The entire series is only eight full hour episodes thanks to executive meddling. However those eight episodes never fail to deliver an intense experience for the viewer. There are times where the series is so overwhelming that I (who can binge through 8 hours of other shows at a time) could barely sit through two without taking a break to absorb what I had just experienced.
****SPOILERS****
The series features fantastic visuals from its filmed location in South Africa. The mountains look alien to us and the rest of the landscape has this feeling of unfamiliarity since most shows we view in the USA are filmed either in Vancouver BC or somewhere near LA.
The human race is nearly dead on earth from nuclear war and other atrocities. Our last attempt to save our selves resulted in the development of an antimatter drive to get us to the nearest habitable world that is in the show called Carpathia. Immediately we are thrown into drama as news of the last transport from earth reaches the Colonial President and his security staff.
Their systems aren't in great shape and many die on the landing and it is well shown how this impacts the welfare of the colony for the worse. The series antagonist arrives amongst the survivors of this transport.
What is fantastic about this series is that it concentrates on what it means to be human including genetically altered humans called "AC's" which stands for Advanced Cultivars. They were blamed for a virus and exiled from the main colony years ago. They were supposed to be shot...slaughtered like sick cattle but the President spared them despite losing his own children to a virus called C23 (Carpathia Virus 23). These AC's constantly turn up and are violent but not unreasonable. At one point we see their leader communing with some planetary force/incorporeal beings.
The colony's birth rate is slowing to a crawl due to some unknown reason, and the AC's who had been rendered infertile apparently have begun having children. How this is possible is related to the unknown incorporeals who we later find out communicate in some sort of hypersonic language that can manipulate DNA.
So our protagonists find all of this out and manage to come up with a sonic shield (resonant jammer of some kind) just in time to foil a coup by the antagonist and save the lives of at least some of the characters wearing plot armor. Oh yes while all of the plots were going on the planet was trying to slowly kill all of the colonists.
The President is often visited by the 'host force' as they call it on the show and at first it appears to him as his dead children. later the force manifests as an alternate version of him. They converse and we learn a lot. The host force does not like most of the humans although it seems to be happy with the AC's for no reason given. It is likely that explanation was meant for season two. This is especially obvious with how it ends.
The ending - its a cliff hangar ending with the arrival of a secret (and likely militaristic) transport from earth (CT10 - Carpathia Transport 10) and the self imposed exile of one of the protagonists who finds out that she is a special type of AC called an Omega. Instead of altered body she has an altered mind. The implications of this are only hinted at as is the fact that the President was involved so deep in the project that his own genes were used as part of her creation.
The series well explores human frailty, violence, compassion and forgiveness. It also explores to a rather cynical degree the destructiveness of religion and spiritualism...or at least the insincere kind. Sincere spiritual belief is not shown, rather it is shown as a front for hucksters, frauds and wolves in shepherds clothing. This may be due to a writers bias or an internal consistency of how events happened on that fictional Earth. Perhaps religious fervor lead to the wars of annihilation that are alluded to? Either way the President is a very secular man...but not militantly so. He prefers people to be rational and not spiritually oriented, but even to the antagonist he only warns him not to proselytize when conducting his official state duties as a councilman. The antagonist of course always defies him as a way to undermine his authority and yet the President retains a cool head throughout.
The acting is overall well done and the production values are appropriate. The sets are well made for what the colony is...a last desperate escape from a ruined world.
The problem with this series is - The writers should not have had a cliff hangar for the season 1 finale. If you don't know that you're coming back for a second season...don't write your series in such a manner as it leaves you only the options of a second season!
They could have left out the landing of the CT10 and simply had it still in transit. That would have allowed for a better sense of things being wrapped up but each plot arc also was a cliff hangar so...really the network should have committed after seeing episode 1 and 2 to a second season. The show is very high level for sci-fi which mostly devolves into a fantastical action series rather than a deeper exploration of the human condition. There is action but only to forward the story and not for its own sake. The action creates character development as does the day to day living situations with families and their precious children.
It really is a shame more shows aren't like this in the quality of writing. If there was one show that deserves a return to the air it is Outcasts.
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