TV review: Outcasts, Storyville: Afghan Cricket Club - Out of the Ashes | Television & radio

• Tim Dowling
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  Tuesday 8 February 2011 14.27 GMT

• Article history

 

Ashley Walters and Hermione Norris in Outcasts Photograph: BBC/Kudos Film and Television/Joe Alblas

It is the year 2040 and a group of pioneering humans have been living on a distant planet for the past 10 years, following some serious trouble back home. They don't even know if Earth is still there any more, but a second transporter ship – maybe the last one ever – is about to arrive.

That's the set-up of Outcasts (BBC1), the eight-part sci-fi drama that had its gritty (you could taste the dust in your mouth) debut last night. The outcasts have named their new home planet Carpathia – in honour, as their leader President Tate mentioned, of the steamship that rescued hundreds of Titanic survivors from the icy Atlantic. Nobody seems to have pointed out that RMS Carpathia was itself sunk by a U-boat six years later, making it a potentially ironic choice, but maybe they don't have Wikipedia on their planet, like I do on mine.

In any case, morale is low enough already. There's a distinct lack of gaiety in the compound of Forthaven, Carpathia. The accommodation looks like a Travelodge on special measures. Clothes are limited to a drab range of muted greys and olives, as if everybody grabbed their stuff off the same Debenham's sale rail. And there's unrest: Mitchell Hoban, a rogue member of the expeditionary force, means to lead a faction into the Carpathian hinterlands to start a breakaway settlement. His wife, a member of the police force, is spying on him. And he knows that she knows.

As often happens with an imaginary world this complicated, there was a tendency to force-feed the viewer information: a glimpse of Hoban's medical file told us he suffered from "maladjustment and multiple personality disorder"; Dr Stella Isen was referred to as a "feminist academic"; she has a brain-reading machine she uses both to solve crimes and watch old memories of the husband that she left on Earth. Plucky PAS officer Fleur is accused of "idealism"; her PAS colleague Cass has a secret; PAS stands for Protection and Security; President Tate lost his kids to some disease a while back; he has a secret, too.

That's not to say that Outcast was without its surprising twists. They weren't afraid to introduce a main character, give him a back story, put him into direct conflict another main character, then just kill him. There are already three fewer Carpathians to keep track of. It gives the drama an extra edge when you think anyone could go at any time. Clearly anything can happen in this brave new world. One gets the impression almost all of it will be bad. Now I've been educated, I can settle back and enjoy episode two.

Taj Malik learned his cricket in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, his family having left Afghanistan after the Russian invasion in 1979. In 2001, Taj returned to his homeland to coach the Afghan national cricket team, in the fond hope of getting them to the World Cup.

Storyville: Afghan Cricket Club – Out of the Ashes (BBC4) joined this quest in 2008, with the team about to set off for a tournament in Jersey. One felt that winning might be a tall order. Taj's opening batsman was his brother. The team included a bodybuilder named Gulbadeen who appeared to be new to the game. He wasn't alone. The president of the Afghan Cricket Association, who had a man with a gun standing behind him, spoke of sport uniting people and instilling pride, then said, "But to be honest I had no idea about this cricket until recently."

Taj, by contrast, seemed comfortable nowhere but on a cricket pitch. It was terribly endearing to watch him try to look unruffled as he used an airport escalator for the first time, or to test his English on bemused Japanese strangers.

On the pitch the players had passion, but lacked discipline and, at times, sportsmanship. "Why did you ask me to play with a fucking bisexual?" screamed one, after being run out. But they beat Japan and Jersey, advancing to the next round. A less complex documentary might have ended as the players did their whirly victory dance on the pitch, but this one went on to see Taj replaced by a former Pakistani test player, as qualification became a real possibility. Life-affirming and heartbreaking by turns, Out of the Ashes had everything – except cricket. I know it had to appeal to people who know nothing about the game, but still – I'm more or less in that group, and even I would have liked to know the score.