Out There

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.

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!

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))

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.

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.