Out There

“It takes a while to get there, but by the end of episode two, I am in. This is more thoughtful than it appears to be from the trailer, and less immediate, but it is moody, emotionally fraught and quietly chilling. And ultimately, the sight of Martin Clunes waving a shotgun and using a Welsh accent to tell a party full of kids to ‘fuck off’ is an unexpected January treat.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“I admire this drama for not falling back on lazy potboiler tropes such as sex and murder (so far anyway) and making the glorious Welsh countryside practically a character in its own right. It is a slow-burner, though, and the final moments of the episode were not exactly a sizzling cliffhanger.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Episode one is slow and steady, like Clunes’s personality. But over the course of six episodes it ramps up to great effect, turning into a thriller. It is very much an ITV Sunday night drama in tone, by which I mean that it’s watchable in a way that something like Top Boy, brilliant but unsparing, is not. Ultimately, it is about the love between father and son, and how far a parent will go to protect their child.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Clunes is involved in almost every scene, giving this fast-paced drama an added urgency and intensity.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“This is an excellent idea for a Sunday night drama – how refreshing for it not to be a murder mystery – and Out There strikes a gritty tone that might surprise Doc Martin fans expecting a cosier watch. But the show’s beginning does not do nearly enough to establish its purported central premise, which sounds genuinely exciting and potentially crucial for drawing attention to a problem that it is all too easy for much of the country to ignore. If county lines is indeed to be at the show’s core, it needs to be bedded in early on to convince viewers to come back. As it is, though a perfectly fine episode of television, Out There just doesn’t do enough to stand out from the pack.”
Rachel Sigee, The i

“The problem is that there’s so much going on, yet the stakes feel lower than the contrabass in a Monmouthshire choir. Whether or not a Welsh farmer does or does not buy a farm just doesn’t grab me, nor, really, does the challenge of steering a 15-year-old boy clear of local ne’er-do-wells. In the absence of a clear reason to keep watching, it will only be residual affection for Clunes and Doc Martin that will keep viewers glued to the screen beyond the show’s rambling first couple of episodes.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent