Outcasts

Genre: Drama/ SciFi

Life and deaths at a human settlement on a planet far far away.

First Impressions: Trust no one. Especially whoever tells you that this show is good.

Okay, so the sets are nice. Not spectacular, just nice. The set-ups for future plots are interesting. And that's about where the good ends. If the director was going for over-the-top drama to rival even the short-lived post-apoco series 'Jericho', then congradulations! Because they've achieved it in spades. SPADES, I tell you.

The plot is on ADD, introducing five different unconnected plot threads within the first 11 minutes. We counted (the husband watched it with me because he's a huge fan of post-apocalyptic media, so he was counting with me). They stayed with each storyline for only a few minutes before suddenly switching over the next one, and each one introduced a bunch of new characters. By the end of the episode I had no idea what the names of anybody were, expect Lily, who wasn't even an introduced character, but she was talked about a few times as one of the main (?) character's missing-and-possibly-dead daughter. The drama, the conspiracy plot, the guy who may be crazy but we'll never know cause he's dead now, the woman spying on her husband, the evil settlement overlords - but one of them is pining for her long lost family and the other is, one minute, having a creepy affair with somebody else's wife and the next minute giving a fancy, dramatic speech on the values of humanity.  COME ON. A writing student drunk on Jaeggarmeister could beat out a better draft of this script.

Speaking of characters (Lame segway is lame)! Who the hell was the main character supposed to be? I thought it was this one girl, but she went into a coma and died, then I thought it had to be this other guy, but then he was an ass and then he died too. How am I supposed to get attached to characters if you kill them off? Not that I was attached. The coma-death which they tried to play all dramatic at the end? I felt nothing. because I didn't get the chance to attach to the character. The drama isn't in the "Oh noooes, coma lady diiiies! She's in a coma! But now she dies!" The drama is suppose to stem from me liking the character, getting attached to the character, THEN having bad things happen to the character. Make me care, Damnit! And I'm not about to care about all 30 of the random characters you introduced in the pilot, everyone of whom may or may not be the main character. Just PICK SOMEBODY, or even TWO somebodies and follow them. Go watch Lost. See how it's done.

Worth Continuing: The preview tag for the 2nd episode looked interesting. But the preview for THIS episode also looked interesting and turned out awful. I'm not going to continue. Maybe they should stick to just previews? I'd watch that.

Watchability Score: 2/10