Out There

Wales, the country, features in this English language mini series. Martin Clunes most famous for "Men Behaving Badly" heads the cast and presents a Welsh farmer barely making ends meet financially and merely making ends meet with his teenage son as well; whose mom has died.

The first episode is a little slow burn, but soon we are introduced to the villains, Gerran Howell plays the teenage drug dealer to great effect. The teenage son is induced to hold a mysterious package and ofcourse chaos ensues.

There is a gritty realism and desperation to our characters and it's easy to embrace them and lose yourself in the drama and tragic events that follow. Included in the drama are the police, their investigations, neighbours in hospital and a duplicitous brother who is both hero and minor villain. The bank looms as they do over all farms, and our hero must navigate these waters with skill.

Of late, although we love British TV over the exploding cars of American TV, the Brits seem to use a chainsaw to hack through the last episode with eyes fixed on season two. But the failure to end season one well, usually disappoints.

"Out There" does not fall into that trap! The last episode is as exciting and edgy as the entire series and proves to be a gem!

Highly recommended!

Farmer, Nathan has to deal with a raft of problems that arrive all at once, his son Johnny gets involved with a gang of drug dealers, and when his neighbouring farmer dies, it looks as though the future of his own farm is under threat.

I had very high hopes for this one, a Welsh set drama, fronted by Martin Clunes, penned by the excellent crime writer Ed Whitmore.

After a slow start it does pick up, it gets better as it progresses, an incident in the third episode changes the tone and feel of it, it gets warmer, but I'd never really say it ignites. I wasn't blown away by the final episode, is it perhaps left open for a second series.

There are a series of hard to believe events, you need to suspend your disbelief somewhat, but it's definitely watchable, largely due to the excellent performance of Martin Clunes, who gives us an interesting Welsh accent.

It is great to see so many Welsh actors, the likes of Mark Lewis Jones, Sharon Morgan, Aneirin Hughes and Eiry Jones, all play their parts well.

Good visuals, great location work, Carmarthen in particular is great to see.

7/10.

I am writing this after Bingewatching series 1 over 2 nights.

It's filmed in a part of the world I know well, the strong Welsh cast give the show gravitas, theres beautiful scenery of the less rugged hills of lower mid Wales and the characters are well written too.

The downside is perhaps the accent of Martin Clunes but is still closer to a mid Wales accent than that of the real Welsh actors.

After about the second episode you put up with it and forget his years as doc martin as the script takes over and the viewer is gripped with the story.

It all goes well until episode 6 where it seems to lose it way Like the forthcoming series Protection, this has 6 episodes whereas the usual 4 for a itv drama might have been enough.

Do hope it will return but keeping such a strong cast together will be a big job for the producers.

People are right about Clunes's accent. Love this actor, he's a natural, but unfortunately they have tried to make him Welsh. If they wanted this character to be Welsh they should have got a Welsh actor.

It's great that it's set in Wales. Beautiful country and unique people. I blame the director. The one mitigating excuse for Clunes's accent is his father is English. But his accent is not continuous - it veers badly between English and Welsh in a single sentence and is distracting. It takes you out of your suspension of disbelief. They should have made him Welsh or English - a whole new barrel of issues to contend with although apparently some say too much is packed into this drama already.

Only on episode one. And will stick with it because like Martin Clunes (let down here by being allowed to make up his own accent), love Wales and the Welsh and am very interested in the subject matter of farmers, youth, county lines etc etc.

Very watchable, UK take, on a Breaking Bad type of show.

I surmised, around Episode 3, that this was not a stand alone series as there are too many threads to tie up in just 6 episodes. Usually, that WOULD bother me as I like things to just finish rather than go on & on, stretching the patience of the viewer & diluting the plot (Gangs of London, take note), but this series has some understated characters & the Welsh scenery is lush.

There's really nothing too negative to say other than there being one or two characters who, so far at least, seem surplus to requirement & have a distinct scent of Red Herring about them.

I sincerely hope that all the acting team have signed up for the long haul.