'Outer Range' review: 'Yellowstone' meets 'Lost'

WHAT IT'S ABOUT The Abbotts are a third-generation ranching family whose vast Wyoming spread is next door to the Tillersons' ranch. When Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton) decides to grab a large part of the Abbotts' pastureland, Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin) and his wife, Cecilia (Lili Taylor), prepare to fight back. Their adult sons Perry (Tom Pelphrey) and Rhett (Lewis Pullman) are otherwise distracted because Perry's wife has been missing for nearly a year, while Rhett is focused on his future as a rodeo rider. 

One day, an unusual visitor arrives at the Abbott ranch — Autumn (Imogen Poots) — who wants to camp on their land. Not long after, Royal discovers a perfectly circular and apparently bottomless pit that has appeared on the pasture the Tillersons want. 

Little wonder — this pit has magical properties. After tensions come to a head, the local constabulary, Deputy Sheriff Joy (Tamara Podemski), has a crime to solve.

This is the first TV series from Brooklyn-based playwright Brian Watkins.

 MY SAY Well, what would you do if a Black Hole and portal to the far distant future suddenly appeared in your backyard? Throw all your junk into it, reasoning that there's no hope for the future anyway? Dive in headfirst to check out Long Island circa 9022, knowing that there might not be a Long Island circa 9022?

With some imaginary (local) flourishes added for effect, these are roughly some of the same riddles confronting Josh Brolin's Royal Abbott in this series — which itself imagines what might happen if "Yellowstone" took LSD to briefly channel (say) "Lost" or "The Leftovers." 

Poor Royal grapples with lots of other puzzles in this eight-parter, but no need to get into those — this is a review, not Wordle. What matters is entertainment value, and "Outer Range '' certainly has some of that, even if coherence takes a back seat at times. The show (filmed in New Mexico) is visually striking, the cast excellent and an (inevitable) second season will get around to answers eventually anyway.

    Or will it? By force-feeding laconic cowboys, tough sheriffs, the open range, and snow-capped mountains into some wormhole alt-reality that twists back and forth through time, "Outer Range" wants to force viewers to see these emblems in a brand-new way too. The sturdy and reliable American West may not be so sturdy after all. Cherished notions about the frontier spirit also end up in that wormhole — all soon eviscerated by the span of time. 

"Outer Range" uses some of these ideas to score points about resource depletion, looming environmental disaster, the plunder of the West and genocide of native peoples. It's got a somewhat fuzzier take on the limits of human knowledge, or the vanity of it. 

But rather than tumble further down that wormhole, "Outer Range" largely sticks to a familiar script. There's a murder, then cover-up, and police investigation, as well as land grabs, bribery, and assorted political wrongdoings. 

Meanwhile, there's that mystery about the missing wife plus the one about Royal Abbott himself. He's a brooding nihilist who decides to forsake God before God forsakes him (but, another riddle, why?). Poot's Autumn arrives at that ranch right around when the hole does. She's loopy or maybe just loopy like a fox. But like that hole and everyone else in "Outer Range," she's got a dark secret and darker past. 

Fun? Hardly. Boring? Hardly ever.

BOTTOM LINE Quirky, strange, dark — and engaging.