Over the last few weeks, ITV has been heavily trailing Out There with a teaser that positions it as a cross between Happy Valley, Countryfile and the Liam Neeson revenge thriller Taken. Martin Clunes plays Nathan Williams, a Welsh farmer whose vulnerable son Johnny is manipulated into becoming part of a county lines drug-running operation. It is soaked in an Ozark-blue wash of colour, and in its opening moments looks set to emerge as a bleak slice of nasty rural noir.
But beneath the topsoil, Out There is far more steady-handed than you might have anticipated, if, like me, you had been quite looking forward to watching Doc Martin do his best “I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you” impersonation. Nathan is a sole parent, following the death of his French wife Sabine a couple of years earlier. Their daughter has already left the family farm to move to Europe, unable to cope in the aftermath of her mother’s death, but Johnny (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) is 15 and still at school, where he is neglecting his usual activities to the extent that Nathan is called in for a chat with the teachers. Instead of being athletic, Johnny now spends most of his time in his bedroom playing video games. During the first episode, the family drama is turned up, while the criminal undercurrents bubble away, biding their time, before they begin to nudge out into the open.
