Outcasts - Episode 1 - A Review
Feb. 8th, 2011 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angel_janeTyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
(The Tyger, William Blake)
Thoughts on Outcasts
From the beginning of the Episode there are a few - ok rather a lot of questions that flitter through the viewers mind. Our introduction is a ship headed towards a planet and that was my technical bug bear - they had it making noises - BSG did this in a way quite well, there is no noise in space as there is no air to carry the sound and even if there was, how would you hear it through an environmental suit???? Get your motherfrakking science right lads!!!
Through out the beginning of the episode there are plenty of hints as to the future of Earth and anyone left on it's survival, no where is this best seen than in the conversation between President Tate and the Captain of the transport ship upon arrival at Carpathia. Essentially he says "anyone down there is not having such a good time of it." - this is your first clue that this was an evacuation attempt.
Mitchell, ably played by Jamie Bamber has returned to Forthaven to find that there is a weapons band and is seen coming home to his family Karina and Linus, his 8 year old son. It is evident though that Karina feels stressed by her husbands arrival and at the end of scene there is evidence that she has every right to be. Mitchell point blank asks Karina if she would betray him. At this point he has her head between both hands and in a way that looks distinctly uncomfortable. Throughout this scene also has been a frisson of doubt as to the family's remaining at Forthaven or not.
If I had to describe Mitchell the best way to do it would be to say he is like Lee in a full blown explorer modality, with more than a small dash of “Today I forgot to take my anti- psychotic meds” The guy is Jekyll and Hyde. Which is laterlly backed up by a psych eval stating he has insubordination, aggression, mal-adjustment and multiple personalities (I never saw any sign of Multiple Personality disorder, but hey)
Wow that planet has a little bit of temperamental side, in that there are giant dust storms called white outs. It is after one of these Karina is beaten, all we see is a red arm. so who the crap beat up Karina? I have a really strange feeling that Mitchell was the one the beat Karina – why do I have that feeling? Well I had the feeling cause last we saw, Mitchell was wearing a red top - hmm intriguing, well not really since the suspense was killed right there.
For me the big shock is the administrations idea of having a wife spy on her husband and yes that would be Karina. I personally wouldn't have done that because of the whole "My husband is a raging paranoid psychotic and has an us vs them attitude." Some people lack a lot of sense. My initial reaction was actually "Devious cow". I just don't like an administration that dislikes dissenting viewpoints.
TRIVIA MOMENT: Carpathia is named after the ship that picked up survivors after the Titanic disaster – in hopes that it would be representative of humanities survival. Nice thought, but Carpathia the ship didn't really get there to pick up a huge amount of survivors. Mostly because steerage class passengers were locked in steerage (niiccceee) All I can wonder is, is there some kind of significance to the story, and is it some kind of foreshadowing.
Expiditionaries really do not like the weapons ban. Which is sutting up a large Us Vs. Them attitude, they also want to take off. But even on that point there is a difference of opinion as to when I have to say that Jamie really can pull off the menacing thug thing. But a bigger picture arrives in the format of President Tate having ordered a genocide ostensibly of the people who were first there - it's sorta obvious. Apparently Mitchell has disobeyed the orders, probably with the Expiditionaries backing him. This information was delivered whilst Mitchell was trying to throttle the president. He won't however win father of the year, he ties up his sons teacher and abducts Linus.
They say the bad guy never sees himself as a bad guy. I think he may be doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons. He seems to believe that the Forthaven is a corrupt system and that they should try a different way to the one they had before - jeez that sounds familiar.
Ok earth got obliterated by a nuclear holocaust is the comment neither did the millions of shadows in shanghai or Chicago” has anything to do with it. We find this out as two PAS officers are looking for Mitchell (Cass and Fleur)
If you took out the sci fi out of this story – it would still stand up. Hell, you could write this as a western. Which I would say marks this actually as a well written story - what they really needed was a much longer schedule to build up characters and the story rather than throw everything and the kitchen sink into exposition in the first episode.
They lost a lot of children to an illness called C23 – which you could see as a halo around the children. The president lost them and his wife committed suicide. Which sets him up as a very sad figure. But, there is something about him that makes me want to reserve judgement.
One scene had me screaming OMG! is when Mitchell attempts to kill his kid – How does Jamie do that, you see his hand over the kid it was quite evil in watching it. I can't imagine how as a parent you could do that, even just acting.
The ship is coming in to land. But it is too damaged to get through the atmosphere, it has to break into shuttes and the Captain goes down with his ship.
The PAS officers find Mitchell, talking ensues and well Mitchell winds up resembling a sieve. Yup that is the end of our Mitchell - he was a complicated little man.
Linus isn't dead and so they (the PAS officers Cass and Fleur) take Linus home. He quotes the tyger by William Blake once more - a poem he has had to learn for the ships arrival. His last lines "What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" strike a chord with the tomorrow on Outcasts which shows a man 'malevolently' raising his head and looking menacingly into the character.
Overall I kinda liked it. That may have been just the Jamie scenes though - and there were a copious amount of them. I enjoyed his acing, and the pacing of his arc was great - but on the whole I fear this series should be spaced out over 13 or more episodes to be able to actually make us like the characters more and invest in their stories.
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
(The Tyger, William Blake)
Thoughts on Outcasts
From the beginning of the Episode there are a few - ok rather a lot of questions that flitter through the viewers mind. Our introduction is a ship headed towards a planet and that was my technical bug bear - they had it making noises - BSG did this in a way quite well, there is no noise in space as there is no air to carry the sound and even if there was, how would you hear it through an environmental suit???? Get your motherfrakking science right lads!!!
Through out the beginning of the episode there are plenty of hints as to the future of Earth and anyone left on it's survival, no where is this best seen than in the conversation between President Tate and the Captain of the transport ship upon arrival at Carpathia. Essentially he says "anyone down there is not having such a good time of it." - this is your first clue that this was an evacuation attempt.
Mitchell, ably played by Jamie Bamber has returned to Forthaven to find that there is a weapons band and is seen coming home to his family Karina and Linus, his 8 year old son. It is evident though that Karina feels stressed by her husbands arrival and at the end of scene there is evidence that she has every right to be. Mitchell point blank asks Karina if she would betray him. At this point he has her head between both hands and in a way that looks distinctly uncomfortable. Throughout this scene also has been a frisson of doubt as to the family's remaining at Forthaven or not.
If I had to describe Mitchell the best way to do it would be to say he is like Lee in a full blown explorer modality, with more than a small dash of “Today I forgot to take my anti- psychotic meds” The guy is Jekyll and Hyde. Which is laterlly backed up by a psych eval stating he has insubordination, aggression, mal-adjustment and multiple personalities (I never saw any sign of Multiple Personality disorder, but hey)
Wow that planet has a little bit of temperamental side, in that there are giant dust storms called white outs. It is after one of these Karina is beaten, all we see is a red arm. so who the crap beat up Karina? I have a really strange feeling that Mitchell was the one the beat Karina – why do I have that feeling? Well I had the feeling cause last we saw, Mitchell was wearing a red top - hmm intriguing, well not really since the suspense was killed right there.
For me the big shock is the administrations idea of having a wife spy on her husband and yes that would be Karina. I personally wouldn't have done that because of the whole "My husband is a raging paranoid psychotic and has an us vs them attitude." Some people lack a lot of sense. My initial reaction was actually "Devious cow". I just don't like an administration that dislikes dissenting viewpoints.
TRIVIA MOMENT: Carpathia is named after the ship that picked up survivors after the Titanic disaster – in hopes that it would be representative of humanities survival. Nice thought, but Carpathia the ship didn't really get there to pick up a huge amount of survivors. Mostly because steerage class passengers were locked in steerage (niiccceee) All I can wonder is, is there some kind of significance to the story, and is it some kind of foreshadowing.
Expiditionaries really do not like the weapons ban. Which is sutting up a large Us Vs. Them attitude, they also want to take off. But even on that point there is a difference of opinion as to when I have to say that Jamie really can pull off the menacing thug thing. But a bigger picture arrives in the format of President Tate having ordered a genocide ostensibly of the people who were first there - it's sorta obvious. Apparently Mitchell has disobeyed the orders, probably with the Expiditionaries backing him. This information was delivered whilst Mitchell was trying to throttle the president. He won't however win father of the year, he ties up his sons teacher and abducts Linus.
They say the bad guy never sees himself as a bad guy. I think he may be doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons. He seems to believe that the Forthaven is a corrupt system and that they should try a different way to the one they had before - jeez that sounds familiar.
Ok earth got obliterated by a nuclear holocaust is the comment neither did the millions of shadows in shanghai or Chicago” has anything to do with it. We find this out as two PAS officers are looking for Mitchell (Cass and Fleur)
If you took out the sci fi out of this story – it would still stand up. Hell, you could write this as a western. Which I would say marks this actually as a well written story - what they really needed was a much longer schedule to build up characters and the story rather than throw everything and the kitchen sink into exposition in the first episode.
They lost a lot of children to an illness called C23 – which you could see as a halo around the children. The president lost them and his wife committed suicide. Which sets him up as a very sad figure. But, there is something about him that makes me want to reserve judgement.
One scene had me screaming OMG! is when Mitchell attempts to kill his kid – How does Jamie do that, you see his hand over the kid it was quite evil in watching it. I can't imagine how as a parent you could do that, even just acting.
The ship is coming in to land. But it is too damaged to get through the atmosphere, it has to break into shuttes and the Captain goes down with his ship.
The PAS officers find Mitchell, talking ensues and well Mitchell winds up resembling a sieve. Yup that is the end of our Mitchell - he was a complicated little man.
Linus isn't dead and so they (the PAS officers Cass and Fleur) take Linus home. He quotes the tyger by William Blake once more - a poem he has had to learn for the ships arrival. His last lines "What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" strike a chord with the tomorrow on Outcasts which shows a man 'malevolently' raising his head and looking menacingly into the character.
Overall I kinda liked it. That may have been just the Jamie scenes though - and there were a copious amount of them. I enjoyed his acing, and the pacing of his arc was great - but on the whole I fear this series should be spaced out over 13 or more episodes to be able to actually make us like the characters more and invest in their stories.
