space western – Cinefantastique

BBC’s OUTCASTS promises to be an addictive new space western, and now we have six new stills to back it up. (Click to enlarge)

The drama will focus on a group of colonists who are forced to leave an uninhabitable Earth and start a new settlement elsewhere. The BBC provides this official description:

With Earth no longer habitable, a group of courageous pioneers have traveled to another planet to begin again. They’ve built the town of Forthaven on Carpathia and have the unique opportunity of creating a new and better future on another planet. Led by President Tate (Liam Cunningham via Clash Of The Titans) and his core team of Stella (Hermione Norris, MI-5), Cass (Daniel Mays, Atonement) and Fleur (Amy Manson, Being Human), they’re determined to run the civilization in a democratic way, but some tough decisions in the past may prove divisive.
As the series begins, it’s a moment of incredible anticipation. Forthaven has lost all contact with Earth but the arrival of the last known transporter, with Julius Berger (Eric Mabius of Ugly Betty) on board, signals fresh hopes and dreams. But why does President Tate seem anxious about the imminent arrival of Berger and will the transporter land safely with Stella’s husband and daughter, who she heartbreakingly left behind?
Meanwhile those appointed Expeditionaries, Mitchell (Jamie Bamber, Battlestar Galactica) and Jack (Ashley Walters, Hustle), have a mission to explore the new planet and bring back vital information to the settlement. Will they find other life out there, or do they truly have the planet to themselves?
The settlers are a diverse group of individuals who left their old lives behind in extraordinary circumstances. They’ve been promised a second chance but are far away from home, friends, family and their pasts. Passionate about their jobs, confident of their ideals and optimistic about the future, they work hard to preserve what they’ve built on the planet they now call home.
Carpathia offers the possibility of redemption as the new inhabitants try to avoid the mistakes made on Earth. Inevitably they cannot escape the human pitfalls of love, greed, lust, loss, corruption and a longing for those they’ve left behind. As they continue to work and live together, they come to realize this is no ordinary planet. Is there a bigger purpose at work? Is the peace of Forthaven more fragile than they think?

OUTCASTS begins airing on BBC America in December.

Multichannel News reports from the TCA press tour that BBC America’s OUTCASTS will be “soft” sci-fi.
The series, described as a kind of space western, stars GALACTICA’s Jamie Bamber and Eric Mabius (RESIDENT EVIL, UGLY BETTY).
The premise is that Earth is no longer habitable, and shipload of refugees have come to a planet named Carpathia (which could be a reference to the ship that rescued Titanic survivors or the European mountain range). The plot is centered on the question of whether or not the colonists’ socio-political attitudes and ecological practices that destroyed the Earth will be repeated, and whether the indigenous inhabitants of this new world will be friendly.
Ben Richards (LIFE ON MARS), the writer/creator of OUTCASTS, said that despite the extraterrestrial setting, the series is more like a western than what’s normally expected from a sci-fi series, focusing more on human interactions than futuristic technology.
Of course, that’s a description of what most modern science fiction—outside of films and TV—has been for the last thirty or fourty years.
OUCASTS is currently shooting in South Africa for a premeire on BBC America in December of this year.

Tag: space western

Six Images from BBC America's "Outcasts"

Outcasts on BBC America