The Outsiders

When looking at trailers for this ITV Drama it was clearly an attempt at turning Nigel Harman (yet another ex-soap star jumping to ITV) into a Jason Bourne like character. Hell, it even had Brian Cox in it! I thought I'd give it a go. How bad could it be I thought...

But within 5 minutes of watching the programme it was clear that Jason Bourne wasn't the writer's only influence. As noted by others The Da Vinci Code was one of them. The list of rips-offs....or homages continued with Out Of Sight (and Don't Look Now), Alias, the list seemed to go on and on.

It's okay to be like another film or TV show, but at least try to do something different.

The Outsiders was a mess, the plot was all over the place, the characters were two dimensional and totally in-consistent. One minute Anna Madeley our attractive female lead seemed to be in total control of the situation, the next she was the new girl at the office wa-a-a-y in over her head....

The villains weren't anything special.

The few action set pieces were fumbled by the director.

Dialogue was turgid.

The tone was all over the place, was it meant to be a bit tongue in cheek or was it meant to be a down and dirty action thriller? It wasn't either.

It was a below average Sunday tea-time show put in a post-watershed time slot for no good reason.

Even the shows title made no sense.

The real annoyance was that only a few days ago ITV1 broadcast a new one-off special of Cracker. Which was 2 hours of TV gold. Proof that ITV can still (occasionally) do good drama.

In a world where shows like 24, CSI and The Shield exist there isn't any excuse for shows like The Outsiders to reach our screens.

I very much doubt it'll be turned into a full series, but if it does it really needs some re-tooling. Getting new writers would be job one.

Avoid, avoid, avoid. Instead put on the DVD of one of the Bourne films.

The Outsiders was actually better than i thought it would be although there was room for some improvement. It was an entertaining 90 minutes and the producers certainly made the Mersey locations believably foreign. The whole premise of Nigel Harman playing a retired 'agent' for Minus 12 was well handled and made for a good start to the story as we picked up on what was going on. I think there is definitely room for a series out of this, but hopefully the producers will drop some of the daft effects that hurt the overall feel of The Outsiders. The wholly unconvincing table based viewing screen and naff looking underground complex for Minus 12 to start with! Overall it was well worth watching and I do hope we get to see more...

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Nathan Hyde (Nigel Harman) is ekking out a quiet existence in a remote seaside location as a chef, until he starts talking to an attractive woman in the restaurant. One thing leads to another and they end up in bed- but the woman has been a little devious and before he knows it he's taken hostage by helicopter. It's here we learn that Nathan has a bit of an extraordinary past, as an expert evasion expert. Now an organisation known as The Establishment want him to sneak into an island and retrieve a stolen painting. Nathan's doubts are removed when his daughter's safety comes to rest on it...

Long running British soap opera East Enders has never been renowned for it's stellar acting and has yet to produce a Sean Bean or Ben Kingsley. But that doesn't stop some of it's stars, such as hunky Nigel Harman, from trying to avoid disappearing into the realms of panto land forever and so we have The Outsiders, a distracting but totally unmemorable and rather corny take on the spy/world-wide mega-lomaniac premise. The writer is obviously a fan of the sort of spy thrillers that were about a lot in the 60s and the whole idea seems to have been lifted from one that I don't know the name of (it was spoofed on The Simpsons once!) But in trying to make it appeal to a more modern audience, this ITV production has just managed a campy retro feel rather than a trendy new one. **

If you absolutely adore Nigel Harman this is so for you, I am one of those people and from the moment he came jogging onto the screen in tracksuits, a nuclear war couldn't make me turn the TV off. The whole programme is well acted though and has some skill shots incidenlty whoever decided to dress Harman in black and leather and hoodies and suits all the way through deserves a medal!

The plot however has so many holes it is ridiculous, seriously nothing is explained to you and the script is hardly skillful and the fact that it was made for drama shows in it's feeble attempts at CGI.

Whoever wrote the script though had obviously been up all night watching pirated copies of James Bond and the Da Vinci Code though, it is a truellly shockingly bad script. I also have no idea why they got Brian Cox in for perhaps a day's filming?! Cut some of the ridiculous close ups of the 'baddie's knowing smiles' and give us some more of him!!

However I am glad I watched it and will try to again, it's a lot of fun if you can somehow block out the plot and just enjoy

What can one say about this vehicle for Nigel Harman. It was acted as well as could be expected with a very lumpy script and cliché ridden plot that seemed to have been lifted from a weekend of watching loads of DVD's from Blockbusters. The undeniable talents of Brian Cox were wasted trying to add weight to very thin dialogue. The characterisation relied too much on narrative, IE: "I know all about your history, you were born in 1962, had went to a convent, felt alienated because you were clever, etc etc." The best element of The Outsiders was the very watchable Anna Madeley who despite also being let down heavily by the writing, manages to shine through with credibility in tact. Despite the downs of the script and direction, it should be noted that this was written as a pilot and as such has to lay a lot of foundations very quickly and so a certain amount of spider blinding should be expected. Suspend disbelief. Leave cynicism outside. Have a glass or ten of wine and enjoy.