Warning: This article contains minor spoilers for Outer Range
The newest hit currently trending on Amazon Prime is Josh Brolin's new sci-fi Neo-western Outer Range. Set in modern-day Wyoming, it tells the story of Royal Abbott, a rancher patriarch who's dealing with family loss and sudden tragedy as well as an encroaching hostile takeover by a rival ranch family, the Tillersons.
Things start to get go sideways when Royal discovers a mysterious black void in his back pastures. The comparisons to Lost become easily identifiable within Outer Range's first four episodes, wherein a number of strange happenings and characters correlate with many aspects of the infamous hallmark series.
A Reluctant Anti-Hero Protagonist With Baggage
Brolin's Royal Abbott offers an engaging and charismatic main character to root for, who's contending with both internal and external struggles as he tries to keep his family and himself from unraveling. It's not too far a cry from Lost's own Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), who spent much of the series desperately trying to keep his people safe while he tried to untangle a variety of supernatural high jinks and methods of time travel.
Abbott and Shephard were written to define the heart and soul of the shows, which becomes crystal clear in both Fox's and Brolin's emotionally resonant monologues, where they portray men who are nearing their breaking points.
A Significant Frenemy Character Who Knows More Than What They're Telling
What would a mystery box show be without this long vaunted Hollywood script point? Imogen Poots' Autumn Rivers shows up in the very first episode propositioning Royal to camp out on his land. Of course, it turns out she has agenda, as evidenced by her pushing Royal in the void itself, and her character is later seen in the future as some kind of government scientist or consultant who clearly knows more about the hole than she lets on in the present.
Autumn is not unlike Terry O'Quinn's Lost character, John Locke, who was oddly connected to the mysterious island and had more information about it than he chose to share. He was often found alternately in league with and at odds with Jack Shephard.
An Enigmatic Antagonist Who Wants To Utilize The MacGuffin For Their Own Purposes
It becomes clear that Wayne Tillerson, patriarch of the rival family and played by Armageddon's Will Patton, isn't just land-grabbing for greed's sake. He also knows something of the strange anomaly in the Abbots' west pasture, though it's unclear exactly what he might believe as of yet.
Patton's always a reliable performer and compelling villain (The Postman) and Tillerson easily falls into the territory of one of Lost's best characters, Ben Linus, who's played by Michael Emerson. Linus was equally ambitious and perhaps even more nefarious in his designs for how he thought the island should operate and it'll be interesting to see how Tillerson ends up trying to use the hole for his own machinations.
The Hole Is Like The Hatch
In of audience suspense, two of the most primary modus operandi of both shows are quite obviously all too similar in application. The hatch was a back door to the DHARMA Initiative's Swan facility, discovered by Locke and Boone, and much of Season 1 of Lost concerned itself with how it might be opened, or in Hurley's case, whether it ought to be opened at all.
In Outer Range, the hole seems to be a time portal of some kind, apparently offering brief access to both the past and the future, and it's keyed to operate in a two-way fashion, given the events to date. Both structures are heavily involved in some manner in each of their respective series' key sci-fi components of time travel.
Buffaloes And Polar Bears
Outer Range also uses the element of fauna as a story arc adjunct much as Lost did. On the latter show, the appearances of rampaging polar bears on the otherwise tropical island was a sensational element in ramping up the bizarre mystery factors Lost was infamous for, and, eventually, fans discover the DHARMA initiative brought them to the island's Hydra station because they were prime study animals in the electromagnetic properties of the island.
On Outer Range, the viewers have seen a number of scenes where a buffalo wanders the Abbott property, with a couple of arrows lodged in its hide, implying the creature may have originally come from the frontier past and wandered into the present from the hole.
Disappearing Family
An integral plot point in the recent trials of the Abbott family seems to be the disappearance of Royal's daughter-in-law Rebecca, who was married to his son Perry (whose inadvertent killing of one of the Tillerson boys sets off Royal's begrudging use of the mystery hole to dispose of the body). It's a fair guess to presume Rebecca will eventually show up, having fallen victim to the hole's time-traveling ways.
Lost also included a character narrative of a missing family member in Walt, Michael's son, who was kidnapped by The Others. He was eventually returned in a prisoner exchange, and revealed to have a kind of psychic power. Perhaps Rebecca will return from the hole with enhanced abilities or knowledge.
Time Travel, Time Travel, Time Travel
A common go-to in science fiction staples, both Outer Range and Lost utilize the time travel motif is one of their most significant, story-propelling platforms. The contrasts between the real-time present and flash-forwards are enthralling, with Lost's post-island Oceanic Six showing what life was like after escaping the island, as well as the flash-sideways timelines (which possibly turned out to be the afterlife).
Outer Range has only shown us limited glimpses so far of that future, in which Royal died two years previous, the Tillersons have possibly taken over the family land, and the government is overseeing the hole. It'll be exciting to see how Outer Range and Royal Abbott continue to deal with his dark future.
Next: 10 Best Shows Like Outer Range