BBC Focus Magazine

[Dark One]

Anyone been watching BBC One's new sci-fi programe, Outcasts? Any thoughts? I personally think its a bit pants

[Shadowwolf]

Can't say I was particularly aware of it and by the strength of the other opinions I've encountered, lucky me.

[M Paul Lloyd]

A disappointingly two dimensional attempt at putting Eastenders in space if you ask me.

I had high hopes but they were dashed.

[Dark One]

High hopes Mr M? But its on BBC one, the home of broad rubbish comedy and silent witness. Twas doomed to failure from the start. If it had been on BBC two....

I think the real problem here is that they have a normal writer who has 'decided to do sci-fi', as opposed to an actual sci-fi writer who knows what they're talking about. These non-sci-fi writers often come to the idea with so many popular misconceptions and cliches that it's impossible for them to make a really good, fact based sci-fi drama.

For one thing, why are they on a bloody planet? In a different star system? What about Mars? The moons of Jupiter, or Saturn? Orbital habitats at the Langrange points? Total lack of imagination and lack of any real understanding of the possibilities open to man on the part of the writers.

This country has, in my opinion, the greatest colection of science fiction writers in the world. Iain M Banks, Alaistair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Paul McAuley...I could go on. Surely the BBC has the clout to approach one of these guys and ask them to pen a drama? Imagine a tv series based in the Culture...droool And get HBO on side too. Then we can have some really world class stuff along the lines of the Sopranos and Generation Kill. But in space.

[Shadowwolf]

For one thing, why are they on a bloody planet?

Perhaps that would leave them too close to Terra and quite capable of knowing what's going on including back and forth travel.

[Dark One]

Exactly. Surely if the Earth is in some kind of trouble (nuclear war is hinted at), you'd want to get as many people off as possible. Moon bases, habitats at say, L5, or in the asteroid belt? Why go to all the trouble of solving interstellar travel and the massive energy costs of travelling to another star when the solar system has potential places to live in abundance. If my house started to fall down I'd want to find a house near by, not move to australia.

I know I'm nitpicking and the setting has more to do with budget than any sceintific concern on the part of the writers, but it irritates me that they can't use dramas like this to explore real scientific concepts. From the sets and so on, they have a fair old budget anyway. It could have been so much more.

[Willxx]

looks like i dodged a bullet with this one then, unfortunately the BBC thinks SciFi is a childrens genre and will only support the likes of Dr Who to any length, the recent remake of survivors was a perfect example, great premise but washed away in an lazy effort turning decent SciFi into soap opera.

[Healerman]

I can only underline what has been said above.

I saw the first episode, I'll only catch another if it's infectious.

[M Paul Lloyd]

High hopes Mr M? But its on BBC one,

I thought they might just have pulled it off this time.

To be honest I don't know why we have not seen a decent attempt at a dramatisation of a fictitious colonisation trip to Mars, complete with all those little idiosyncrasies that help define the human state of being?
Surely that would make for some decent television?