Cast out

That hoary old science fiction trope concerning survivors from a ravaged or doomed earth settling on a new planet has never really gone away. Books including Ray Bradbury's classic "The Martian Chronicles" (1950), television series such as "Space: 1999" (1974), films such as "Aliens" (1987)... we are familiar enough with the idea of human colonisation of space, and the fact that there will always, always be an alien element - usually hostile - on the new planet that will make itself known to the colonists by degrees.

The rules that have evolved around such stories are quite restrictive and include: The human society will seem to be based on a Marxist commune while - for the purposes of action and adventure - there will be a military or security element designed to protect and defend the settlement - sometimes from rogue settlers who may even have been banished from the city/village/settlement.

A Commander or Captain - sometimes democratically nominated but often in that position because of their previous role on earth - will lead investigations into the inevitable early disappearances and mysterious deaths which will herald the discovery of the new planet's alien life force. This person will also - from time to time - inform their "people" about forthcoming dangers via live broadcasts, supported by a professor or doctor who can also dispense expertise and sage advice. Although essentially secular, a suggestion of a spiritual life may be indicated by the presence of a priest or even a space-age looking church.

We may be given a glimpse of some of the more mundane features of the social infra-structure; the greenhouses where food is grown, the solar panels which power the entire settlement, but we will never see shops or money though this will not seem to prevent the colony's inhabitants bearing all the cultural traits of a modern free-market - expensive looking clothes, equipment, weapons and a limitless supply of caffeine and/or alcohol. Transported almost whole from the 1800's there is always at least one saloon bar - inhabited by ne'er-do-wells and other low-lifes glimpsed through a fog of cigarette smoke - serving the local populace and providing an atmospheric, though slightly incongruous, focal point for leading characters in these otherwise futuristic adventures.

Finally, any sci-fi weirdness will be explained by a phrase involving one or more of the following terms: electro-magnetic energy, radioactive energy fields, anti-matter, parallel dimension. Oh, and if you can squeeze a "forbidden zone" with mutants or outcasts plotting revenge on the settlers then you're all set.

This, then, we all know.

The sublime twist in BBC's "Outcasts" is that there is no twist. It assumes the viewer has not come across this sub-genre before and so simply ticks all the boxes, presenting nearly all of the above clichés and in doing so making the mistake that audiences today are no more discerning than those of say, "Forbidden Planet" (1956).

Thus, an opportunity to explain how labour is shared, food distributed fairly and families planned (you can't just have everyone breeding like crazy in the first years of a settlement with limited resources, you know) is squandered. Apparently the population fled earth without their iTunes collections and so the only entertainment comes from a tech-wizard kid who "dropped out" to become a hospital radio DJ complete with an enormous vinyl collection. (With space on the ark ships at a premium I wonder how he gained permission to bring that on in his luggage allowance?)

The leader of this particular colony - strong-willed but burdened by the loneliness of command - spends most of his time extemporizing plot points - what there is of a plot - with the head of security. Luckily for the budget this particular head of security was also a neurologist back on earth, so there is no need for an additional stock doctor character. Sure enough, a priest - freshly arrived in another ark-ship from earth - is already threatening what was apparently a secular society by offering prayers to the people (it was a huge mistake giving him permission to use the Presidential webcam).

Some early settlers have been left for dead in a hostile area outside of the settlement (tick two boxes there), and we are already seeing the first signs of a possible alien presence because the President keeps having encounters with his young children who died some time ago. (It's gonna be electro-magnetic energy, I just know it is. Or perhaps it's just the loneliness of command that's getting to him.)

Assuming the production company didn't cast out the writer to the forbidden zone sometime during production, I think we can safely say that at the series' conclusion we will find humanity living in harmony once again with the mutants/outcasts in the forbidden zone because their own settlement will be threatened or destroyed, and they will come to understand how the unseen as yet alien life-force can actually enhance their fragile and lonely lives on this New Earth.

Perhaps it can help them visualize their long-lost iTunes movie collections?

Adventures in On-line Publsihing (sic)