Season 1 of “Outer Range,” on Amazon, was intriguing and unsatisfying — lush, expansive and compelling, but also marred by abundant faux-deep nonsense and a total lack of resolution. It’s a “this is my family’s land, grumble grumble” ranch drama ostensibly starring Josh Brolin, but the real star of the show is a big hole. And not just any hole — a magic hole! A hole that transports you through time! Sometimes people disappear. Sometimes the hole disappears.
I happily devoured that first season but didn’t think I cared much about it. And yet, I kept thinking about “Outer Range” in the two years since its debut. When I watched other shows in which people dejectedly shook their heads, slowly put on their cowboy hats and then sadly — maybe … sexy-sadly? — stammered wisdom, I thought, “What ever happened to that hole show?” When I saw other dramas include bar fights that went way wrong, I wondered, “Is that the exterior of that bar from that hole show?” What was that other series where people were constantly tripping on earthy psychedelics? Where did I just see that actress play a different zany lady? Ah, right: the hole show.
I don’t know if Season 2, which premiered last week, rewards my devotion per se, but I also marathoned its seven episodes, bouncing between enchantment and eye-rolling. I love my dumb show! Sometimes you just want to see a Native American sheriff fall into a hole, travel back to 1882, reconnect with her Shoshone ancestors, meet another time traveler à la “Outlander,” come back to the present day and be driven to the hospital by Josh Brolin under tense circumstances. Sometimes you want to see people’s eyes go black like in that episode of “The X-Files” with the snake lady. There’s something invigorating about a show that just does not care if the actors playing the younger and older versions of the same person resemble one another whatsoever.
“Outer Range” emphasized drama over sci-fi in Season 1, but Season 2, all of which is available now, cranks up both the time-travel-portal aspect and the outrageous soapiness. The hole is less a profound mystery and more an incredibly handy mechanism for creating bananas telenovela moments. I’m your son! Or I didn’t die! Or I’m … you! Work your magic, magic hole.
The show loves its musings and mantras about time. “Time doesn’t have a beginning or an end, it just is,” we’re told. “Time is a river.” “Time reveals all.” Such lines are fine on their own, though they inevitably recall “time is a flat circle,” the “True Detective” quote that has become synonymous with TV shows getting high on their own supply.
The performances in “Outer Range” hail from different planets. Brolin grounds his work as Royal, who is secretly a time-traveler from the 1800s, in a simmering, fragile stoicism, whereas Lili Taylor, as his long-suffering wife, channels the aggression and frustration of a Melissa McCarthy character. Imogen Poots is the dreamy, dangerous boho blonde, out of the “Orphan Black” Rolodex of crazy sages, while Shaun Sipos and Noah Reid, as embittered brothers, would be at home in “The Righteous Gemstones.”
But oh, what fun. What menace. What a total bonanza. “Outer Range” has so much to give, even if some of that is time-loop baloney. Are we perhaps spinning on an axis rather than rolling forward, story-wise? Well, what of it? I’m too dizzy to care.
SIDE QUESTS
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If you like “Outer Range” but want a different mystical-blonde-lady show that is also unsatisfying, “The OA” calls to you. (Netflix)
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It is with deep irritation I report that “The 4400” (the original version) is not streaming at the moment, but I hope that will change. That show, in which 4,400 people who vanished at various points in history have all returned at once, shares a lot with this one. “The 4400” was more of a welterweight drama than big epic, but it was a summery good time for a while.
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Buffalo are central figures in “Outer Range,” so I thought often about the fantastic two-part documentary “The American Buffalo.” (PBS Passport)
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If you like expansive-landscape shows in which crusty people make strange decisions, but you want one where they actually do call a lawyer at some point instead of flailing their way through the legal system unguided, watch “Goliath.” (Amazon and Freevee)
