A complete archive of The Medium is Not Enough’s reviews of TV programmes since 2005
UK TV
Review: The Outsiders
In the UK: Tuesday, ITV1, 9pm or something. Ask my PVR.
In the US: For the sake of our national pride, no other country must be allowed to see this programme.
Ah if only all comedies were as funny as The Outsiders. What a shame The Outsiders, starring former EastEnder Nigel Harman, was supposed to be serious: an exciting escapist action drama in the same vein as The Avengers, Mission: Impossible, and Spooks. The kind of show where the Vatican has a secret police force.
Problematically though, everything about The Outsiders seemed calculated to insult the intelligence of everything larger than a single-celled organism, much like the majority of ITV1 shows.
It wasn’t so much the plot that was the problem – I’ve seen far, far worse, although this really had some choice scrapings from the bottom of the cliché barrel. The story, in fact, was very much a rip-off of Alias‘s Rambaldi plotline, which also featured shadowy organisations trying to find the secret of eternal youth by locating the work of Renaissance artists; there were even frequent trips to continental European nightclubs to avoid the authorities, a trick much beloved of Sidney Bristow. But like all British attempts to do US-style dramas, it was embarrassing in the exact same way as watching someone’s dad trying out a particularly tight pair of leather trousers at a local disco.
No, the biggest crime against humanity committed by The Outsiders was the dialogue.
