad engineering, the lack of any transport, the ease with which the ACs could get in and out of Forthaven, and the still-unexplained it was a badly conceived series.


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## JagLover

Ursa major said:


> Scary, depressing and true.
> 
> And the thing that was bad about both of them was probably the cheapest: the script (and script editing). Yet after the money spent on these two disasters (not inconsiderable amounts, I'd guess), one wonders how keen the BBC will be to fund another sci-fi (let alone SF) show.


 
Yep

You don't need a massive budget to make great sci-fi. What I find so frustrating about the BBC is that they seem to give up before they even start. An attitude that they will never match the best of american sci-fi so what does it matter if what they have produced is awful.


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## Daisy-Boo

I haven't read through all the comments because I've only watched the pilot episode so far. Forgive me if this has already been noted in earlier comments.

The actors who play the commander of the transport ship in the pilot episode and the leader of the AC gang who appears in ep. 2 are both South African. The outdoor scenes looked so familiar so I checked today and the series was filmed in South Africa.


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## Interference

I'm even lazier than Daisy-Boo, so I've only read, like, two or three of the shorter comments and am relieved to discover I'm not alone in my disdain for this truly wasteful series.

Actually, I'm mostly relieved that it didn't improve after I stopped wasting my time by watching it.

I endured all of episode one and about fifteen minutes of episode two waiting for the science fiction to start.  So far, all we'd had of it up to that point was a crashing space ship presented in possibly the least exciting way it is possible to do on TV with CGI.

As someone who has never been a parent, I've never been able to get that we are meant to feel more concern for dying children than for dying adults.  Either way, rampant diseases aren't Sci-Fi, they're all around us.  You don't need to be a colony on a distant "new earth" *_yawwwwnnn_*  And those nasty, rebellious outsiders?  Yeah, I've seen worse on my local housing estates.  Real life is far scarier, y'know.

Anyway, I won't linger on this as I'm sure it's all said in the preceding pages.  If only, if only they had employed a proper writer to turn in the series we might have ended up with something interesting (apologies to the writer/creator whose name I've forgotten, who is probably a really decent guy and who probably had his hands tied by the execs in charge of the finances).  The episodes of this series that I saw lacked humour, drama or excitement, replacing them with (dare I say) sentimentality and melodrama.

Phooey.


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## Ursa major

I'm not sure, but I thought the wife of the character played by Mr Bamber also sounded South African. (Given that the series was filmed there, we shouldn't be too surprised by this.)


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## Daisy-Boo

I also think that Bamber's wife is South African. I'm sure I've seen her on local TV. Also, the actress who plays the teenage Lily is probably South African too.


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## Lenny

Finally got round to watching the last two episodes.

Things were really starting to hot up... and then it ended. It just _ended_. What?! Eight hours and no resolution...

Bah...

And you know what makes me angry? Like, _really_ angry? The Beeb have gone and cancelled it. So not only did it end when it appeared to be getting interesting (I don't care what the rest of you say, I've just spent two hours watching the last episodes and I was starting to enjoy it), with absolutely no indication of what might happen, but now we'll never know because it's not going to return.

Double bah...


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## Rodders

I've been avoiding reading about this as i wanted to see it for myself before making comment. I bought the box set DVD today, so i'm quite looking forward to it.


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