Out There

To this reviewer this is a series about ambition. The protagonist, well defined by Martin Clunes, aspires to live his life as those before him have, a farmer in farm country, raising a family, and making an honest dollar. His ambitions are challenged however by the local lads, who have an entirely different business in mind; by his own son, who is not finding the respect he needs in farming; and by the job of farming itself, which had somehow failed to keep pace with the realities of the modern world we live in. Meanwhile, all those ambitions are in turn challenged by the producers at BBC who (like their counterparts across the pond) are lately obsessed with the challenge of taking a project that would have worked best as a one-of feature, and morphing it into a multi-year series. Which it most definitely is not. But a multi-year series has a much higher payout, doesn't it? ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

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.

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.

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!

Martin Clunes is very good in this, as is Gerran Howell (playing much younger than his real age) as the drug-dealing friend of Clunes' son. Carly-Sophia Davies as the girfriend is also quite a lot older than her role suggests and she performs it well, though she perhaps doesn't look quite as young as her character should. Louis Serkis is closest to the right age for his character as Clunes's son and is adequate. He is supposed to be traumatised for most of the story, but I could imagine someone else doing a better job. As with most of such serials, it is stretched out over too many episodes (by about two) and the ending is not satisfying. I won't say more, so as to avoid spoilers. Nevertheless, it kept me engaged right through.