Outer Range

None of these plots need a supernatural twist to keep them compelling, try though “Outer Range” might. At its best, then, the series only uses the void to imbue its more grounded themes — grief, loneliness, faith, longing — with a palpable eeriness. ... Where “Outer Range” falters, then, is when it threatens to get lost in the mythology of the void, a problem personified in a single character. ... While Poots does her best to make Autumn as mesmerizing as the scripts insist she is, most every scene revolving around her ends up dragging the show down.

While the family story and conflicts with the neighboring Tillersons — you know they’re bad news because they ride ATVs and the Abbotts ride horses – feels overly familiar, credit series creator/writer Brian Watkins with building to shocks at the end of the first two episodes that leave viewers eager to learn what will happen next.

Despite the promise of a stunning natural setting and a big ol’ hole to throw things into, Watkins can’t quite come into his own. Even as the soapy interpersonal stories ramp up, there’s a nagging feeling Outer Range never goes far enough.

Outer Range has one of the worst momentum problems I've ever seen in a streaming show, squandering an evocative setting and some fun twists on portentous take-forever storytelling that prioritizes hints over character depth.

A lot of people do good work on “Open Range.” If only it provided a little more to hold onto.

Outer Range has expansive scenery (when it can be seen), and decent performances from Brolin, Taylor, and Poots. But neither its family drama and supernatural elements are compelling enough to make up for the show’s slow pace.

The eye-catching visuals only serve to remind us of the lack of magnetism elsewhere, the show trying to say something about fate, faith and family but falling short on profundity on all counts.

Outer Range is a lumbering, self-serious hodgepodge of sci-fi and modern Western. Brolin and Poots have, to their credit, bought into the premise of a magical realist love letter to the passing into history of a certain idea of American self-sufficiency. Audiences, though, may find Outer Range more drab than fab – epic only in its drawn-out running time and crying out for a close encounter with a cattle prod.