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.

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

Oh dear. Britain's main commercial channel, ITV, have yet again thrown a load of money at another star vehicle that has gone down in hilarious flames. Ex-Eastender Nigel Harman (good look, shame about the voice) stars as an ex-spy now running a lobster restaurant who is re-recruited by his shadowy former employers to steal a painting that's got some kind of formula on it (the usual kind you can only see under ultraviolet light). Brian Cox texts in his performance as the head of the agency - clearly all his scenes were shot in one day as he probably needed a new kitchen or something.

What else is there to say? It's badly made, clumsily written, flatly directed trash. ITV are clearly testing this out to see if they can get a series which, trust me, they shouldn't. ITV need to take a page out of the Beeb's books and stop making crap star vehicles and develop ideas into decent scripts and THEN hire the actors.

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...

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.