Farewell Outlander: It's time to say goodbye to one of the best period dramas on TV
Claire and Jamie, we won't forget you.
When Outlander began in 2014, no one could have predicted what a phenomenal success the fantasy period drama would become.
Sure, there were fans of the Diana Gabaldon novels who were so thrilled to learn of the upcoming TV adaptation that they worked out where it was filming and proceeded to regularly deliver homemade cakes to the cast and crew on location.
But for anyone who didn’t know the books, the premise – a married World War II English nurse named Claire travels back in time to the 18th century and falls for Scottish highlander Jamie – didn’t necessarily sound like a show that would ultimately run for over 10 years, eight seasons and more than 100 episodes, or be credited with creating a tourism boom in Scotland.
The reason for Outlander’s success and almost obsessive fan following is the series – which ends with a final eighth season on MGM+ from March 7 – may at its core be a passionate romance, but it is also a gripping historical drama, heart-wrenching family saga, and a beautiful love letter to the Highlands and Scottish culture.
The show, filmed in Scotland even in later seasons when the action moved to America, follows the story of headstrong 1940s nurse Claire Randall (Caitríona Balfe). While visiting the Highlands on her post-war honeymoon with husband Frank (Tobias Menzies), she comes across a circle of standing stones and hears a strange buzzing sound that draws her towards them.
The stone circle transports her back in time to 1743, and while trying to protect herself from a violent English captain named Black Jack Randall (an ancestor of her husband’s, brilliantly played by Menzies), she falls in with a passing group of Scots from the Clan MacKenzie.
Among them is young Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), and while Claire initially tries to resist his charms and find a way to return to her time, she eventually realises that the devoted attentions of the hunky highlander make the prospect of life in a century without flushable toilets oddly appealing.
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In the first season, much of the action involves clashes between the Laird of the MacKenzie clan, Colum and his war chief brother Dougal (Gary Lewis and Graham McTavish, who are both deliciously feisty in their roles), fascinating details about clan life, and the growing attraction between Claire and Jamie, who has his own reasons for hiding from the sinister Black Jack.
But as the show progresses, so does the scope. In season 2 the couple are in Paris trying to change history and prevent the Jacobite Rising, while in season 3 they’re separated by time after Claire returns to the 20th century to safely raise their daughter Brianna, leaving Jamie behind (he can’t time travel, you see) to likely die in the Battle of Culloden in a scene at the stones that ranks as one of the most heartbreaking of all time.
“I’ll find you,” Jamie tells Claire. “If I have to endure 200 years of purgatory, 200 years without you, then that is my punishment.”
Before we have time to wallow in that gorgeous moment, there’s a 20-year time jump, an absolutely adorable reunion for our lovers when Claire travels back to Jamie after discovering he survived Culloden, and a relocation of the story to America, bringing the couple to the land of opportunity just as the American Revolutionary War looms.
One of the joys of the show is that detailed historical backdrop. It encompasses the experiences of the Highland clans in the 1740s, Claire’s life (back with Frank) in Boston during the 1950s and 1960s (and later, daughter Brianna’s time in the 1970s), and the growth of America when she and Jamie settle there in the 1760s.
Like kilt and corset-wearing versions of Forrest Gump, Jamie and Claire also cross paths with some impressive historical figures along the way, from Prince Charles Edward Stuart (brought to brilliantly petulant life by Andrew Gower) to George Washington, King Louis XV and Benedict Arnold.
If that all sounds completely bonkers, well, it is, especially when you add in the time travelling and how many times they have survived shootings, drownings, whippings, stabbings and even a brutal hanging during the show’s run.
It’s a testament to the cast, directors and writers that even the most unlikely twists are gripping, and the show moves effortlessly from jaw-dropping moments like Claire being tried as a witch or Jamie being poisoned by a snake to full scale, gritty depictions of historical battles such as Alamance.
Throughout, the ensemble cast shine. They’re all superb, but special shout-outs should go to John Bell as Jamie’s nephew Young Ian, David Berry as Lord John Grey and Duncan Lacroix as Murtaugh, as well as Sophie Skelton and Richard Rankin as the show’s other main couple, Bree and Roger – who have all delivered gut-wrenching performances during their time on the series.
And Outlander would not be Outlander without the two leads, Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan. Jamie and Claire’s love is unmatched on TV – sorry, period drama fans, but none of the Bridgerton couples come close – because it is devoted, fiery, and also utterly believable thanks to the show’s stars.
Balfe’s Claire is a strong, determined 20th century heroine who knows what she wants and is just as likely to rescue her husband as he is to rescue her. Heughan’s Jamie, meanwhile, is honest, loyal, stubborn and given to declarations of love that have earned him the title King of Men (“I am your master and you’re mine. Seems I cannot possess your soul without losing my own.”) Together, they are simply lovely.
Heughan and Balfe have not only led the cast and the show, they have navigated their way through scenes of extreme violence – Outlander never holds back and some of the scenes in season 1 especially are truly harrowing – and high emotion with equal skill while also convincingly delivering the numerous raunchy sex scenes that have become as much a part of Outlander as kilts and whisky.
With Diana Gabaldon’s final Outlander novel yet to be published, and show producer Matthew B Roberts teasing that more than one final scene for the series has been filmed, it’s not yet known how Jamie and Claire’s story will conclude. But after eight seasons of love, sex, betrayal, heartache, war and perilous time travel, one thing is for sure – like Outlander itself, the end is going to be epic.
Outlander season 8 premieres on STARZ in the US on Friday 6 March and on MGM+ in the UK on Saturday 7 March. You can buy Diana Gabaldon's books on Amazon.
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