Outcasts: Episode 2 — Slow improvement … or Slow death?

You know, I’ll be honest, I’ve just caught Episode 2 of Outcasts and I think — think — I’m going to put a question to you.

At some point in this post …

You see, I’m still not completely convinced, yet, whether this is a good series or not.

Tonight’s episode follows on from last night’s first episode.

The CT-9 — the last transport ship from Earth — has disintegrated in Carpathia’s upper atmosphere: ejecting six emergency shuttles in the process.

And … ?

Although most of the settlers on those shuttles have got to Carpathia, safely, one has crashed out in the deserts, some distance from Forthaven, the main settlement.

Problems, problems, problem …

For starters, the shuttles only survivor is Lily, the daughter of Stella Isen, the planet’s Chief PAS — Protection And Security — officer.

What doesn’t help is Lily has been taken hostage by a group of what are called ‘AC’s’, Aces.

Advanced Cultivars, in other words: much modified clones, shipped over from Earth as part of Carpathia’s original military Expeditionary forces.

And clones that seemingly can’t breed: and were — as President Tate explains — originally scheduled for execution, as they were suspected of being behind a plague that destroyed many of the settlers children.

They’ve had kids.

They also got hostages.

They’re not the only problem …

Also on one of the emergency shuttles … ?

Was a girl called Aisling: whose mother’s seat on the shuttle was … hijacked …

And a man called Julius Berger: a former senior politician from Earth, who’d been in charge of something called the Evacuation Committee, back on Earth, and who seems to have got religion* on the trip to Carpathia.

And who seems rather fonder of Aisling than her late mother should’ve been comfortable with …

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Now, here’s where I’m going to be honest, I think.

So far … ?

So far, I’ve enjoyed Outcasts.

No, hang on, let me rephrase that.

So far, I’ve tolerated the two episodes I’ve seen.

I’m still not completely convinced it’s good, though.

The glimpses it’s showing us — of a future Earth that’s having what sounds like a seriously oncoming nuclear confrontation between the West and China, of whether humanity can survive or even reproduce on an alien world and the questions of whether we’re capable of becoming better than we are, when we move elsewhereº — are fine.

Nice bits of science-fictional, ‘Lets think about this’, kind of stuff that H. G. Wells and Gene Roddenberry would be proud of.

Others aspects …

Other aspects, so far, haven’t impressed me.

For starters … ?

I’m thinking that the actual scheduling is a touch …

Odd …

I mean, two episodes a week … ?

And looking as if the next six episodes will go the same way … ?

I’m not sure, but it seems as thought the producers couldn’t work out whether to go for a once-a-week time slot or a ‘Children of Earth’ style week-long blitz, and came up with a messy compromise.

On top of that … ?

I’m also thinking that some of the writing and acting — purely from a viewers perspective — are a touch on the wooden side.

Well …

Maybe stiff’s the word.

Based on the two episodes I’ve seen thus far, both writing and acting aren’t quite hitting the right tone, just yet.

I can only hope that they do — and rapidly — by episode 3.

I hope so.

We’ll find out, next Monday.

By then, I think I’ll be wanting an answer to the question I was going to ask at the start.

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“Are you convinced, yet … ?”

Actor	Rôle
Richard Tate	Liam Cunningham
Stella Isen	Hermione Norris
Cass Cromwell	Daniel Mays
Fleur Morgan	Amy Manson
Jack Holt	Ashley Walters
Julius Berger	Eric Mabius
Rudi	Langley Kirkwood
Tipper Malone	Michael Legge
Lily Isen	Jeanne Kietzmann
Karina Hoban	Jessica Haines
Aisling	Laura Greenwood
PAS Officer Ferguson	Rory Acton-Burnell

Director	Bharat Nalluri
Writer	Ben Richards
Producer	Radford Neville

* There’s an obscure piece of gaol slang I picked up years ago: swerve. Which basically means doing something — adopting religion, what-have-you — to dodge — or swerve — something else. Yeah, now about Julius …

º I’ve met people who’ve been in Alcoholics Anonymous, before now: they’ve usually referred to this — laughingly — as the ‘geographic cure’. Mostly on the basis that — from what they’ve personally experienced — it doesn’t usually work, unless also accompanied by deep psychological change.