Outland (Wednesdays, ABC-9:30pm) is a six-part comedy series, written and set in Australia, about a gay science fiction fan club and the lives, loves and never-ending dramas of its five members. Think of it as an Aussie version of QUEER AS FOLK with less nudity, less drama and more tribbles.
There’s Max (Toby Truslove), insecure and looking for love that will allow him to have sex more than once in seven years (that’s a Vulcan reference, and probably why he doesn’t have much sex in the first place- one of those vicious circles); the sexually-adventurous Andy, (Paul Ireland) who’s into cooking as much as he’s into sci-fi – one suspects his ideal man would be Jamie Oliver living up to his name and finally getting naked in his kitchen, whilst also wearing David Tennant’s DOCTOR WHO wardrobe.
Rae (Christine Anu), the moral centre and unofficial head of the group, who is constantly bemoaning the lack of black women and lesbians in Sci-Fi (Michelle Rodriguez can’t be everywhere at once)
The high-camp, high-maintenance Fab (show creator Adam Richard, who was one of the few watchable things on SPICKS & SPECKS and who basically plays himself here)
Toby (Ben Gerrard), who is rich but not very good at functioning on the date scene. Silly boy, just flash the size of your… wallet.
The five of them are forced to meet in each other’s homes when they are unceremoniously evicted from a larger science fiction club after Andy accidentally sets someone on fire during a screening of Reign of Fire. This new intimacy reveals parts of their lives that are far too personal for a club meeting- especially a science fiction club, where you can’t have a sex life unless you get a double dice roll.
The group’s stated purpose is to ‘explore the infinite and varied concepts and ideas behind the worlds of speculative fiction through discussion and debate’. Or, in other words, to sit around watching movie monsters menacing scantily clad astronauts. Strangely enough given the… interesting… dynamics of the group, every meeting tends to collapse into a disaster zone faster than it would if you put a bunch of daleks in the room with a group of Klingons. Relationships are destroyed, repaired, destroyed again and then pushed completely aside for another B-Grade Sci-fi Horror flick. Hilarity ensues as secrets, skeletons and the odd super-computer with the body of one of Kylie Minogue’s back-up dancers comes out of the blue police box… er, closet.
Outland premiered Wednesday February 8th at 9.30pm
Gavin Pitts
