I was going to take the time and review the new BBC show Outcasts. The show aired early in the year in Britain, and is appearing during the Dr. Who hiatus on BBC America. I even watched it twice to make sure of my opinions and can confirm that I really didn’t care about the show. The only reason I watched it (beside the science fiction nature of the show) was because it was replacing Dr. Who, so I was already expecting to watch something a this time. And was I disappointed by the premise. Since we are in a low tide of TV shows right now, I’ll probably keep watching for a few more episodes. So, let’s see what it was about.

The Pilot episode had a setup and two stories. The setup was that Earth had a series of horrific nuclear wars and the planet (named Carpathia) has been colonized by several spaceships that have left Earth. There is no communication back home, so the only news is from whatever the latest spaceship brings with it. The colonists are all in a western-style town that is the main city on the planet. There are also explorers who go out and do expeditions across the planet to find out more about it.

The first plot involves a transport ship that might be the last one from Earth that has some heat shield problems that they need to fix before it can enter the atmosphere. This plot basically is two talking heads: the President of Carpathia and captain of the ship. It should have been a lot more tense, since this transport ship could mean life or death for the ship and the colonists, but the two characters just didn’t pull it off. It was more boring than tense and failed

The second plot involves the lead expeditioner, Mitchell Hoban, has been acting weird and the sheriff has asked his wife, a deputy, to check him out. During a confrontation in the city, Mitchell kills his wife, takes his son and runs out into the wild. Two other deputies go outside the city to track him down. Again, this should have had a lot more emotion than it did have. The show tried to up the ante by throwing a kid in danger, but that just felt manipulative.

Overall, if you are doing a science fiction western you have a lotof competition, and a mediocre show is not going to do well. The idea and the setting seemed interesting, but I’m not sold on the show now. I’ll most likely give it a few more episodes to see if it can improve. But it’s not looking good so far. Neutral recommendation.